BONUS - Widow's Bay (eps 1-4)

[00:00:00] Properly Howard fans, we are taking a break from our regularly scheduled programming so that Steve and I can talk about Apple TV's Widows Bay. Next week we will return with Moonraker, so you can prepare for that. Make sure you're checking out everything that's happening with the Lorehounds, and consider becoming a Patreon member. Alright, let's hear Rocky yell at Mickey. Welcome to your crime. What a night, Brian Nick! Please, you are the one!

[00:00:43] Welcome to Properly Howard, a podcast that reviews classic films and other cult fiction. Today we take a break from our movie reviews to discuss the first four episodes of Apple TV's horror comedy, Widows Bay. Blending elements of Stephen King, Jaws, and John Carpenter's The Fog, Widows Bay is a somewhat comical look at an island town that is filled with myriad odd ducks and has a haunted past. With me to discuss this as always is Dr. Anthony Ladon.

[00:01:11] This podcast is usually films. I don't know if you gathered that. Had you noticed it? I don't really listen. But, I will point out that from time to time we do talk about television, which we will do today, and the origin story for this podcast is that we originally chose films that we thought informed Stranger Things. That's all, yes.

[00:01:37] So this was our kind of our spinoff podcast, in the same way Jody Loves Chachi was a spinoff. Yeah, we are the Jody Loves Chachi of podcasts. Yeah, and I like to think of myself as chachi. I'm just gonna say it. Me too. It would be weird if you weren't. So, Widows Bay, I thought we could... When was the last time you wore a muscle shirt? I'm wearing one right now. Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:02:05] Well, I'm wearing a poodle skirt, so everything just seems to be as it should be. So, I thought we would talk maybe five or ten minutes just about the general concept of the show. No spoilers. We'll do a spoiler warning about midway through, and then we'll talk about specific beats of the first four episodes. I've watched through beach reads. I'm assuming you have too. Yes, that is correct. Widows Bay. Widows Bay on Apple TV. Starring Matthew Rhys.

[00:02:34] How did you find it? Did I tell you about this series? Yes. This is all you. Okay, yeah. But you kept on watching. So, it was one of those... We watched one, and as we were watching it, when it ended, Heather was very surprised because she thought we were watching a movie. So, it was kind of fun. Then it was also like a certain level of disappointment because it's like, wait, I gotta wait? So, I'm kind of curious what you think about this. I'll throw out a thesis for you to consider.

[00:03:05] Typically, sci-fi and horror gets lumped together. I don't know why. Is it because of alien and aliens? Is that why? I mean, I guess... Sometimes you see fantasy sci-fi. Right. Then you see sci-fi horror. You don't often see fantasy horror, although I guess Game of Thrones did a bit of both. Yeah, you could see fantasy horror for sure.

[00:03:28] I think maybe because oftentimes, obviously not all the time, but oftentimes sci-fi and horror will deal with maybe richer themes combined with otherworldly or the unexplainable... Yeah, X-Files. ...sort of catalyst for why things are doing what they're doing, right?

[00:03:52] The idea that, let's say it's grounded in some sort of reality, like a horror thing doesn't necessarily have to have any supernatural, but even if it's a result of some sort of psychological impairment, it still is sort of beyond the realm of just the understandable to some degree. Yeah, so this is a little bit like very in the wheelhouse of Twilight Zone. I almost consider Twilight Zone like a 50-50 split.

[00:04:21] It's sci-fi, it's horror, sometimes it's both. And I guess even that goes back to the early days of short stories that were sometimes sci-fi and horror at the same time. Feels like the comedy-horror overlap is getting more prominent. Yeah, I would say that probably what's maybe getting more prominent is where maybe the comedy stands a little bit more in the foreground. Yes.

[00:04:49] Because I think there's been probably a long-ish history. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's long-ish. I mean, I think when you start thinking like 80s, like Nightmare on Elm Street would incorporate a lot of one-liners and maybe like the...

