Sometimes it’s good to get away for a bit. Leave the hustle and bustle of long running series and take up with something completely new and refreshing as you take a vacation from decades of continuity. Maybe find something set in a relaxing, fish town located on an island that offers up what you’d get if Stephen King wrote an episode of Parks & Recreation.
Yup, you heard me right, Stephen King and Parks & Rec is the oddball mixture that breathes life into Apple TV’s newest series, that sees creepy shit collide with office politics as the highly strung Mayor of the titular town has to face some supernatural truths that’s afflicting the people in his constituency. But can Apple’s venture into horror/comedy truly deliver the laughs while cheekily riffing on John Carpenter’s The Fog, or will this end up being nothing more than a mist opportunity? Oh come on, it’s a comedy – surely I’m allowed to crack the odd joke myself?
Welcome to the community of Widow’s Bay, an island off the coast of New England that’s got quite the colourful history under its belt. However, while stories of disappearances and *checks notes* cannibalism are all ancient news fit only for the Gerrie at the local historical museum, Mayor Tom Loftis has been doing his utmost to ensure that the struggling town has a chance for financial survival by getting in a travel writer from the New York Times to hopefully give the place a glowing review and get some tourism in. But while this money would bring some vital necessities to the island (some actual Wi-Fi would be nice), Tom’s got something of an uphill battle ahead of him.
A power cut caused by the island’s first earthquake in decades is the first obstacle for Tom to scramble over, not to mention the fact that the ferry refuses to leave at the correct times, but the most important thing that Tom has to ensure is that the reporter doesn’t get an eyeful of just how fucking weird a lot of the other townsfolk are. Emerging as the prime offender is crusty local, Wyck, who not only has been riled up by the earthquake, but is convinced that the disappearance of local fisherman Shep Clark is a sign that something tremendously bad is about to happen in Widow’s Bay.
But while Tom weathers legends of blank-eyed revenents, evil fog and the island “waking up”, he’s far more interested in making a good impression and trying to wrangle his staff, including the dowdy Patricia who adds tales of her once being visited by the ghost of a serial killer. However, when Shep is eventually found, some bizarre occurrences starts to get Tom thinking – could there be something in all these stories after all, and if so, does that mean the fast approaching fog bank contains some sort of whispy evil after all?
Less a full blown preview of what to expect and more of a gentle introduction to the town and its eccentric denizens, “Welcome To Widow’s Bay” may end up being more subdued than you might expect, but it seems to be ensuring that it’s balances of chuckles and chills is a bit more measured than some other hybrid shows. I guess it would have been easy to go the What We Do In The Shadows route and deliver a multitude of Office-style looks to an omnipresent camera crew, but why take such a route when the gathering of Nandor, Nadja, Laszlo, Colin and Guillermo have already perfected it? Wisely, series creator Katie Dippold and director Hiro Murai have opted to go down a somewhat more mature route, offering up a slowburn ghost story where the humour comes right out of the situation. Of course, as I mentioned before, that situation seems to exactly copy the memorably serious story beats of John Carpenter’s The Fog – but who would have thought such potent laughs could be mined from including small toen politics into the ghostly mash.
Our main character is Matthew Rhys’ well-meaning, but somewhat weasely mayor, Tom Loftis, who only wants to bring a sense of financial security to Widow’s Peak despite the apparent danger lurking out to sea. This essentially gives us the mouthwatering prospect of what you’d get if you made Jaws from the point of view of Mayor Vaughn as he also ignores the warnings of various subordinates. However, the twist here is that poor old Tom is only being rational in a town of oddballs and malcontents and is sick to the back teeth of the constant push back he gets every day. This results in some furious back pedalling on his part, especially when getting caught in hasty lies (maybe don’t deny an instance of cannibalism in the town’s history while standing next to a framed newspaper that literally reads: Cannibalism In God’s House) or accidently insulting his staff (maybe don’t bluntly point out that a woman is safe from a teen-killing ghost because she’s over forty). Interestingly, however, no one is actively trying to “do comedy” here as all the laughs flow naturally out of the situation and another description you could throw at the show is that it’s Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass with killer one liners.
Rhys manages to make Tom and all his nervous energy perversely likable, despite regularly exploding into expletives whenever shit goes south. Deepening the character is the relationship he has with his increasingly rebellious son, Evan, who has taken to hanging out and smoking weed with the other disillusioned kids on the island. However, the real meat here is his frequent clashes with the other townsfolk. Stephen Root is on classic, horror movie, doomsayer form as the grizzled Wyck, who is predicting that evil is about to consume them all and Kate O’Flynn’s Patricia carries a nice line in understated delivery. Of course, evil does start to creep in at the corners as the episode progresses, with missing fisherman Shep Clark finally turning up and attacking Tom in the hospital while displaying all the attributes of the zombie-like revenenants Wyck described earlier (no report if he reached stage 3 of the malady and suffered erectile dysfunction). Later still, it seems that some of Wyck’s warnings have seeped into Tom’s subconscious when, at a meal with the New York Times writer, he starts screaming “There’s Something In The Fog!!!” after patrons start to leave on a particularly misty night, and while it plays up to the embarrassment comedy of the piece, rest assured that Widow’s Bay will no doubt start dealing out more supernatural shenanigans.
Getting off to a relatively quiet start, the premiere of Widow’s Bay wisely takes its time familiarising us with the various players before fully dunking us into full blown horror. In fact, I’m struggling to recall when I’ve seen something that balances laughs and a sense of creeping dread so well so fingers crossed that the Bay continues in this vein with subsequent visits.
Fuck Cape Cod.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 