The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Widow’s Bay’ Episode 8: Stalking Season

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

Jo and Rob pack their bags to recap the eighth episode of ‘Widow’s Bay.’ (0:00) Intro (3:08) Mailbag check-in (20:05) Timeline of the island’s many incidents (24:05) Episode 8 breakdown Email us! [e-mail] Follow us on IG and TikTok! Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producers: Kai Grady and Devon Renaldo Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles and Jacob Cornett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Joyna Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney. It is episode 8 of Widows Bay, Your Baggage. Mine? Ours. Definitely. I did think it was interesting that last week's episode was titled Our History, and this week's episode is titled Your Baggage.

Who is unpacking baggage in this episode? Patricia, certainly. Absolutely. The Bogeyman history. Tom, Evan. Tom and Evan, for sure. What's in the basement? We have yet to find out.

And Wick, last week, was, more of Wicks unpacking a baggage. But, you know, we got a little dip into the Jerry baggage pool. He wanted to unpack some baggage and then, you know, just had to eject from that whole situation. I really loved that, like, resolution to us being like, yes. And then Wick and Jerry are finally, oh. No, no.

She has a fella. She's a fella. He seems very nice. Seems very nice. And he's like, Wick, you old dog. It's really good. Also, the second dustpan gag of the season were thriving. Oh, yeah.

Do you think like the comedy of threes we're going to get a third before things done? We simply have to. The sea hag will emerge from the water, clean something up very quickly, dust it off. They didn't dustpan up the cremains of the boogeyman. There is still time. Perhaps they should. This episode is directed by Andrew DeYoung, written by Emma Ketchum, a writer who we could not find other writing credits for. No.

We have some questions. If you or anyone you, know, know Emma Ketchum and have some things to say about her? If you are Emma, Missy, she'd be at Spotify.com, we loved your, I loved your episode. Rob, did you love this episode? I really loved it. I mean, look, I love Patricia. I love Halloween.

Therefore, I love this episode. Halloween, the holiday or Halloween the film franchise? I'm so glad you dressed, the film franchise. distinctly not the holiday. Yeah, you're not really, no. Not my vibe. No, okay. Are you a like stay-at-home watch horror movies Halloween guy?

Yeah, that part's great. Yeah, yeah. This year, I'm actually, I would love to go to the big Nightmare Before Christmas bash at the Hollywood Bowl. That's my Halloween plan for this year now as an L.A. resident. That we didn't get to see Catherine O'Hara while she was amongst us. Genuinely brutal. Okay, so the guy, and this is Rob. The guy I know, you Rob Mahoney, dresses up as Leonardo DiCaprio for various Leonardo DiCaprio marathons is anti the big houseup holiday.

I just don't want to be told what to do, you know? If it's a fake holiday I've invented and I get to exercise on my own terms, great. If it's like, oh, no, the institution of Big Halloween wants to go to the Spirit store. Oh, yeah, Big Halloween. I have to get you. Is it not? Is it not an industrial complex? It's a pagan holiday that has been appropriated by capitalism.

Put some respect on Sowan. All right. So, mailback. Several. So many. More than ever before, people have emailed us for us at Spotify. to say, and I quote, the secret warrant is Evan, you dumb-dums.

That's not what anyone wrote, but it's essentially. It's essentially, okay, so the secret Warren theory that we sort of entertained in last week's episode. Every single person on the internet is like, we're way ahead of you dumb,

it's clearly Evan. It's obviously Evan. We got some other possibilities to tell people we're like, what if it's WIC? We got a compelling Ruth theory that I quite liked, which I could talk about in a second,

but overwhelmingly. People think it's Evan and I really have to agree because narratively, this is by far the most interesting choice. If Tom's son, Evan Loftus, is the person that needs to die in order for the curse to be broken, and Tom, who if, you know, as you mentioned last week, if you go back and rewatch episodes previously in this season, little lines take on different meaning. So the fact that Tom in almost every single episode has said, where's Evan?