[00:05:09] Like I think once like in certain horror movies when the kills were required to be more inventive, you also had to kind of add a certain level of like maybe self-awareness to the ridiculousness of it, right? I mean, like I would... Because if you look at like The Exorcist, not a ton of laughs. No.

[00:05:36] Things like Rosemary's Baby, you start going back maybe a little bit more and I think the horror genre was just really supposed to kind of keep you tense at all times. And I think that there was an element of comedy being brought in or at least some chuckle moments to do a couple of things. One, it sort of is a release valve so that maybe you're not totally clenching. But also then it also relaxes you so that when the next thing hits, it has a little more effect.

[00:06:03] Later we start to get things like, you know, Tucker and Dale versus Evil. And we get things that are like where it's maybe a little bit more comedy-centric and then horrors in the background, like I think like Cabin in the Woods, right? When it becomes a little bit more satirical while it's also still very much allowing itself to be a horror film. I think that those are the types of examples where it's like you can do both, right?

[00:06:30] And I think there's something too if you've got a horror film that is – like sometimes they feel very derivative. We talked about this with Late Night with the Devil and how it's almost hard for any possession movie to not somehow be compared to or feel like it owes something to The Exorcist just because of how that broke so much ground.

[00:06:52] That if you continue to do that, the derivative nature of some horror takes away some of the enjoyment, right? Like my son is a horror aficionado and he'll be critical of like where I might watch a horror film and be like, yeah, it was a lot of fun. He's going to be like, well, but this is sort of a ripoff of that and I kind of knew this was going to –

[00:07:14] So there's an element there that it feels like if you can add some comedy that almost – like I said, breaks some of the tension but also maybe adds a level of self-awareness to that. Like you know some of these tropes are tropey and you can play with it. Then it sort of feels like you can do something a little – it feels new even if it's kind of the same thing in a new package. So Nessa and I have been watching this together.

[00:07:39] So we were trying to explain this series to Sarah and basically we're like, it's kind of 70% comedy, 30% horror. But I didn't quite like that description. So here's what I came up with. We were talking about friendship, the film friendship. And I will mention that Andrew DeYoung, who directed that, directs a couple episodes of Widow's Bay.

[00:08:07] And one of the things that we talked about where it's sort of like the genre of an odd couple comedy but it had the structure of a horror film. And I wonder if Widow's Bay isn't something in reverse. It's the genre of a horror show but it has a lot of rhythms of a comedy. What do you think about that? Yeah, I could see that.

[00:08:33] And I like too there's a – there's sort of the upsetting of the tropes. I mean or maybe not an upsetting but maybe a fresh look at tropes. Like if we're specifically the – like if you look at Jaws and in many cases the mayor is as much a foil as the shark. In fact, the shark just exists.

[00:08:56] It's the mayor that almost sort of propels this island town into danger because of his own hubris or whatever. So this is kind of a fun thing because it's like let's take a look at this from the mayor's perspective. I like that a lot.

[00:09:14] And what if the mayor is – if you add a layer to the mayor, you might have a different appreciation for the decisions that are being made.

[00:09:28] And then getting to see his world a little bit and unpacking some of the lore through his perspective and what's going on in his world and his sort of evolution is – I think it's a really fun twist on a familiar trope. Yeah, so this is Matthew Reese's character.

[00:09:50] He's the mayor and I kind of feel like the show doesn't work unless you're immediately empathetic with that guy from that guy's perspective. He's – he wasn't born on the island but he lived a lot of his life on the island. His father grew up on the island. So he's kind of an insider and an outsider at the same time.

[00:10:11] And yet he knows enough to like realize like can we have at least one coffee shop that has good coffee? Like is that too much to ask? Right. So he's the kind of guy like you relate to like – yeah, I kind of see his point. He feels like the only sane person on this ship of fools, right? Right.

[00:10:37] I think we should probably get into spoilers here but before we do that, I do want to say one more thing on sort of the general genre thing. The success of Lord of the Rings was such that whether or not you like the original books of the Lord of the Rings, it almost influenced every element of the fantasy genre that came after.

