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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Ira Glass. On This American Life, one thing we like is a good mystery. Sometimes about really big things, but most times, the little mysteries are the best.
Our lost and found is currently filled with pants. I don't know what, I've never seen this happen.
Wait, this is true?
This is true. Mysteries of every size, each week. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
A mayor of a small island town might deal with a lot. Infrastructure, finances, superstitions about local curses, and, of course, actual local curses.
You might have heard people talking about the new Apple TV series Widow's Bay. It's funny and creepy and follows just such a mayor as he desperately tries to protect the reputation of his town. And he sticks with it, even as the evidence mounts that the island is, in fact, in the grip of something supernaturally dangerous. I'm Glenn Weldon.
And I'm Linda Holmes. And today we're talking about Widows Bay on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining us is NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben. Welcome back, Danielle. I am so happy to be on this episode. Thank you so much. And we are, of course, so happy to have you. Widow's Bay focuses on Mayor Tom Loftus, played by Matthew Reese.
Tom confronts the fact that his job as mayor comes with some very special challenges, from an ominous fog to an inn that the locals are afraid to stay in overnight, which causes some difficulties with tourism. And tourism is Tom's great dream for Widows Bay, especially when he persuades a New York Times travel writer to visit. Local residents include Patricia, who works for Tom.
She's played by Kate O'Flynn. There's also Wick, played by the great Stephen Root.
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Chapter 2: What is the premise of the Apple TV series Widow's Bay?
Wick is a fisherman who is certain there is a curse on the island.
It's a haunt. I didn't realize it was a haunt. I'm sorry. Could you remind me again? A haunt is worse than a spook, but not as bad as a fright. Oh, equal to a scare, right? You can mock me all you like. The island's cursed, Tom.
There's a lot going on in these 10 episodes, so let's get into it. Glenn, I'm going to start with you. I think you were the first person that I knew who was watching and enjoying this show. How'd you like it?
I really did. I know I loved it from the jump. I mean, you can't cast Matthew Rhys and Stephen Root alone. and Dale Dickey and Jeff Hiller, who has a small part. They don't do enough with him, but he's got a small part. You can't cast those folks and not be Glenn Catnip.
Then later, you're going to throw in Betty Gilpin and then Hamish Linklater, who also plays Richard Warren, the guy who created the town.
The founder of the town.
Founder of the town. You're not playing fair. That is ridiculous. But then something happens in episode seven where we get the perfect joke, the best joke ever, the the platonic ideal of jokes. That's when Tom enters a room where Wick and Patricia have been questioning the corpse, the zombie or whatever, of Richard Warren.
Tom picks up what we know to be Patricia's notepad, the Cato Flynn character. He flips a page and we read, Hello, I am Patricia. But that's not the joke. That's the setup. The perfect joke, the best joke happens next. He flips a page and we read, Are you mad at something I said? Question mark.
Now, that is so perfect because it grows so organically, intrinsically, inevitably from these specific characters in this very specific and let's stipulate, you know, wacky situation. Richard Warren, we've met him before in a flashback. We know kind of a grumpy Gus, right? Even back when he had a pulse, he was kind of a grumpy Gus. And so he's been a few centuries trapped in a coffin.
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Chapter 3: How does Mayor Tom Loftus deal with local challenges?
She told you from the first moment we met her that she's not going to be just a stock character, that she's somebody very specific, somebody real, somebody worth – spending some time with. She's so easily wounded, and she's seething with just everything. We have seen her enough to know how she navigates the world, and are you mad at something I said?
We just think, yeah, that's where she would go. It works because it's so wildly incongruous, but at the same time, because of the work they've been doing to set up the characterization, the writing, the performance... That feels inevitable. And when we arrive at it, we are surprised that that's where she would go. But then we're not. And that's why it's the perfect joke.
And that's why I love this show, because the show is filled with stuff like that.
All right. So you do, I am getting from your reaction, like the show.
Love the show.
Very good. Very good. Danielle, how about you? How'd you like Widow's Bay?