Is Evan okay? How's Evan doing? Like constantly tracking his teenage son, which the parents of Stranger Things could take some notes because often they forget they have children for episodes at a time, right? So Tom never dropped the ball on this. I mean, he might not always have his eye on Evan, but he is always wondering, where is Evan is he okay?

So is Evan okay being the like big question of the same? season possibly is narratively incredibly interesting and juicy. It makes a lot of sense. And I personally love a, as somebody who like, I will go to bed every day for the rest of my life for the video game, life is strange. A like person you love or the town critical choice right in my wheelhouse, right in my zone. So I am excited if it goes that way. I will say a couple things.

One, I think it could also be very narratively juicy if it was someone that Tom cares about who is not Evan. And in like, who does Tom care about? who's not Evan. I think Patricia is the most sensible candidate as the most established character who feels closest to Tom, who we have spent the most time with. And then it's a choice of like, nah, do you give up your son's life? Which, like, who's going to sacrifice their son for the sake of this town?

I think that's a pretty tough sell. Yeah, certainly not Abraham, I guess. Certainly. Perhaps not. But if it's like, oh, if it's sacrificing somebody else for the sake of your son's freedom, that's a different kind of intellectual exercise that I could also see the show engaging in. Especially, I mean, the absolute, you know, trauma of this episode where it, which opens with, we did it. Everything's fine.

The sun is shining. Tvers are enjoying their time. Tom is going to take Evan not only to a Red Sox games, but also to, like, look at colleges. And Evan's, like, excited to get off island and go look at colleges. I really like Evan so much. I do, too. We've gotten, we've kind of said that all season. But we've gotten some emails from people being like Evan's a little shit.

I don't really like him. I really disagree. Like I thought especially in this episode, the dramatic reveal in the mirror like, hello Tom or what it was really funny. But like Evan's anger at having the truth hidden from him, but his, you know, bewilderment and sorrow over these incredibly confusing and upsetting letters written by his mother and all that information. And ending not with like, I hate you, fuck you, like anything like that. But just, you know, when Tom says, because it would make me sadder than I already am, like, I just thought that was like incredibly lovely. And like, I think the two of them have, yes, it's a teenage boy and his dad,

but they have like kind of a really lovely relationship also. Truly. I mean, their relationship is going to be critical to the end game in one way or another. Whoever the secret Warren or Warrens end up being. And frankly, that's my larger point with all this stuff is. Are we crawling with warrants? Well, this is a very small island, and anyone born on the island cannot leave, we're told, and we assume at this point, without dying. Right.

Are there not lots of secret warrants? Great question. Very small gene pool here on Widows Bay. I think it's more narratively interesting if there is but one secret warren. Because the boogeyman has been going around killing all the other secret warrants? Ooh. Okay. On the secret warren, it's Evan, you dummies.

front. We've got the whole brooch angle. Oh, we're on brooch watch. Broach watch 2026. Also brooch spelling watch 2026. Reddit, the Widows Bay subreddit is aflame because a lot of people think you spell brooch as in broach the subject. Yes. But it's a double O brooch. This has caused a lot of arguments. So you're here to broach the etymology of brooch. Merriam-Webster says you can do it either way, honestly. So that's interesting to know. Anyway, The brooch that we see, Sarah Warren, as played by the great The Legend Betty Gilpin,

give to Francis Warren, the youngest girl who seems to be the child in the painting. The only child she acknowledged. Gives her the brooch to put on her doll. The brooch is not amongst the children's belongings in the museum. Indeed. The brooch does show up in episode five in a painting that Tom is looking at when he is tripping on the mushrooms. Oh, wow. He's sitting in City Hall and he is looking at this painting of this like old man gripping the neck of a woman next to him.

