Widow's Bay (Season 1)
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
WIDOW'S BAY is a hilarious, scary, perfectly eccentric new creation that made me laugh a lot. I've never seen anything like it.
How often can you truly say that?
Creator Katie Dippold (The Heat, Parks and Recreation) has carefully crafted 10 episodes with a unique, deft blend of horror and comedy that pulled me in from it's very first moments.
The cast that Dippold has assembled as citizens of Widow's Bay is nothing less than perfection.
Matthew Rhys (The Post, HBO's Perry Mason) is flawless as new Mayor Tom Loftis. Tom is a happy idealist, seeing nothing but potential as he plans to turn Widow's Bay into another Marthas Vineyard.
But last time I checked, Marthas Vineyard didn't have a killer fog bank, haunted hotel rooms, serial killer clowns and mysterious, wet old women chasing you down the middle of the street. If it sounds like you've seen all that before in Stephen KIng and John Carpenter films, maybe you have, but not like this.
Dippold manages to give everything a new spin and a slightly off kilter bent that's as twisted as the town's citizens.
The always amazing Stephen Root (Barry, Office Space) is a highlight as Wyck, the grumpy, crazy old dude who's always warning Tom about curses and an evil history that shrouds this island town, 40 miles off the coast of New England.
Kate O'Flynn is stellar as Patricia, who works closely with Tom at Town Hall, while trying desperately to build a stable of friends. Her social networking skills are...challenged. O'Flynn damn near steals the show with the biggest character arc across the ten episodes of Season 1.
Dale Dickey (Hell or High Water) matches her as Rosemary, with no filter and all the history you want to know about their secluded little hamlet. She is HILARIOUS.
Jeff Hiller (Ghosts, Ghost Town) is the perfect amount of quirky as Dale, one of Tom's staff who rarely changes his expression until his fall over funny delivery in the finale.
K Callan (Joe, Veep) is Tom's secretary, who doesn't seem to work a lot, but plays a pivotal role in the town.
Tom isn't just trying to hold the town together as Mayor, he's a widowed single dad to teenager Evan (Kingston Rumi Southwick) who's entered his most rebellious years just in time for the town to go to hell around him.
Surrounding this cast is a lot of great storytelling, framed with superb special effects and episodes that highlight a different character or event on the path to a massive nor'easter bringing a reckoning to Widow's Bay.
It's hard to pick a favorite episode. Tom's stay in the haunted hotel in episode 2 and Patricia's self help book in Episode 4 are standouts, but the series never falls off, delivering some killer suspense and huge laughs in its final two installments.
I can't say enough about how ORIGINAL this concept is.
Blending characters you grow to care about across dramatic arcs, with huge laughs and hilarious dialogue throughout, the horror moments top everything off like the perfect spice. Dippold is astonishing in her bold style, never flinching as she pops between genres, she navigates tone shifts that would have clunked forward in lesser hands.
Rhys is the core of the story and his Tom is a marvel to watch. His eager to please, confident Mayor is challenged in every way possible. Rhys creates a man who's beat down and broken by the island, ultimately faced with an impossible challenge. My bet is Rhys wins an Emmy for the role.
As Sheriff Bechir Clemmons, Kevin Carroll (The Leftovers) is our surrogate for the audience. Like us, he has no idea what the hell is going on in this town and we experience his horror right alongside him as events escalate.
I couldn't wait to see what happened next.
Luckily for you, all the episodes are now available on Apple TV. One of their biggest hits, the series has rocketed in popularity the past couple months since its debut.
It's no wonder why.
It's fresh, original and entertaining at an incredibly high level.
A friend asked me what I'd compare it to and I said "Imagine Mike Flanagan's miniseries Midnight Mass if it was really funny too". Fans of that one will love seeing Hamish Linklater pop up in a role I wont divulge here...
I can't wait to go back to WIDOW'S BAY for Season 2 and see what's next.
It may not be Marthas Vineyard, but it gets an A+
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