Widow’s Bay

The new series Widow’s Bay came to Apple TV this week, along with a flurry of press. I was surprised to see anything about a new series leak into my sphere of internet awareness, since that never happens anymore. The only others I can think of are Pluribus (haven’t seen it yet, plan to) and Severance (watched a few episodes and had to take a break when it got a little too heavy). Every time I open the Apple TV app to watch a movie, the landing page looks like a mockup of a fake streaming service made for a movie or something, full of made-up shows and movies starring recognizable celebrities, but I’ve never actually heard of any of them.

I figured the only reason Widow’s Bay would work its way into my awareness would be that it was either really weird, or really good. As it turns out, both are true.

The series stars Matthew Rhys as the beleaguered mayor of a small island town in New England, Kate O’Flynn as his perpetually put-upon assistant, and Stephen Root as a local resident familiar with the island’s cursed history. In the first episode, Mayor Tom is desperately trying to keep the residents on their best behavior to impress a travel writer from the New York Times and bring in much-needed tourist money, all while an ominous fog has come in and descended on the town.

Because the series was created by Katie Dippold, a writer for Parks and Recreation, I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to that series. It’s understandable, since they both focus on workers in a small-town government with strong and frequently clashing personalities. But the comparison doesn’t really get across the tone of the series or what makes it work. There’s really no hint of situation comedy here.

It reminds me more of Northern Exposure than anything else. A bunch of quirky, insular locals in a small town, clashing with “outsiders” who just want everybody to behave normally for once. That series played its humor so straight that even the Emmys got confused and classified it as a drama. For what it’s worth, I already think Widow’s Bay is a lot funnier and more sophisticated, relying less on quirkiness for its own sake, and having characters that actually talk and act like real people.

Maybe an even more apt comparison would be “funnier Jaws,” but told from the mayor’s viewpoint instead of the sheriff’s?

And it is genuinely funny, but calling it “comedy horror” could give the wrong impression, too. The closest comparison I could think of there would be something like Barbarian or even Weapons, where the humor doesn’t undermine the scares and vice versa, but it all kind of blurs together because nobody quite knows how to make sense of any of it.

The first episode was a strong start, but the second is what really impressed me. It has Mayor Tom accepting a challenge from the locals to stay overnight in the town’s hotel, to prove that the years of rumors about it are just superstition, and that it is safe to host tourists. It does such a good job of capturing that “alone in the house at night” feeling, where you know that all of the stuff you’re supposed to be afraid of isn’t real, of course, but also what if it’s not?

It also has a great gag where Tom is looking through the hotel’s oddly sinister board game collection, which has games titled Daddy’s Home, Teeth, and a card game just called Run. And on the in-room television, nothing is playing on any channel, apart from this “Welcome to Widow’s Bay” video.

There’s an impressive creative team involved with the show, full of people familiar with blurring the lines between horror and comedy. It’s a reminder that Apple productions haven’t suffered from a lack of talent or money; it’s more likely that there’s just more stuff than most people can be expected to keep on top of. Widow’s Bay already has me hooked, though, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how weird and scary it can get.