The woman has a missing finger, which young Francis Warren had a wagon wheel had a missing finger due to a wagon wheel incident and is wearing the brooch. So that is probably a grown-up Francis Warren with her terribly old husband. Seems like a lovely marriage the way he's gripping the back of her neck. You know what? Don't judge them. Anyway, where did that brooch go? Yeah. Eagle-eyed viewers have noted that when Evan, I had to, like, I was like, what the hell are you guys talking about?

I had to, like, really scour through the footage. When Evan and that racy off-isie off-island girl, Kelly, opened the black metal box that was in, it's boxes and boxes. The black metal box is in the trunk in Tom's room. Inside of that, there's a little, it's a, it's like a cardboard jewelry box. It's not like a velvet one, but like if you got earrings from the store. like a store and they came in a cardboard. A little nicer than clayors, I will say. Above costume jewelry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could it contain a brooch? Yes. It could contain any. It does look quite like jewelry boxish to me, but it could contain any number of jewelry items, but it is in there with the letters and the photos. It's on the bottom right if you want to go back and look at it.

So is that brooch something that, you know, Lauren Loftus, Tom's wife, had and is left behind with these other collectible items. It sure feels like it. It just feels like that's where we're headed. And there's even the seeds in terms of the letters that Evan is reading, the one about like everyone has two mothers, your mother and your secret mother.

There's just enough illusion in dancing around the idea that Lauren and therefore Evan would be of the war and bloodline. And therefore, for the purposes of this curse in real deep danger. A listener, Kat, I believe it was, wrote in, in terms of it being Francis Warren being the child that survived. Kat was like, it's important that it's a female descendant because then no one is going to be named Warren, right? Whoever Francis Warren, that old man who's gripping her neck, wherever she married, the Warren name is gone out of the equation. And then... So what I'm hearing is, for the purposes of mystery, patriarchy good?

We love the picture here. But also, as far as Patricia goes, believe women when they say the boogeyman is back. But what about when they say the boogeyman called them? What about if they say, I need your little baby hands to reach her my nose to take the scorpion out? It's complicated. I mean, you can believe that. I just wouldn't do it. Cat, our listener Kat says, this is, cat's like, my bet is that it's Ruth.

I think he explains why she's so tired and needs to frequently leave the office all the time. Commuting with the devil takes a lot of PTO. Great, great stuff from Kat. Okay, on the boogeyman front, you know, in terms of, like, who has been sacrificing people to the island to keep the island appeased all this while? Our listener Robert says, what if the boogeyman's victims were actually classic virgin sacrifices to quiet the island? Just instead of throwing them into a volcano, he baked them in a dryer. This would turn that monster into, not a hero exactly, but at least someone trying to combat the island's curse. And that would be a fun trope and version that seems like this show would have fun with.

That's about that, about the boogeyman being an island protector of some kind? I loved that email. I did think it was maybe slightly challenged, if not debunked, by this episode, in which the boogeyman is like just straight Michael Myers, as far as we know. But I also don't know Patricia's full sexual history. Is it possible that she has gotten to this age? And is, do we need to interrogate the virginity of characters? This is Lexi on Euphoria all over again.

I don't want to talk about it. Okay. Our listener, Jeff, wrote in to say, in the previous episode, when they mentioned the hospital you can drive by but not slowed down, Jeff said that place might contain Tom's wife, in my opinion. Since we were already hit with the, quote, haunted large building note with the hotel, I don't think they'll just repeat that. I think it's an active sanitarium with a clearly reputation wife slash mom is in there. The way that Tom was talking about, it does not seem like it is currently active. But I would not be surprised if that is where his wife was, you know, before she passed away.

Completely tracks. I also thought that moment in Tom and Evans' conversation where Tom, like, reflexively pushes back on the idea that it was an institution. Right. That it was an asylum and then has to, like, accept and say it out loud. Just so many great acting moments from Matthew Reese within this episode. I really agree. Some listeners and commenters were pushing back on my assessment that when Sarah, says in the previous episode, I am but four and ten. That means 40 instead of 14.