[00:10:56] It influenced D&D, it influenced video games, it influenced film and all the – everything that is related to fantasy has to have at least some conversation with the characters in the world built by Tolkien. And I'm wondering if Stephen King now needs to be talked about in the same way. Because it feels like this isn't just a horror genre. It feels like this is actually a Stephen King genre.

[00:11:27] Right. Or at least it's – I mean it can't exist without Stephen King to put it another way, right? Exactly. I mean it's – and I sometimes – so when you see something like this, you wonder is – I mean obviously there are context clues and some more blatant than others that Stephen King is being either influenced or – because it's not a send up, right? It's not like a satire of horror. It's very much –

[00:11:53] When I watched the first episode, I was like, is there a Stephen King novel called Widow's Bay that I don't know about? And I had to look it up because it felt so in conversation. Well, the font. Yes. This sort of – I mean so many things take place kind of in like sort of touristy coastal towns. Well, it's northeast, right? Northeast, United States.

[00:12:19] It's – you know, Stephen King got a lot of mileage off of sometimes places are just evil. Right. Yeah, and you've got, you know, just elements that feel like a little bit of misery, a little bit of The Shining. Yeah. But again, there's also the big Jaws influence and there's a big, you know, John Carpenter, The Fog influence. Like there's – Yeah. There's a lot of – there's a lot of influence, right?

[00:12:44] And it's – I wonder – and this is just sort of talking about maybe this little bit more inside baseball for writing and developing a show. But like is it – I mean is it a cheat to just be like, hey, I'm going to do something that sort of pays respect to all these things because I can't help but be influenced by it. So I need to make it more intentional.

[00:13:11] I think it definitely helps with selling the product, you know. Well, and it helps as a viewer too. If you have any relationship with any of these vehicles, you're probably a little bit more inclined to lean in a little bit, right? I mean that's one of the things about Stranger Things I think that was so successful. I mean it was a good show all the way around. But I mean I think it really helped hook a lot of Gen Xers and then Gen Xers bring in their families.

[00:13:36] And so, you know, if you don't have a relationship with the 80s, you still enjoy the show. But if you do, it's a whole other layer that is pretty crucial to your level of enjoyment and might even help you to forgive some things if it starts to go astray plot-wise.

[00:13:55] Yeah, Stranger Things was consciously like, at least the first season was sort of a conscious love letter to Jaws, the Goonies, and Nightmare on the Elm Street. Depending on which characters you were hanging out with, you were kind of in those films. And this one I felt like it's almost a love letter to Stephen King. Although, you're totally right. The Mist is baked in there too. And what was the other one you said? Jaws.

[00:14:25] Or Jaws and the Pog, yeah. Yeah, so that's for sure part of it. But, you know, I can't claim to be an expert on Stephen King. I probably read four or five books along the way of Stephen King. And I appreciate him most of the time.

[00:14:41] But this is like, this show is fantastic in that it kind of feels like you've got almost the production sensibilities of Severance at times. Then you bring in directors like Andrew DeYoung and Ty West, who are pretty well known for pretty popular films.

[00:15:09] And it kind of hangs together in a sort of a longer A-level storyline. But it almost feels like each episode is a little bit like X-Files. And there's almost like a Monster of the Week kind of feel to it as well. So far, the horror hasn't been gross out or body horror in a way that I think would turn people off.

[00:15:35] I feel like if you were just in for the comedy, you would probably still enjoy the show. Yeah, I feel like the horror is, right now it's leaning on creepy and mysterious. I mean, I think Beach Reads is my favorite so far. Interesting. Yeah, interesting.

[00:15:55] Just because of what it's doing, what it does with the horror and how it kind of slow burns it to the point where you're like, Yeah, I know something's up. Okay, let me just say, spoilers going forward. We're going to talk about specific elements of the first four episodes going forward. All right, so Beach Reads is the fourth episode.

