[Widow's Bay Review w/ Joe Lipsett] "Our History" and "Seasickness" Give Us an Unusual History Lesson

Each week Joe and Terry discuss an episode of Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay, alternating between our respective sites. 

Miss an episode? 1-2 / 3 / 4 / 5

Spoilers follow for Episodes 6 and 7

“Our History”: The history of Widow’s Bay is a beautiful tale of marriage, loyalty, and a love that endures beyond lifetimes. That’s all.

TERRY

Well, Joe, I did not expect Widow’s Bay to give us so much information and history this early in the show. We’re halfway through the season and “Our History” makes good on “What to Expect on Your Trip”’s promise of Sarah Warren’s journal. It takes us back to 1702, as Sarah (Betty Gilpin!) journeys to the island to meet and marry Richard (Hamish Linklater!), sight unseen. Sarah, it turns out, is forty and unmarried. She had resolved herself to live a spinster’s life until the “blessing” of being married to Richard, Widow’s Bay’s so-called (and self-proclaimed) Lord Protector.

What follows gives us a nice history lesson that ties together what we’ve learned from the town’s museum (AKA Richard’s old house), Sarah’s journal and the ills that befell the fledgling island, to include plagues and the harsh first winter. It hints at the cyclical nature of the island’s horrors, built on a sacrifice to appease whatever supernatural entity secretly rules the island. It again mentions the mushrooms, which opened Richard’s eyes to the truth and allowed him to commune with whatever saved them from their first hellish winter. 

God? Devil? Lovecraftian horror? Who knows at this point. 

“Our History” is basically an exposition episode, but one in which the exposition is shown to us rather than having a lore dump. It’s a smart way of subtly letting us in on the horrid history that still plagues the island, but it also inadvertently lets us in on a little secret.

When Sarah runs to Pastor Collins (David Dean Bottrell) to tell him that she saw Richard kill a man and then hide the cane in the hidden cellar under the house, the pastor tells her to leave the door unlocked and an assassin will end Richard’s reign. Except that doesn’t quite happen, as Richard throws the body of the assassin down the stairs and emerges, cut up and bloodied, but still quite alive, shocking Sarah. 

This is the moment that let’s us in on a little secret: I think The Boogeyman had the little cylinder Richard kept around his neck at all times. I think The Boogeyman couldn’t be killed much in the same way Richard couldn’t be killed. In the ancient times, they buried him alive in a coffin. In the more recent past, The Boogeyman was buried in his basement and covered up with concrete. It’s another cycle, one that seems to repeat and repeat throughout the island’s storied history. 

Personally, I’m waiting for the reveal that The Boogeyman was actually Richard and the murder spree was him trying to perform more sacrifices. Grasping at straws with this idea? Probably. But as we learned recapping Servant, it’s fun to toss out predictions.

This episode also seems to answer one of your lingering questions from last episode, Joe: what demonic creature was growling in the darkness of Tom’s room. Richard was the town’s first “mayor”, got high on mushrooms and tapped into whatever ancient being lives on the island. And now we have Tom, also tripping balls, and hearing the demonic growling. 

But over to you, Joe. What did you think of our brief sojourn to 1702? Were you impressed with the casting choices (not to mention Ti West’s turn as the director!)? Did the return of the chair and the…not bunker(?)...surprise you? Is Richard a demonic being or a man trying to keep the town alive and is that repeating with mayor Tom? And, finally, why is it that any time they film olden times, they go with a 4:3 cinema style? 

JOE

Lol - yes, the creative decision to always revert to a different visual format to connote the past will never not amuse me, Terry. And Ti West feels like he gets it considering how frequently he’s done period pieces - from The House of the Devil to Pearl.

This is a peculiar episode. In some ways, it’s giving us very relevant information and confirming a lot of what we already speculated. It’s even got a pair of, yes, exclamation worthy guest stars and some pretty decent bloody imagery. 

But it also doesn’t exactly feel vital. 

Initially I was excited to spend another episode in someone else’s point of view (“Beach Reads” remains my favourite episode of the show to date and that was, in large part, because we got to experience things from Patricia’s point of view rather than Tom’s). But as things progressed, “Our History” started to feel more like a fan service kind of episode. Sure, there’s subversion when Warren doesn’t die as planned (and that fantastic bloody emergence of Linklater from the darkness), but aside from that, a lot of this narrative feels like it’s just filling in gaps we had already more or less figured out.

Consider the climax as Richard Warren is buried alive by the Pastor. As they close the lid on him, Richard keeps screaming that they must “fulfill the pact” by making a sacrifice or else the curse will deepen and his kids will all be killed. These are all things that have come to pass; things we’ve either known or seen in multiple episodes by this point. 

It doesn’t feel satisfying, much less revelatory, when we realize that Warren was kinda/sorta right for doing what he was doing and, by putting him in the ground, these islanders essentially doomed themselves.

Your hypothesis about the cylinder and the Boogeyman is, however, tantalizing and intriguing. And while, after how indulgent this particular episode feels, I’m not sure that I want to see a whole episode dedicated to a recreation (as we speculated we might get earlier this season), it could still be interesting. 

I guess it’ll come down to execution.

As for whether Tom is the new Richard, I’ll confess that I’m not sure. If anything, Wyck (Stephen Root) seems more like the mad Protector, especially since he’s the one we see digging up Richard’s body at episode’s end. Tom is, however, the protagonist of the series, so it’s entirely possible that he will have to take on the mantle in order to save his son and the other residents (and possibly make a sacrifice or two of his own). That seems a lot more cut and dried in terms of predictability, though, so maybe the show will zig when we expect it to zag.