Yes. You're wrong. It's four and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie. Like that's 24. Like that's the construction. That's the whole thing. That's the construction. So I do not, I think, that's the whole joke. A lot of people were like, she doesn't look 14. I'm like, that's, that's the bit. That's the bit. That's the joke. Speaking of wrong, I was wrong. I just needed to get that small win in there before I said. 20 and four crows for you to eat on this one, unfortunately. My PJ Glenville theory is bullshit because that is not the same actor. I have a blonde teenage blindness and I apologize. I did not do my due diligence.

I really do think that previously I've been treating Widows Bay as like a fun show that we really liked that I was just sort of like, we're going in on euphoria and then we're also doing Widows Bay as a treat. My priorities have kind of flipped in the last week or so and I would say Widows Bay is my focus now. What was the inflection point, do you think? Like, what fully switched that balance? The quality of the show was on the one hand, but also just sort of like, getting that PJ Glanville thing wrong, just underlined to me that I was not taking this seriously

as seriously as I showed as a theory show, which it is, and I need to not be like flip with my theories and let's just get into the closing credits and scour for names and get really clear on what we're talking about. So here I am coming correct on Widows Bay. Look, we have a commitment to accuracy and X. on the prestige TV podcast. Sometimes.

Most of the time. I will say some of that's like you have to learn from the show too as far as like, okay, are the theory such a central part of the show? Is this a goofy horror show? It's a theory show. But I think the seeds had been there that it was a theory show from the beginning, but it was certainly a matter of like, okay, how seriously do we need to take every clue?

How much do we need to be looking for breadcrumbs around every corner? Or is it just going to be like, this episode is a fun romp and a haunted hotel, you know? Right. But I think the, like, the ways in which we've been able to go back and, like re-examine certain lines. And this secret war in business is like, which seems like it will be so integral to the end game here. It's not over, right?

This is a meticulously constructed show, impressively so. Absolutely. Our listener Patrick wrote in with a theory that the hallucinatory experiences in the hotel episode with not just Tom, but with also Kurt, the innkeeper, locked in sort of the captain's room, the losing time, all that sort of stuff. that when they go in and later say there's black mold on the walls. To me, I thought that meant

time had passed differently and like mold had grown on the walls. But Patrick is like, is that connected to the black mushroom? Like, is the black mushroom and the black mold in the hotel sort of of a similar strain and like wherever there be. Spooky black fungus? Yeah. Something to be concerned about. Once the black algae comes up, like we're going to be really in business. There's a whole sub-genre of horror fiction writing that is like fungus-based. Is it because of our just like deep lack of understanding? Like there's a line at which we understand what the fungi are up to. And then there's a point at which scientists are like, I'm going to be honest,

we don't know what they're doing or thinking. Somebody sent me, I have not. Okay. Let me just be really clear. I've not done my journalistic due diligence and like source this article. But someone has sent me an article. I haven't read it yet. So I haven't read it yet.

I'm not co-signing this. But people sent me spooky mushrooms articles all the time because of the last of us. So they sent me one that was about how a mushroom learned how to crawl via a robot body. Like they put a mushroom in a robot and it learned to crawl. And I'm like, if that's true, again, that might be bullshit. Why are we doing that? Why are we training them? Why are we doing that?

They've evolved into weird parasitic excellence all of their own. I don't want to facilitate it. Scientists, why are we doing that? That's like sort of my rallying cry of 2026. Okay, just a couple more things before we can get more seriously into this episode. You were asking where the old Warren house was. We had a lot of people right in saying the historical society is the old Warren house. But our listener Nicole noted that the historical society is like right across the street from the restaurant.

The salty whale. Yes. So it's all, I mean, it's a small town. It's a small town is a small island. Here's my only bone to pick with this episode. Patricia doesn't know that Michelle is very pregnant. She is very pregnant. She doesn't know.

