MAN FOUND DEAD BY HORSE: Let’s talk about Widow’s Bay on Apple (Matthew Rhys, Stephen Root)

This show rules! please join me as we uncover all the ways in which the soon to tourist haven of Widow’s Bay is currently haunted, cursed and therefore awesome

only watched the first episode, but thought it was hilarious — looking forward to seeing where it all goes.

highly enjoyable show.

Episode 2 kinda scared me a little bit? In a fun way but ugh that crawlspace was a huge NOPE

Loved this - really funny and creepy at the same time

Hiro Murai is so good at finding that tonal balance

He’s so good at it!
I said on the rolling media thread that it has Atlanta & also a Twin Peaks vibe in regards to the perfect balance of drama/quirk/comedy — it doesn’t tip its hand & lets weird be weird & funny be funny but the viewer gets to do a little work deciding what lands, you’re not being handed every shining moment on a platter

Also a+ casting of Tim Baltz in ep2, he was excellent

this one is lots of fun so far!

Toby Huss is ALWAYS a joy.

Oh I was so happy when he showed up & loled so hard when I saw he was a priest <3

almost shat myself at the clown bit fs

moments like that lean a little bit too into American Horror Story camp camp for me.

Stuff like the innkeeper thinking he's been in the room for ages or whatever is a nice amount of creepy though.

It's so good. Delighted to see Matthew Rhys getting the chance to be stupid for once.

Loved the first two episodes

Caught up with all this over the past two days, including the new episode today, and yes to all of it. Real damn treat, everyone's sense of timing and low-keyness is brilliant. I've never seen Kate O'Flynn in anything so far as I know but damn, what a character she's playing.

Also, easily my favorite visual gag in this new episode: those board and card games, which along with the books all were perfect 'the type of stuff you find in an old hotel or inn that has never been updated or changed out for decades' set dressing.

Rhys’ facial expressions are so good, he is so great at looking genuinely pants-shittingly terrified

Also I love the hag shanty that Root sings in ep 3

My wife and I both cackled at the scene of him coming out of the ocean in ep 3.

I was honestly and properly creeped out by this episode. I am properly scared by supernatural things following me into my house!

But you invite ghostly remote figures into your house every time you fire up ILX! (I am a four hundred year old phantom.)

You see, you think this is funny because you do not have to go into the bathroom and check for sea hags in the middle of the night because I'm too scared to.

I thought the scares were a bit soft in the first episode - the opening on the ship, the white eyeball scene - but the second episode was properly scary/creepy. After the clown scene my partner waa "Well, I'm not watching that again - let's put the next one on."

So far this is right in my lane as far as horror goes - spooky suspense, not body-horror/terror. I like that you can think, "Well this is scary but they're hardly going to kill Matthew Rhys, are they?" I hope this never becomes one of those "any cast member could die at any moment" kind of shows.

In a way what's most unsettling is the disinterest in segueing between the funny bits and the scary bits - in the hotel episode, I kept thinking "Oh okay, it's fine - oh wait NO IT ISN'T".

I like that Rhys can show a real person (somewhere) behind the comic bits - I don't want every episode to become a comic route to his humiliation. Agree Kate O'Flynn is doing a proper out-of-nowhere (to me) great performance.

So I'm the only one that's disappointed that anytime something really bad seems to be happening, our hero just wakes up? I want blood!

Gotta get more tourists in first

really love the jaws vibe

Enjoying this but I think it works better when each episode is spaced out from week to week. I binged the first three episodes and chafed against the “monster of the week” element when watching in such quick succession.

phenomenal episode

Outstanding

Still loving this. It's (so far) kind of almost like an anthology series told from the perspective of Amity's Island mayor.

But slyly funny, of course.

is it a joke that the guy in the key art has a widow's peak? i don't have apple tv.

Yes enjoyed this episode. Glad it is pulling away from the mayor and putting other characters up front, and that perhaps things are looking a little more linked together - or at least more serialized

Ha, I kind of wish it stays sorta serialized but *doesn't* link together! Like, one bad, weird week, lol. Reminds me a bit of one of those shows about quirky/strange small towns, like "Eerie, Indiana." Of course the inspiration that continues to come to mind (for obvious reasons) is John Carpenter's "The Fog," though we have no idea where this show is going yet, let alone how it's going to get there.

Yeah I don’t think it necessarily needs to turn into Lost or something, but it will wear thin if every week something happens to Matthew Rhys. So I think it needs to choose a direction - either link it together so he has a story to move through, or jump around and give us multiple protagonists.

honestly, it would be fine with me if it doesn't all tie together

“Lucy Fours”

I for one welcome "monster of the week" television.

I would love if it were just unresolved monster of the week, and then, after the run, the town elders collectively sing a shanty and the curse or whatever goes dormant and Rhys sighs and says, "at least it's over now." And Root turns to him and intones, "no, it is just beginning." And Rhys blows him off and goes home and the door is open and he's suddenly scared and he's snooping around and he hears something in the kitchen and then ... it's just his son, with the munchies, raiding the refrigerator! Phew, right? He has a laugh and they both leave the room. And then the camera pans to the kitchen floor where we see wet footprints.

The Carrie references in this weeks episode were very good. And Katie O’Flynn/Patty was so good. Ie when she’s leaning on the fridge absolutely sobbing her heart out & goes into a fake yawn when the door suddenly opens

Omg Roz

LUCY FOURS

I didn’t even get that til you said it lol

Hahah same here. Jesus. (Ironically.)