[00:16:25] And the premise of this episode is that one of the women we meet in the office, it feels like she has some job in the mayor's office. I'm not really sure what her job is besides party planning. Yeah. And I'm not really sure what her relationship with the mayor is either, right? I mean, her relationship with Tom is kind of interesting. You mentioned that she kind of has a Shelley Duvall. She's got Shelley Duvall face.

[00:16:54] Yeah, she looks like it's... To me, she's as if Shelley Duvall is playing Kathy Bates' character in Misery. Okay, yeah. And she's got some really great laugh lines the first episode. I laughed at her hard a couple times. And then we learn in this episode that she grew up on the island, and she's never been a part of the kind of the cool girls, mean girls clique. And the idea is that she finds this book,

[00:17:24] and it's sort of like a 1950s party planning book. It's amazing. Sunset cocktails party. And some of the text in the book is really funny. And she starts, like, almost... The diagram of what you're, like, circling your best and worst features. It's so amazing. You might feel lonely. You might feel like you're going to die alone someday. And that might be true. But.

[00:17:55] So she decides she's going to just follow this party planning book religiously, because she really wants to sort of parlay a great party into popularity. And she does follow this thing religiously, and it turns out to be some kind of wicker man cultish experience. So you were going to say the way that it unfolds reeled you in? Yeah, because you know... I mean, as soon as we see how long she's just...

[00:18:25] Like, the security footage of how long she's sitting there. Uh-huh. Like, so you realize, okay, she's under some sort of a trance. And the book already was, like, pretty sus. And... Because why... I mean, like, there was something so unsettling about how... How unwelcome she was at the party. Yeah. Right? Like... And I mean, sometimes these things can feel over the top. But there was something... The way that it was presented was... It was over the top, but it almost felt like with cause.

[00:18:56] And so I was like, what's this... What's this gal's story? You know? So I was like, I'm locked in on that, feeling very... Like, I feel for her only because I... Because the show has made me know her a little. Mm-hmm. But I don't know her, right? So I don't know if she's a problem. So that... So I became... So I love how the show sort of creates a tension just in her existence and her relationship.

[00:19:22] And then you are like, I feel for her, but maybe I shouldn't? I don't know. And so... She seems like an annoying office person. Right. And from Matthew Rhys' perspective, it's like she's always... She's always busting his balls a little bit. Right. She's almost like Toby on The Office in a few ways. And yet, when you meet her from her own perspective, you want her to get one up on these high school girls. Or you want her to find love or something.

[00:19:52] You want this party to turn her life around. And yet, because of this particular kind of show, and it's already winked to you a couple times, there's this sort of gross underbelly of the show where you kind of think, but is this really happening? Is this... Right. What's going on here? Because we've already had like a... Yeah, we've had an in situation where it's like, he's talking to nobody. So obviously, there's ghosts of sorts. And there is...

[00:20:20] The island appears to have the ability to mess with your mind. Yep. And so you start to trust nothing, which is, I think, always a fun thing when you're watching a show. Because the episode before, I'm like, oh, Marissa's the sea hag. And then it undoes it.

[00:20:40] It's almost like the island wants to find the thing that you're most insecure about and put the knife right there. For Matthew Rhys, it's like his relationship with his father. And for this girl, it's that she was never popular in high school. And so the island is kind of...

[00:21:02] You know, the island's messing with your head in a way that it knows you will almost have to relive childhood insecurities. Well, in some ways, the island almost feels coy. Like, even... Like, almost like it allows itself to sort of be, like, thwarted. But in a way, almost to show that what it's capable of.

[00:21:28] There's a Mulaney bit that I really like where he's like, junior high boys are the absolute worst because they will recognize the part of your body that you're most insecure about and call it out within, like, three seconds. Like, that man has feminine hips. That's the thing I'm sensitive about. I feel like the island is sort of a collective hive mind of junior high boys. Right.

[00:21:54] And then the other thing I really have enjoyed is, and I'm kind of fascinated by, is the priest who's found some, like, old notes from, like, the previous priest or something. And realizing the church bell's been, like, chained up for years. And I kind of feel like I kind of wanted him to hang around to, like, help them put the island back to sleep or something. Yeah, like, the show keeps introducing complications, right?