Where has Bashir's wife? Has she been in confinement? Like ye oldy times? Nobody knows his wife is pregnant? And if then, would you not ask a question after she's disappeared from public view for however many months? She's so pregnant. And there's one gas station. We don't all know that she's pregnant.

Yeah. That was my only question. But Bashir being in the gas station being like, I have to eat this here. My wife doesn't want to smell it. But I'm like, yeah, that's a pregnant lady plus we saw. Okay. A fun theory that's going around is that Abigail, who is the woman that Sarah knocked into the ocean with the ore. Who is infected by the plague.

Is the sea hag herself. I do love this. Fun. The actress is V.N. Cox, who, as I mentioned, she's in You've Got Mail, Maisel. Like, she's been around for a gazillion years, and it would be really fun. I do believe the sea hag is played by a different actor. A one million percent of it. I'm not PJ Glenn Villainless.

I'm not saying that's the same actress. We're just getting ahead of it. These are different actors. These are different actors. That said a lot of time has passed. You know, maybe you do a little recasting. Sometimes when you got to hag it up, it gets a little different. Last month at least, this is not an email.

I just want to put this on the record. Okay. You have convinced me. What have I done? Via friendship to go see the film Speed Racer. By the time this episode drops, I will already have seen Speed Racer at the Egyptian here in Los Angeles. Yeah.

Okay. In exchange... First of all, you're welcome. In exchange, you said you would watch Midnight Mass. I did. So I'm just putting that on the microphone. You haven't watched it yet. I haven't watched Speed Racer yet, but I will see Speed Racer.

Yes. When all the basketballing is done, and perhaps you have some more of your life back. I think perhaps sooner. We can at least start sooner. Okay. You will enjoy some Midnight Mass, and then you will understand why people are talking about Midnight Mass so much in relation to this show. I can't wait.

You're all of it. My only question for you is, is there like a run-time? equivalency here. Like, do you need to watch Speed Racer five times? But the thing is, I don't think I'll like Speed Racer and you know you'll love Midnight Mass.

I know for a fact you are going to love Speed Racer. Okay. Quick timeline for Widows Bay. Just some major events that have happened that I just want to run through. So in the, in 1702,

and I shout out the Widows Bay subreddit, which is just thriving. I got this off the subreddit. Okay. In the year 1702, a plague reaches the island. And the same year, founding father Richard Warren, marries Sarah Westcott.

He also carries a cylinder containing the heart of the plague affecting Widows Bay. Okay. 1786, a deadly storm strikes Widows Bay, forcing the residents to take shelter inside the church. Four days later, they turned to cannibalism.

So 702, and then 1786. 1810, the SS Mary sets sail from Widows Bay, but while returning to the island, the mayor orders the lighthouse to be shut down, coveting the captain's bride. The ship crashes,

killing everyone on board. That's 1810. 1846. The fog that stole the souls occurs. A supernatural fog engulfs the island, presumably carrying ghosts of the SS Mary sailors. 1873, SS Mary still featuring. A ghostly ship appears off the coast of Widows Bay,

the SS Mary, which had sunk 62 years earlier. Okay. Fast forward, 1991. A serial killer clown terrorizes the Widows Bay in. Yep. 1962, a devastating New Year's Eve, disaster strikes Widows Bay. 2000. A serial killer targeted.

teenage girls in Widows Bay earning the nickname the Boogie Man. The year 2026. The fog returns. A sea hag emerges. General Haggery ensues. Again, this is quoting the subreddit, but I co-signed. Our Queen Patricia gets tricked by a curse book,

throws a party, and nearly gets everyone drowned in the bay. Accurate? The bogeyman returns and a storms a Bruin. So, like, in terms of calamitous things that have befallen, Widows' bed, Yeah.

