When’s the last time you were truly surprised by a series? …like, seriously satisfied by the twists and turns within the story? That kind of thing has become incredibly rare lately. That’s why this original Apple TV series Widow’s Bay was such a nice surprise. It looked like such an ordinary, everyday show that I didn’t really appreciate what I was getting myself into when I started watching it. Everything about the marketing just made it look so incredibly familiar, like so many other disappointing shows before, which is why I kept avoiding it. Then, on a lark, I decided to watch the first episode when I heard it was filmed near where I live. Plus, a friend mentioned it had some really dark comedy to it, and I’m kind of a sucker for dark comedy when it’s done well.

Here’s the hilarious thing. As I am watching the very first episode, I suddenly find myself live texting another reviewer telling her she has to watch this series!

I can’t remember the last time I had that reaction. So, “Why did this story feel so ordinary while the series was so unpredictable?”

You can read the review below or watch it on YouTube:

Why Does Widow’s Bay Feel So Familiar?

Widow’s Bay is quintessential New England irony stitched together with Boston’s wicked sense of humor disguised as common sense. That’s one reason why those two things (the ordinary and the unpredictable) work so well together in this series. Plus, this quirky combination keeps the story from falling into the trap of the average Hollywood TV series playbook.

We get this weird and quirky series that takes place on an island off the New England coast. It’s a small but tight-knit community, led by Mayor Tom Loftis who is trying to bring in more tourists to stimulate the struggling economy, but the eccentric locals paired with some wild old superstitions (the kind that every town has) and a whole bunch of strange stories about the island’s history all converge to complicate matters when a famous travel writer shows up to review the island.

Mayor Tom Loftis, played by Matthew Rhys, has big ideas for the island, wanting to make it the next Martha’s Vineyard, and he’s so close. Meanwhile, Wyck, the superstitious old fisherman played by Stephen Root, keeps coming by the office telling him he’s got to raise the alarm because it’s all happening again!

Caught between his own suppressed superstitious beliefs about the island (beliefs that he’s desperately trying to ignore) and Wyck’s crazy warnings, Mayor Loftis’ life is getting turned upside down by wild stories about supernatural creatures and his own personal demons. His grand plan to modernize Widow’s Bay and bring more tourists to the island should make this story feel a whole lot more like a modern drama than a wickedly funny horror story, and yet that’s exactly where the series lands.

Widow’s Bay is filled with winks and nods (as well as some truly fantastic Easter eggs) toward old established tropes and story elements that feel like they belong in a show that we’ve seen a million times on network TV. But what sets the series apart is the combination of 1) complex character development, 2) actors who disappear into their roles, and 3) storylines that sit just outside of our ordinary world, which ultimately creates believable characters within these strange, but ordinary, situations.

How Familiarity Helps Widow’s Bay Surprise Us

In a way, I think it’s our everyday familiarity with these types of characters and situations that ends up helping the series to create the feeling of surprise. What I mean by this is that because of our familiarity with these kinds of setups, we start predicting the payoff for those moments before the story shows us where it’s actually going. In some cases, it pays off as expected, but in other cases, it doesn’t, and in most situations, there is always some odd little twist that keeps the story from feeling like a cookie cutter horror.

With the Mayor we get a man who spent his summers on the island as a kid and married a local woman, which locked him into this strange community. Then there is Wyck, the old fisherman who has seen everything, knows everything, and keeps telling everyone that bad things are coming. We also get the Mayor’s weird and quirky assistant Patricia who survived something horrifying as a child and nobody really believes her story,  which paints her as that lonely outsider within her own town.

Pulling all of these characters together are stories of the boogeyman, the sea witch, old cemeteries, and a devil’s bargain as well as nods to the unique local customs and lore that turn the location into a character. From the New England fog to regional superstitions and generations of island history (that everyone seems to think about differently), there is one bit of truth that guides the decisions of every islander… nobody born on the island can ever leave the island. All of these bits of lore and superstition contrast against modern life as we know it, which gives Widow’s Bay the creative runway for some clever twists and turns that make the ordinary look and feel of the series and the use of over-stuffed story tropes feel uniquely creepy in this utterly normal looking vacation destination.

