TV Watch: Widow's Bay - Season 1

Right after it debuted, JAL texted me and said to check out Widow's Bay over on Apple TV.  But it was a few weeks before I got around to it.  

As you may have heard - Widow's Bay is a sort-of comedy about the residents of a cursed island off the coast of New England, founded during the colonial era.  In the modern era, it's a fishing backwater where people kind of accept the horrific and unexplainable things that happen as a matter-of-course.  And, in fact, those born on the island know they can never leave without a deadly misfortune befalling them. 

The season follows the events as the island once again "awakens" - ie: the weird stuff escalates again.  And all during a few days just as our non-native mayor, Tom, has finally managed to get people to visit the island as tourists in an effort to bolster the dying economy of the place.

I'll do my best not to spoil - but y'all know if I'm talking about TV it's because I'm either dragging something or I'm recommending it.  Widow's Bay comes in as a solid:  recommended

The ten episodes pivot through genre horror conventions in the best way, kind of starting off as Northern Exposure meets The Fog, with a hint of Parks and Rec sensibility as the show's creator was on that show's staff.  

Like many shows, the pilot seems to be going one direction but the vibes of the show tilt a bit.  It remain funny in a very off-kilter way, but it's a bit of everything.  Horror, comedy, melodrama...  In an unrealistic situation, the characters feel grounded (to me).  I may not always love everyone, but I do love *people*, and the show is populated in a way that feels exquisitely what it is like to work in middle-management.  Everyone around you has their own business going on, and you're just wrangling them.  In this case, your people also just accept a creeping, Cthulian madness inhabits their home island.

Most of the show takes place after the pilot during a long weekend when people come as tourists - and there's a bottle episode, sort of.

Thanks to The Americans, I have an affinity for Matthew Rhys, and I am aware he's got a sense of humor - he appeared (albeit briefl) in Cocaine Bear like a champ.  Seems like a good guy who wants to not just play dead serious roles.  I'm also a bonafide fan of Steven Root, and there he is playing the true-believer on the island.  Signal Watch fave Betty Gilpin makes a brief appearance.  And others, but we know Gilpin's a draw.

My personal fave is maybe, possibly Patricia, played by Kate O'Flynn. I adore this character, who feels very, very much like some people I have known.  

The show has a mythology, but it doesn't *insist* on its mythology.  It remembers that's something we should get in glips and globs, and it's okay if we don't know everything - or even ever put it all together.  That's the magic of horror.  The scary/fun part is not knowing.*  The mythology is the sort that - we have to know he past to know the present, and rather than have a dull 30 minutes of exposition, we get a fantastic bottle episode.  Which really raises more questions than it answers.

Ie:  this is a show about characters reacting to incredible events.  Not cogs in a mythology machine that is not nearly as cool as the showrunner or network thinks it is.  And so characters react as characters/ people will, in ways that are unique and often very funny even as the show doesn't put a sitcom lens on it to elbow you in the ribs and say "funny, amirite?"  While meanwhile Kate O'Flynn is turning in an all-timer funny performance.  Or Matthew Rhys grappling with the locals as the reality of what his job may actually be kicks in.

Anyhoo... point being, I enjoyed this show immensely and look forward to another season.

*I know there's an audience who thinks it's "cool kills", and I am not part of that audience