This is just like a, you know, a rapid acceleration of all the things are coming back here in the year 2026. A couple more incidents that we don't have years for, the witch burnings. We don't have quite a year for that. The captain from the inn who lost his mind. And then the ungrateful Hortense Fitzgerald, our most favorite incident. So that's, I mean, I don't know, it's just fun to think about, not fun, ha-ha, but like it is fun. To think about, you know, how many dates they've thrown at us. Yeah.

But we don't have a sort of like every 10 years or every five years or something like that. The island and its capricious thirst for blood and souls to devour doesn't seem to have a set schedule that we understand yet. Well, it's when it gets hungry, the bell rings. Got it. And then you bring whichever body you would like to sacrifice down into the little chair dungeon, open up the panel. Or maybe you don't even need to open the door. Maybe it's going to open the door. You just leave whoever you want in the chair, be on your way, and you buy yourself 8.000.

to nine years of a peaceful tranquility. In people scouring the items that are in the museum, there is like a barbed wire thing that almost looks like a crown of thorns. Like it's very Jesus-y and it's construction. But right next to it is like a leather cuff that looks like perhaps it is a cuff that was once attached to said chair. So again, this is like a secret hiding in plain sight of this town. who knows.

Again, this is the question we were asking ourselves last week, who knows? Genuinely terrifying. But again, as you are laying out all these dates, all I'm hearing

is there have been hundreds of years of war and propagation. And there have to be so many more warrants out there. I thought you said war and propagation, but war and propagation, sure. All right,

so you think we're just crawling with warrants. I think if this were true to the family tree, it would have, this island would be riddled with warrants. Narratively, we're going to have one to two warrants.

Let's circle back. I don't think it's physically possible for a novel to be longer than war in peace. You're trying to skate that by me and I don't think it's true. But war on propagation could be. I don't think so. Is that just the Bible? Honestly, yes.

All right. This episode, episode eight, we're finally getting to it. Rob, given your enthusiasm for Orinoco Flow, which appeared earlier in our prestige experience this season, industry, right? It was industry. Anya came up. How did you feel about Caribbean blue Enya being here in this episode?

Ecstatic. Do you think Patricia is an Enya listener? Does that track for you? Yes. She owns pure moods. I love it. Do you think, how much did you, I mean, I'm so sorry that her order got fucked up

and she doesn't want to get anyone in trouble. She just wants them to like maybe learn from the experience. Patricia, satisfied with her work. She helped save the island, she thinks. Enia on. Moderate to heavy poor. of the red wine, her preferred wine. Why are you being judgmental?

I'm not judgmental. Okay. I'm celebrating. She doesn't have to be around those like mean women who are like, we're all drinking white. If you want to drink red,

that's fine, Patricia. She just can drink red in peace, but not in peace because the boogeyman's there. But you know, barely. Because she tried to get chicken parma coconut cream pie and she ended up with whatever

like high protein diet nightmare this alternative order was. Unkillable monster trope in film TV and mythology. Okay. So as you noted, we are definitely doing Michael Myers here. I mean, other than Jaws, I would say, the clearest comp we've done to another, you know, and the shining, I guess.

But, like, this is even clear, I would say. And here's, here's where I'm going to hopefully delight you with some stunt, stunt actor information. Okay. So, we have a, we have, uh, Aaron Armstrong, spelled in a really fun way, A-I-R-O-N. Okay. Aaron Armstrong is playing the boogeyman. Aaron Armstrong played the shape

in David Gordon Green's Halloween kills the shape in 1988 7878 so he played you know Michael Myers essentially like in 78 right? So if you go on his Instagram

it's just like full of him in the Michael Myers mask so like they got a guy he's been here who like has done this he knows how to stalk he can fall and get up again.

He's got it. A fun fact is that the actor playing, he's only listed as employee, but the gas station attendant, the one employee at the gas station. May he rest in peace. Is he dead? I mean, it was quite a throw. He got hurled into the canopy of the woods. It was quite a throw.

