Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Jen Maravegias | TV | May 28, 2026
Widow’s Bay on Apple TV is objectively THE series of the season. It finds an effortless balance between funny and frightening thanks to creator Katie Dippold, a writers’ room staffed by folks from the world of sketch comedy, horror, drama, and some of our favorite eerie, supernatural genre shows. The series’ directors also come with excellent pedigrees, including Ti West (Pearl). With Widow’s Bay, this team has created an original piece of work that cuts through the cookie-cutter series and movies being churned out by other streamers, once again giving Apple TV an edge over the rest.
What we’ve learned so far this season is that anyone born on the island of Widow’s Bay is trapped there, unable to leave, by unknown malevolent forces. The current mayor, Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys), is not a native of the island. But his late wife was, and his son is. Up until he’s forced to spend the night in the island’s “haunted” hotel, Tom is skeptical of any supernatural mumbo jumbo. Chalking it up to the wild ramblings of the town drunk, Wyck Crawford (Stephen Root).
Loftis has been focused on building up the island’s reputation as a vacation spot to attract more tourists and their dollars. When tourists actually start arriving, it turns out that might have been a horrible mistake. There’s a bog witch, a creature that likes to drown people who swim in the island’s waters, cursed library books, an unexpected earthquake, and a fog that devours anyone who wanders into it. And, oh yeah, the only hotel on the island IS haunted by the ghost of a serial killer. He does enjoy board games, though. So that’s nice.
Matthew Rhys is turning in a great, nuanced performance. Nuance is something you might not expect from a show billed as horror/comedy. But you should absolutely expect from Rhys. Loftis is out of his depth as mayor. He’s parenting a teenager (Presumed Innocent’s Kingston Rumi Southwick) who feels trapped (because he is) by the circumstances his father has put him in and acts out at any opportunity. He’s still mourning the loss of his wife, something the spirit of the island won’t let him forget, and he’s operating in a constant state of terror, or under the influence of potent hallucinogens (or both!) Rhys is such a chameleon that it’s hard to believe this is the same guy we saw in last year’s The Beast In Me.
Kate O’Flynn (Landscapers) is outstanding as the socially awkward Mayoral Assistant, Patricia. An island native, Patricia wields the power of her office as both a weapon and a shield. She has never fit in, and her relationship with the community is on full display in Episode 4, ‘Beach Reads.’
What first appears to Patricia as a generic self-help book in the town’s mobile library turns out to be a dark magic spell book. Following its advice leads her to hosting a disastrous cocktail party. Unbeknownst to Patricia, who is blinded by the book’s glamor, the hors d’oeuvres are made from sacrificed animals, and the punch is spiked with a potion that sends all of the partygoers marching into the ocean under a spell.
Patricia is just an irritant until Episode 4, when we learn that she is either the sole survivor of a spree killer. Or she so desperately craves the acceptance of her high school mean girls clique that she made up a story about surviving a close call with the killer. She has been alienated from the community since high school because of this. Either way, spending an episode in Patricia’s shoes makes her a much more endearing character. Her idiosyncrasies become integral to the plot that Wyck hatches to save the island in later episodes.
The later episodes are where we learn about the potential source of the island’s curse. Wyck finds a page torn from the diary of Sarah Westcott Warren (Betty Gilpin). She was brought to the island in 1702 as the second wife of the town’s founder, Richard Warren (Hamish Linklater, Midnight Mass). When she arrives, there’s a plague decimating the townsfolk, and Warren is suspected of being in league with the Devil.
Sarah was on the brink of spinsterhood when she received Richard Warren’s proposal. She was grateful to escape that fate until she came upon her new husband sitting alone in the dark, seemingly possessed on their wedding night. He also murdered their first houseguest after he asked unwanted questions about the mysterious charm he wore around his neck.
She was ready to tap out at that point, begging the town Pastor to send her back to her father:
I am but four and ten years almost! Allow me to wither in my father’s attic as my womanly destiny!
I had to rewind twice to watch her say that line over my laughter. And then I had to double check my math, because I love Betty Gilpin (The Hunt, GLOW, Mrs. Davis) but she’s not passing for a fourteen year old in anything but cleverly written horror/comedy. She delivered that line with a straight face, too, bless her.
Gilpin is fantastic throughout the episode, as she attempts to help the townsfolk rid themselves of her demonic husband and rescue the five children he had with his first wife, who mysteriously disappeared. But, as she sets off with the children in a rowboat we have to wonder: did she save them, or did she doom them to a watery grave?
Linklater also gives a strong performance as both Richard Warren in the flashback episode and the living corpse Wyck digs up in the next episode. The townspeople in 1702 thought Warren was the cause of the plague. But, after Wyck digs up his body, Warren confesses to signing a pact with a demon, or the spirit of the island itself, in various bodily fluids to save the town. He believes it’s possible to break the curse that is keeping all of the island’s natives trapped there by taking his body out into the open ocean, past the mystical boundaries set by the island spirit, and leaving him there.
Stephen Root is almost criminally underutilized in Widow’s Bay. But he gets his moment in Episode 7 when Wyck and Mayor Loftis take his fishing boat out to complete that mission. The spirit tries to sabotage them, the seas are choppy, and the boat has violent mechanical issues. But the men persevere, and even though Richard Warren tries to renege on his part of the deal, they manage to get the boat into open water, and Warren’s body crumbles into dust. Wyck gives a great speech reminiscent of Quint’s monologue about surviving the sinking of USS Indianapolis in Jaws while the two men head back to the island.
They hope their actions have lifted the curse, but they won’t know until they get back. And before they find that out, Mayor Loftis will have to deal with his son finding out that his mother didn’t die in childbirth as he had been told. Up until this point, Loftis has survived a night in a haunted hotel, an attempted drowning by a sea monster, and an intense mushroom trip when he possibly communicated with the island’s evil spirit. Dealing with a teenager angry about being lied to might be the thing that does him in.
It’s been a while since there’s been a weekly show we can look forward to. The tone, themes, and humor amidst the horror of Widow’s Bay hit all of the marks. There are four episodes left, so enjoy them while they last.
New episodes of Widow’s Bay stream on Wednesdays on Apple TV.