[00:22:24] And I think that that's, and that's good. It keeps you on the hook. And I liked how episode four ends because, you know, all these people are now just sort of in a trance, basically going to go drown themselves. And, you know, they were able to break the trance. And then she gets picked up by Wick and Tom, which are kind of like, now they're like, like, so Tom's kind of had his, like, conversion moment, right?

[00:22:52] As that's kind of where we're at. And so I think it makes for much more interest. Because you can only do that for so long. You can only do the Tom's in denial for so long, right? And I think that they prolonged it just enough to make the sort of breaking point matter more. And so it's like, so it's a great, it's a great ending to the episode because you're like, oh, the adventures, now it's on.

[00:23:18] Now they know that it's, this island stuff is for real. Yeah, island stuff is for real. It's clearly, you know, Steven Root's character, he's absolutely crazy. Like, he's absolutely bonkers, but he may be the most sane person on the island. Right. And so now your chief guide, it's a little bit like Jaws in that way.

[00:23:44] It's like, there's no doubt that the shark killing guy is an alcoholic. Right. But this is the best we got, you know? And let me just say, I do kind of lament sometimes that Hollywood doesn't produce character actors like they used to. But Steven Root is one of the greats. Yeah, he really is. He, you know, he looks like a regular person and he can pull off, he can pull off smartest guy in the room.

[00:24:12] He can also pull off craziest guy in the room. Uh, in this, in this show, he's like equal parts country bumpkin and like shaman or something. Uh, or lore keeper or something. I, he's fantastic. Yeah. I mean, I've seen him play like skeptic in such a great way that it's so fun to see him be able to do this too. I mean, he, he really can do all, you know, basically whatever you need him to do, he'll do it.

[00:24:43] He's fantastic. Um, Jeff Heller. Are you familiar with Jeff Heller from anything else? He's the super tall DJ. Yes. I am familiar with him. Um, I think more like seeing him as in like bit roles and, um, uh, I don't know if I've ever actually watched his comedy though. He was in, uh, somebody somewhere, uh, which was an HBO series that I really enjoyed.

[00:25:13] I think he's great. I think that there was really smart to, to make this Island seem like these are a bunch of weirdos. And there's a reason why this isn't like Martha's Vineyard. Right. Uh, you know, these are not, these are not Hollywood models that just happened to have grown up on an Island. Um, so anyway, like the show, um, is there anything else you wanted to call out about the show?

[00:25:38] Well, I really, so we're watching the, the beach reads and, uh, when they, um, there's that initial like dancing moment where they're all like their mouths are in. They're agape and their eyes are kind of, and, uh, we're watching it. And I don't think Heather noticed that. And I would look at it and like, cause it happens quick. And I'm like, in my, in, in my mind, I'm like, Oh, something changed. I think they all had their, like kind of reminded me of like the ring. Um, and then, but it was so fast.

[00:26:07] And I was, so I just kind of like looked over it like, well, maybe I saw it. Maybe I'm just thinking I saw it. And then when they do the reflection, I was like, Oh, we've already gotten, we've already seen this. And so it was kind of fun to see there. Or there, so it made me wonder too, like how many other like little fast things I might, might be worth rewatching. Like to see if there are other little clues throughout the, the show that I'm, I'm kind of missing. It was a great scene and I would have totally missed it. Cause I was probably second screening or something. And my daughter was just like, and so like, I had to rewind it.

[00:26:36] If it was, if I wasn't watching with her, I would have totally missed it. But so you, I think you're right in that it's a little bit like severance in that way. It's like, this is not a show for second screen watching. No, you have to, yeah, you have to lock in. Yeah. You're going to miss like a lot of the extra value. And there, you know, there's little bits of comedy that really get me.

