Widow's Bay

 I'm now six episodes in to Widow's Bay, a show on Apple TV. Set on the eponymous island somewhere off the coast of New England (and, refreshingly, actually shot there, apparently. I remember being frustrated when a scene from Lovecraft Country that pointed more or less to my hometown on the map, a suburb outside of Boston, was clearly shot down in Georgia).

Matthew Rhys stars as Mayor Tom Loftis, who is dedicated to promoting the island's potential as a tourist destination. The problem, though, is that while he's in total denial about it, the island is host to all manner of terrifying, horrible monsters and phenomena.

I'd say the show is a horror-comedy, but as it goes on, it leans pretty hard into the horror side of it. Loftis' own successes (hoping to make Widow's Bay the next Bar Harbor, a New York Times travel writer instead brands it as a new Martha's Vineyard) become a problem when the supernatural terrors become harder to deny.

The ever-present thorn in his side, who needs no convincing, is Wyck, a crazy old coot who is basically just right about things. Wyck is played by the eternally-good Stephen Root.

Rounding out the trio of the main cast is Patricia (Kate O'Flynn,) a kind of mousy woman who works at town hall and is something of a pariah because of her insistence that she survived an encounter with "The Boogeyman," a serial killer who murdered several of her classmates when she was a teenager. People seem to assume she made up her story to get attention, though given the genre of this show, I think the answer is probably more complicated.

The exact nature of all this horror is slowly being revealed - I've just watched an episode that takes place entirely as a flashback to colonial times (I could have the era slightly off,) which reveals more while still keeping us somewhat in the dark.

I'm enjoying the show a lot: among its best assets is fantastic production design. A series of mid-century board games at the local (haunted) inn - one of which is just called "Teeth" and the box simply contains a pair of pliers (a kind of Night-Vale-ian touch) or the very over-the-top 1960s-looking self-help book that focuses mostly on throwing a party (and with oddly anatomically correct images of a naked woman and partygoers snorting cocaine, which suggest perhaps the book isn't quite what it seems) are just brilliant bits of prop creation.

There's emotional stakes to the horror - we find that Tom is a single dad, and he's struggling terribly to keep his teenage son in line, while gnawed at by the rumor that those born on the island (like his son) will die if they leave. Also, the way that his wife left the picture is... well, it's a little more complicated than it first sounds like.

Anyway, just over the halfway point, I'm eager to see the rest of the show. It's just not the easiest thing to watch late at night.