I absolutely loved it. It's one of my favorite things I've seen in a while on TV, except there is an asterisk here. And we're not going to go into detail, but... The season finale left me kind of cold. It didn't stick the landing for me. That is all I'm going to say. Because the rest of the season is so good that I still, you know, unqualifiedly would say, yes, go out and watch this.
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Chapter 4: Who are the main characters in Widow's Bay and their roles?
It's fantastic. For various reasons that Glenn got into, first of all, the show is just... a festival of actors where you're like, that guy, I love that guy. I mean, Hamish Linklater is one of my people where I just think, put him in everything. If you haven't seen him in Midnight Mass, by the way, go watch that series. He's wonderful. Speaking of creepy people, yes.
But there's also, yeah, Chris Fleming, Betty Gilpin, all the people you listed. So it's delightful. Matthew Rhys, who, of course, I loved in The Americans. I was delighted to see, like, he's not a chameleon actor like Daniel Day-Lewis, where he disappears into a part. But his energy in this is so different from the guy you saw in The Americans. There's an episode where he does mushrooms. His...
Absolutely terrified, baffled. He's almost reduced to being a toddler affect. That episode is so funny. It's perfection. I think maybe the best thing I can say about the show is the perfect blend of funny and scary. The first couple episodes, I thought of 30 Rock.
Like there is a joke density there, especially when the New York Times travel writer is being walked through that little town museum room. The tour guide, Jerry, walked past a blood-spattered dress, and in her very nice little old lady voice goes, You know what? I was just about to show Arthur the witch trial.
Great source of pride. We caught him. We burned him. You know what, Jerry? I'm going to take it from here. I loved that too.
I was dying. Yeah.
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Chapter 5: What makes Widow's Bay a blend of horror and comedy?
It's wonderful. It's so funny. The scary stuff, it's not ruin your night scary, but like there's a sea hag, there's a clown. They both freaked me out. This is something I haven't seen before on TV. I was delighted the whole time.
Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned sort of Matthew Rhys in a different form because- I first saw Matthew Rhys on the ABC broadcast family drama Brothers and Sisters, which was your basic sort of like family drama. And so I had originally seen Matthew Rhys in this more kind of like sweet guy kind of way.
And so to me, it was somewhat surprising when he then became the Americans and that super intense stuff. So to me, this is sort of coming back to a bit of a looseness and an informality in his personality, a silliness that I remember from when I first saw him in that show and thought he was very charming. You know, I don't think this is quite my catnip as much as it is, say, Glenn's.
But I do think I enjoyed it a lot. It is very funny. You know, you mentioned, Danielle, that museum tour. I also zeroed in on that line about the witches because that is a great line, right? It is so common now when people talk about burning witches. It is seen as a great sign of shame and all of that. And the fact that she's just so proud of it. You know, we caught them, we burned them.
is very funny. And of course, the creator, Katie Dippold, is a very funny writer. She came out of Parks and Recreation and The Heat and some other things I really like. And it's funny because there is a lot of Parks and Rec in this show, in the DNA of this show.
The kind of bureaucracy of local government and the effort to kind of keep a town running when everyone is mad at you all the time is very Parks and Rec. With this really strange overlay of horror and curses and all that stuff.
And eventually, you know, we mentioned Betty Gilpin and Hamish Linklater, who show up in a kind of a flashback episode going back a very long time in history to kind of get at how this whole curse started and how the founder of the town was involved and everything. Yeah. I enjoyed that a great deal.
And one of the things I like about it is that it is a very serialized show that has episodes that are still constructed as episodes. Like, there is that flashback episode. There is an episode where Tom, the mayor, goes and stays overnight at the inn. There is a wonderful episode where Patricia is kind of menaced by this boogeyman that they have in town. Yeah. And she's wonderful in that episode.
And it is kind of set apart. You know, they never completely disconnect from that serialized narrative, but they construct the individual episodes as episodes, which is something that I think when you can do it well, it has benefited a lot of shows from, you know, the bear has benefited from that. This show benefits from that.
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