[00:26:58] Like when he, when he first walks into the hotel and, or the, I don't know what the inn and he's just looking at the painting and it's just this child who's being carried off to sea in terror. And then the innkeeper comes in and says, I took down some of the more provocative paintings. This isn't provocative. I think that may be my favorite episode yet.

[00:27:27] The, um, it's a great episode. Lodging. Yeah. When, uh, it's just, we would just stay in the, in the room for just a few seconds and like the whole place is trash. It's like time passes differently in that room, I guess. Uh, and then of course, this is kind of a big question that the local pub has a basement below the basement.

[00:27:52] And you just kind of, you pan slowly down to this sort of 1920s electric chair. Right. And they never revisit that. Well, not yet anyway. Yeah. Makes me feel like there's something about that electric chair that is kind of crucial to the origin story of the island. Yeah.

[00:28:17] Well, and I like that too, because like you, you bring up the severance thing and like how many times did we like sit there watching severance and you're like, oh, that's right. Petey existed. I pretty, yeah, exactly. That was the whole first couple of episodes. And now I'm like so past Petey that I forgot that like there's a, there's a story being told there.

[00:28:35] So to me, that's interesting because if that, the way that it's structured, it makes me feel like there's an origin story here that will be, that will kind of explain why this particular place is haunted. But usually when you do that, it kind of goes back to like prehistory or something, you know, some ancient dark magic that was disturbed.

[00:29:03] But the fact that it is an electric chair means that whatever that secret is, it has to exist post-electricity. Right. Whether, or that's an origin or just another artifact of, you know, a result of this island being, you know.

[00:29:26] Yeah, I kind of feel like it has to be more than that because of where it's placed at the end of the first episode and the fact that they haven't revisited that particular storyline yet. It makes me feel like they intend to bookend that with the last episode of the season. Okay. So just in terms of the, the narrative structure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So do you have any guesses on where this thing's going to go? I don't.

[00:29:53] And maybe because I'm not all that, because I tend to like my horror not explained necessarily because I think sometimes that becomes, you know, we talk about fatal flaws in shows and movies. And sometimes I think the effort to explain undercuts the eeriness because I think that's, it's like the unknown is usually scarier than the known, right? And, um. Yep.

[00:30:23] And I think, like I was kind of rooting, like when like Lost was just getting like crazier and crazier, I was, you know, people are like, well, this is going to be even harder to explain. And I'm like, I feel like you become less inclined to have to. And, uh. And I think that that becomes part of the problem is that you start. Yeah. Because then you run into, into like continuity errors or incongruities along the way. And it's just like sometimes just let, let, let the haunt be the haunt.

[00:30:52] But I am, but I'm, I'm curious. I'm curious to see, because I mean, we're getting a, you know, and there's obviously a lot of lore that we're getting from not just Wick, but just sort of in general. Right. And, and, uh, I, you know, the thing about horror too is like you want, it's why like there's so many Nightmare on Elm Streets and probably the 13th is because, yeah, I mean, you can kill them, but then that's no fun. You don't want to kill the island necessarily.

[00:31:19] Here's the thing about this that I think was really clever of the show. It's almost a throwaway mythology is that you, you are not allowed to leave the island if you're born there. Right. So that means that you can just continue haunting these people for as many seasons as you want, because you never run into the problem. Like, well, just leave dude. Right. Right. Yes. That, yes.

[00:31:45] That solves the biggest issue of like, well, it sounds like Elm Street's a bad place to live. That's right. Or with Lost, like, oh no, I'm not going to go back to the island. You know, that kind of thing. So, all right. Anyway, we like this show. I think it's 10 episodes total. I think that they're probably going to do a flashback on a few of these people. Like, I would be really surprised if we didn't see what led to the priest's demise at some point. Right.

[00:32:14] All right. So, maybe we revisit the show once it wraps completely. Yeah, that'd be fun. I mean, I find this, yeah, it's definitely a nice find. There's lots of great content out there. But this one scratches a different itch. Okay. Next week, we'll jump back into our regularly scheduled programming with... Moonraker. Moonraker.

[00:32:45] Moonraker. Moonraker.