Why the Predictable Payoffs Still Work

The tension within the storylines for each episode comes from the natural push and pull of how logical the illogical moments are, creating events and interactions that you can absolutely see coming. However, it’s how your expectations get paid off that keep the surprises feeling fresh and unpredictable. Still, you can’t help but feel that little bit of satisfaction with each payoff in the story as you get that sly little moment of feeling like “you knew that thing was coming” and then it happens, only to take the story somewhere you might not have been expecting after all.

Some of those moments do feel a little too conveniently timed and some of the revelations come in a way that can feel like the story lingered too long before resolving a conflict or paying off a moment that was foreshadowed earlier in the series. The season itself resolves in a fairly predictable way that still manages to unwrap its own surprise. In most cases the transitions between conflict and payoff also carry the risk of feeling old and tired, but then the writing kicks in with a wry jab or some dark comedic subtext that turns the ordinary into something absurd – which really pins down the exceptional combination of writing, acting, and directing that make the series arc feel natural and seamless.

What’s great about how these moments unravel within the story is that it never feels like the writers suddenly change the rules to accommodate a plot hole or solve a problem via deus ex machina. Conflicts aren’t resolved with moments of situational convenience but with creative plotting. Everything fits into the story world and the odd tapestry of New England lore that feels uniquely suited to the series.

The trick of the series is that Widow’s Bay gives you all of the pieces of the puzzle, but each episode gives you a slightly new take on the picture that is being pieced together. From a catastrophic nor’easter storm to Patricia’s special party and the Mayor’s realization of what is actually happening on the island, so much of the tension comes from the juxtaposition between what seems to be happening and what is actually happening. Meanwhile, we watch the Mayor come to terms with the long-buried superstitions that he grew up hearing but was never willing to admit that he believes… until now.

It’s his changing perspective, caught between wanting (or needing) to deny the reality of what he knows and the impossible reality that he can see right in front of him, that makes his journey so interesting. That makes it so easy to stay with him as a main character. It’s also why our perspective changes along with his in a way that helps us to accept the supernatural almost before he does.

We get this snarky little sense of satisfaction at being right, even as the Mayor begins to believe, even as he confronts new horrors at what the truth means for his own family. Those uncomfortable truths are offset by interactions with characters like Rosemary, one of the Mayor’s assistants, who has also seen a lot of weird things in her time and who is possibly the show’s best truth bomber. Her witty comments come across as a bit too “on the nose” at times, but her off-beat delivery style makes her dialogue so much funnier and so much darker.

Why the Weirdness of Widow’s Bay Works

The writing, directing, and acting work together, making it obvious that nothing we see is accidental and that it is all planned out. This creative team knows how to build a compelling first season that should have felt a lot more ordinary and a lot less imaginative.

The more I think about Widow’s Bay after finishing the series, the more I realize that this is one of my favorite new TV shows. It’s so rare to find something that’s equally clever and fun that can also turn an ordinary, everyday story into something that feels so unpredictable. Apple TV has been creating some of the best new series on streaming, and this series was well worth the price of my subscription because it was better than most movies being produced today.

If you are a fan of horror, drama, and humor I think you will find a lot to enjoy. Also, if you liked the Netflix series Midnight Mass, you’ll also get a bit of that flavor in Widow’s Bay, but this series doesn’t stand around taking itself too seriously. It gets in and it gets out quickly, presenting each new conflict in a way that is entertaining. I think that says it all. Widow’s Bay is entertaining.

If you watched it, I’d love to know what you thought. Did you enjoy the dark humor and the supernatural plot twists? Did the combination of horror and dark humor work for you? I would love to know your take on Widow’s Bay.

If you enjoyed this review, please give it a like and subscribe for more. You can also visit my YouTube channel at @ErinUnderwood for more videos.