It must be something of a challenge to act after winning an Emmy. After winning for his performance in The Americans, where Matthew Rhys had to portray an ambivalent Russian spy who had to create and maintain multiple identities, he played the legendary television lawyer Perry Mason in the remake of the same name and George Carlin in Saturday Night. Last year’s horror thriller The Beast in Me saw Rhys playing a real estate magnate and killer resembling Robert Durst, who ate a whole rotisserie chicken with such relish that he made a starving wolf eat a deer look like a picnic.
Five months after that film came out, Rhys will once again star in Widow’s Bay, which is expected to release on Apple TV in early April. The show is described as horror infused with humor and takes place on a fictional island called Widow’s Bay located 40 miles off the New England shore, where everyone believes their town is under a curse. Rhys’ character, once again, is difficult—Tom Loftis, the mayor of the town whose struggle to turn the sinister Widow’s Bay into a place similar to Martha’s Vineyard leads him through various kinds of danger. Rhys himself serves as one of the executive producers of the show, and he is absolutely fabulous as Tom. The series is very entertaining, especially because of its witty supporting cast and homages to horror classics. But it doesn’t make any sense by itself.
"Is anyone on this island doing any kind of work?" Tom asks during the premiere, as his citizens lazily meander around the town hall following a blackout. This travel writer whom he has been trying to woo for years is finally arriving before a crucial summer season for the struggling tourism industry of the island, yet nobody seems to be as frantic about making this place hospitable as him. It doesn't help that his staff is pretty useless. Moreover, show creator Kate Dippold (of Parks and Recreation) doesn’t pay these quirky residents of the island the kind of attention their talented master character actors, including Jeff Hiller and Dale Dickey, deserve. (It's particularly disappointing seeing Hiller, who had to play such limited roles prior to Somebody Somewhere winning an Emmy for him, in this one too.) Only Kate O'Flynn's socially awkward girl Friday Patricia gets her own subplot here.
And Tom's troubles are compounded by the sudden disappearance of the local captain. Tom's number-one nemesis Wyck (played by the unhinged-looking Stephen Root) believes this captain has been kidnapped by a mysterious fog. "The island was dormant for so long, but she's waking up," he predicts. Wyck looks crazy, but he's right. Throughout the season, he and Tom team up in their mutual struggle against the dark powers straight from the folklore of the local community and such horror classics as Halloween, Jaws, and, yes, The Fog. That tiara Patricia wears in a fun episode, in which the self-help book turns her into a party-animal? Definitely a Carrie homage, Stephen King dominates Widow's Bay.
Technically, it’s all perfection. The executive producer, Hiro Murai, who directed many of the episodes, applies the same hyper-realism approach to Widow’s Bay as he did on Atlanta and Station Eleven. Ti West, a director known as a horror film auteur whose latest X trilogy has been well-received, uses a teastained chiaroscuro approach for a nightmare-like flashback set in a historical context. Andrew DeYoung’s dark-psychedelic opening shot, which sets the tone in an episode centered around strange black mushrooms, is stuck in my mind after watching Friendship. The show also has many wonderful throwaway lines. While explaining the reason why a past relationship fell apart, one of the unshaken characters from Widow’s Bay says, “He was bitten by an animal and became that animal,” continuing without a hitch to the next topic. Even though I have not been told what parts they play, it must be mentioned that both guest actors, Betty Gilpin and Hamish Linklater, fit their characters perfectly. While another actor would do everything possible to portray the straight character surrounded by hysterical people, Rhys makes it clear that Tom is unstable.
But the series is more about stylistic references and strong acting than transformation on its own merit. Adding to the list of characters the puzzled outsider sheriff of the island (played by Kevin Carroll) and an overexcited preacher (played by Toby Huss) only adds diversity without enhancing the narrative. An origin story of Widow’s Bay, which forms the basis of the plot, comes without much coherence from a thematic point of view. Dippold attempts to create the emotional weight to Tom’s character development by resorting to the bottomless pit of parental fear. There’s a popular belief that everyone born on the island dies in case they ever set foot on the mainland. Even though the mayor could say that he’s immune to superstitions, he is, after all, a divorced father who wouldn’t risk letting his son, Evan (Kingston Rumi Southwick), test this theory since he was born in Widow’s Bay. Such storyline, if further developed, could’ve made the foundation of the series. However, Tom’s epiphanies are too simplistic to be voiced out loud and, with so many other details fighting for attention, we never learn anything more about Evan’s character.
Perhaps a greater degree of specificity in terms of theme development and influence synthesis would’ve been beneficial here. The series also fails to capitalize on numerous opportunities to become truly frightening or strange, instead opting for humor in lieu of astonishment. The most significant problem, however, may be the complete absence of any meaning behind the fact that it takes place on a cursed island. There is nothing quite like a meaningful horror town. While the rugged beauty of Twin Peaks concealed decay within the heart of America, Sunnydale, California represented a suburban threshold between earth and hell – a threshold that Buffy had to cross each time a new creature emerged from the hellmouth and forced her through the trials of puberty. Widow’s Bay will remind you of the Amity Island of Jaws or the Summerisle of The Wicker Man, but cinematic references can’t make up for a lack of meaning.
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