The Carrie references in this weeks episode were very good. And Katie O’Flynn/Patty was so good. Ie when she’s leaning on the fridge absolutely sobbing her heart out & goes into a fake yawn when the door suddenly opens

Peak all around. Just that opening shot of her with the fixed stare, my god. Said it before but she is easily my breakout from this whole thing, though the entire city hall crew are the best.

My favorite 'wait a minute' moment was the mirror shot in the main room, where initially I thought "Oh so in reality they're just gaping at whatever insane shit she's really saying"...and then it turned out to be something else instead.

Anyway, best fly since Breaking Bad and best use of "The Rhythm of the Night" since Beau Travail.

Oh yes I caught that mirror shot too! So good

The Pattimobile alone. Like...of course. (And it's so great how the initial party scene and then the confrontation at the main party simultaneously makes you all "I totally get being the outsider at the party and awkward and etc" and then is also "But then again, that whole backstory IS pretty fucked up.")

Oh yeah my favorite visual gag this time out: the party illustration with the cocaine tray.

Mine: when she opens the book to the work section, and there's a small part for things you love about yourself and a huge one for things you hate

shoutout also to Rosemary for still being supportive even after seeing all the fucked up things Patti was doing ("YOU HAD QUALMS?" had me rolling)

The Carrie references in this weeks episode were very good. And Katie O’Flynn/Patty was so good.

yeah her resemblance to Shelley Duvall was likely a factor in her casting, but she's fantastic in the role too

Roz - re spoiler text - omg I ruefully laughed at that as soon as I saw it

Every nanosecond of her attending the drinks, and throwing the party and her trying so valiantly to overcome her own anxiety was SO good and absolutely triggering to watch, like watching live footage of my own social interactions
Brutal & incredible

lol @ the advertisement tied to This Is How We Do it

this was my favorite episode so far. What a great show. Wonder if it'll be a one and done or do more seasons?

sidebar -I rewatched the first eps yesterday & had THE craziest dream last night with creepy creatures & a runaway child living in my crawlspace!?? Oops

so do we think Patti was actually lying about the killer coming to her house? I assumed she was telling the truth

it'll probably turn out to be true

It would be something if she really is a truly core source of evil without anybody realizing it, including her — yeah that was this episode but maybe that’s a deeper sign of something.

I definitely think there’s more going on there but I don’t think it’s that

they really had me going with Marissa, I was 100% convinced she was the hag

Meantime, good little feature here:

https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/tv-shows/widows-bay-episode-4-patricia-witch-katie-dippold-kate-o-flynn-interview/

xp I was sure she was the hag, my wife was convinced she wasn't ... because the hero fumbling a real person would be worse for him

Just caught up, show's the best. My wife described it as "Jaws" meets "Parks and Recreation," which is super astute, because Katie Dippold was a writer on "Parks and Recreation."

It's so good. This week's in particular was tremendous, and I love how you have to give it your full attention or you miss so much. No second-screen spoonfeeding at all.

This episode was a banger in a completely different way to ep4 but secretly the same way kind of too?

You guys I fucking love this show

Yeah that was amazing on several levels. And first off, the shaman, oh my god -- like if Shaggy had an older brother and no dog, but an iguana.

I...*almost* gotta wonder now, did his wife actually die or is she catatonic somewhere, maybe? I could see that being a dark secret or something.

Chris Fleming!

Just incredible work.

Xxpost I am now wondering the same thing!

I’m not alone!

Matthew Rhys just so good this week. And the camera angles were fantastic

Yeah, really great work from him. that pathetic face & noise he made trying to throw up was v funny

Get ready for Chris Fleming and Jeff Hiller to be in every show and movie for the next three years. I thought I heard Fleming in the Rooster and it was him. He’s on the IMDB, but you don’t see him. They must’ve cut the scene or something. So not surprised to see him kill this. Saw him live last year on the tour that just became his breakthrough HBO special.

Yeah I don't think I've seen Fleming in anything else before and he was so great.

i liked the brief reveal that Gerrie and Wyck apparently dated in high school

potential minor spoiler for future episodes: His casting has already been reported but if you missed it and was wondering why the painting of Richard Warren, the town's first mayor, looked a bit like Hamish Linklater... it's because it is Hamish Linklater. and i guess it could also be why Tom's son also looks a bit like Hamish Linklater?

Omg yay !!

Oh if you haven’t experienced Chris Fleming get to YouTube asap.

Yeah he’s a delight

Think Jeff Hiller already has plenty of demand given that Emmy for Somebody Somewhere and all. :-D

Yeah, I was going to say, Jeff Hiller has been in everything forever (he was just in an episode of 30 Rock I watched), but I guess since Somebody Somewhere he gets better parts.

I enjoyed the non-standard way they handled someone tripping.

I have a question: something about the way Tom told the story of their courtship and Evan’s birth made me think that he is not Evan’s biological father? He says something about them getting together and then says “of course she was already pregnant” or “she was pregnant by then” and whatever way he said it made me think that the baby wasn’t his and he loved her so much he just accepted it anyway. Mister Trish thinks I imagined this, and maybe I did. Certainly it hasn’t come up again so far.

I wondered that too

Phew, at least I didn’t imagine it.

The careful wording definitely stood out to me

I liked the detail that they were on a boat trying to make sure he could be born off the island but they had to turn around.

Great interview w DP Christian Sprenger (longtime collaborator w Hiro Murai)

https://nofilmschool.com/christian-sprenger-widows-bay