My question is, with more than half of the season complete and answers being steadily revealed, do you think that the series has the juice to keep going? Or are we looking at a one season and done limited series? At this point, considering Widows Bay’s reliance on mysteries, I’m leaning more towards the latter than the forward.

Finally: am I correct in believing the Sea Hag that tortured Tom in “The Inaugural Swim” was Abigail, the physician’s wife that Sarah knocked into the water with the bat? Perhaps all of our creatures and spectres are simply the trapped spirits of the islanders who have been consumed by the curse. If so, that certainly gives the proceedings a bit more of a grim undertone.

Presumably next episode we’re back to the present day to see the results of what Wyck has dug up. Will Richard Warren still be alive in that coffin? Will The Boogeyman finally get to see the light of day? Or will people finally try to get off the island? Let’s continue our discussion with episode seven

“Seasickness”: Set out to sea with Mayor Loftis and cherished local figure, Wyck! They are attending to some business - best to simply enjoy the voyage.

Well, I guess now we know why these two episodes were packaged as a pair, Terry. Thus concludes the story of Richard Warren, who is, in fact, discovered alive in his coffin and by Wyck. We learn via Tom - when he awakens after twenty-four hours of tripping - that Patricia (Kate O’Flynn) and Wyck have been communicating with the shell of a man, but have also effectively locked him in the upstairs bedroom because they’re terrified.

There’s some great comedy beats courtesy of O’Flynn as Patricia enters the room unexpectedly, but aside from that, director Sam Donovan and writer Dave Harris mine a lot of tension from the unknowability of what Warren will say or do. Kudos to the make-up and sound team, as well, because Linklater is barely recognizable under all of the dirt and debris and his voice sounds aged and vaguely demonic. It’s properly scary and good.

In no time, it comes out that Richard Warren longs for death, so as Patricia heads off Sheriff Bechir (Kevin Caroll), Wyck and Tom coax Richard back into his coffin so that they can take him out on the boat past the Dead Zone, aka the point of no return for island-born residents like Wyck.

Of course just because Richard says he wants to die doesn’t mean he’ll go quietly. I’ll confess that this proved to be a point of frustration because as funny as the reveal that Tom has already let the decrepit leader out is…it’s also really fucking annoying. At this point in the season, I don’t believe for an instant that someone who has seen what Tom has seen would feel anything for a long-dead man who he previously believed communed with some kind of demon. 

This is nothing more than a plot contrivance, Terry. Plain and simple. 

So sure, it’s fun to watch Tom and Wyck have to work together to overpower the man and get him back in the box. And Tom kicking Wyck off the boat with a life preserver to save his life is exciting. And the reveal that he turned to dust after they passed the beacon is a solid visual. But it’s all spurned on by a bit of lazy writing that left me irked and unable to full enjoy all of this.

But what about you, Terry? Am I just being my usual grouchy self or did this bother you, as well? Are you intrigued about how Evan (Kingston Rumi Southwick) will react now that he’s seen his mom’s old photos? Presumably the curse has not, in fact, been broken (otherwise there’s no show), but who will pay the price to find out the hard way? And what are your predictions for where the remaining episodes will go?

TERRY

Joe, this episode perplexed me because the tone felt so…off. Widow’s Bay has done a fantastic job so far of mixing horror with comedy…sometimes in the same scene. And in some ways “Seasickness” features some of the best uses of this. The way that director Sam Donovan and DP Cody Jacobs build tension in the early scenes with Richard got me without even realizing it. 

The sequence where Tom slowly walks towards Richard only to be interrupted by Patricia and then, more surprisingly, by Richard’s deep, Ralph Ineson-inspired voice. I laughed so hard when Richard spoke, but it was partly because I realized how tense I was. That whole scene was one giant tension builder punctuated by moments of humor and it worked so well. 

Unfortunately (most of) the rest of the episode did not really work. The best parts are when Stephen Root’s Wyck or Linklater’s Richard captivate with their stories, building that incredible tension. Wyck recounting his boat being attacked by a Kraken genuinely thrilled me. And you’re absolutely right that some of the tension came from the viewer not knowing what Richard was going to say or do. I kept waiting for that villain turn, but when it happened…well, it didn’t really work.

I think part of that is that the episode veered into camp. Listen, I love camp as much as the next gay, but it felt so incongruous to every episode leading to this that it didn’t work. Does that make it even more camp because by knowing it’s camp but still feeling like artifice…? Regardless, this hard veer into physical comedy and absurdity left me thinking we were in Hocus Pocus rather than Widow’s Bay. Even without the campish physician comedy, the episode feels overly explain-y. Like the moment in every non-supernatural slasher film, where the villain explains everything, “Seasickness” just sort of lays everything out on the table. 

Sure, it provides an adequate midpoint twist where the heroes think they’ve freed the island and, as you hinted at, presumably they actually haven’t. Or by doing so makes things even worse. Either way, you mentioned in a previous recap that you wonder if this show is a limited series and this episode made me a believer. The mystery seems to be dwindling down: we know about Richard, how they survived, presumably why people are stuck on the island, and the curse. 

The only things left are a little more information on the chair/bunker-thing underground and The Boogeyman. 

So either Widow’s Bay is just dispatching all of the mysteries it set up in order to introduce more or really embrace the monster/case of the week…or it was pitched as a limited season that could be picked up for a sequel. 

We only have three more episodes, so we’ll see how that pans out soon when we hop back to QueerHorrorMovies