He was only trying to run his gas station. And save a life. He really thought he was doing a good thing. That's also a stunt act. his name is David Armstrong. So Aaron Armstrong and David Armstrong. Are they brothers? I could not conclusively prove this.

So they do have similar cheekbones, but I could not find clear evidence. They have both worked on Marvel Netflix shows, The Defender Show. David Armstrong, who plays the gas station attention, was the Iron Fist double for Finn Jones. He also, he's been involved in a couple of cursed properties. He was Finn Jones double for Iron Fist,

and he was also in Spider-Man, turn off the dark on Broadway in the Spidey suit. So these are things he's done. But he's incredible. Like if you go on his Instagram, and again, I was trying to match these brothers. But if you go on his Instagram, like he's incredible.

Yeah. But I love the idea that they, I almost like the idea, if they are brothers or if they know each other or whatever, but they cast him just for this, like this moment, this lift and throw. And they got like two season stunt performers to do this.

Like, I think that's kind of great. The brotherly love of one stunt performer who has been Michael Myers being faux, Michael Myers getting to throw his brother into the woods? I kind of like that as an idea. I genuinely do. And there's like history.

Heidi and Renee Moneymaker, who are two of my favorite female stunt performers, sisters, like they're incredible. They're a dynasty. So I love this idea of a stunt dynasty. Anyway, so this is our boogeyman here. What do you attribute that to? Is that nature or nurture? Is that just like there's something in their DNA that is thrill-seeking? I think they're probably, no.

I think they're probably like, you know, physically like predisposed to this kind of work. And then like, probably, yeah, you see your older sibling is like, your boyfriend is like, your both athletes probably because like all stunt people were probably athletes as kids, right? So you're athletes and then you see your older sibling like get into this thing and you're like, oh wow, I want to do that too and it's pretty great. But in terms of like the Unkillable Monster Trope and film TV mythology, Michael Myers is not obviously like the original version of this. John Carpenter has said that Yule Brenner in Westworld, the Unkillable Cowboy in Westworld was his like main inspo. There's also like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Like,

all sorts of stuff. And then in mythology, you know, even richer across the globe, this is a trope. And usually there's like one thing that will do it. In this case, Patricia hopes it's incineration. It's a decent bet. Who's to say? The dustpan might return. I don't know.

But one mythological creature that I thought was interesting was Typhon, which is this Greek mythological creature monster, uncillable monster. with Echidna, the father and mother of, like, most mythological monsters, but was ultimately defeated by Zeus with lightning bolts. And I was just sort of like thinking about Patricia's taser in that context. Like, what is the taser if not Zeus's lightning bolt of Widows Bay? It's a great connection. I mean, the stun gun being the closest thing we have to Zeus,

I find to be true of modern life. And I love that power for Patricia specifically, even if she's only at 2%. Is it a stun gun or a taser? Is there a difference? I believe that is a stun gun. Okay. What's the difference?

The taser is the one that looks shape-wise, counterintuitively, a little more like a gun, and shoots out the dart that then electrocutes. I think that is a taser. I believe so. Okay. But could be hideously wrong, and we'll issue another correction if that is the case.

This is a great bit. The, like, low battery on this, the needing to charge it. Yeah. The tripping on the cord at one point. So one, charger devices. Yeah. Two, proper cord management at all.

times. It will keep you alive. Keep the stun gun and or taser fully charge at all times what you're saying. I do think, look, I have a couple of small notes execution-wise. If you are someone like Patricia, are you not keeping the stun gun in like your bedside table? Like, why is that by the front door? Well, maybe she has one upstairs as well. Maybe she's got multiple.

Maybe she's got three or four just scattered around the home. Okay, that part makes sense. Yeah, and this is the foyer one. Yes. I understand why from the moment that this dude is set on fire, why Patricia's like, I'm just going to stand here with this. the shotgun. And honestly, my favorite moment and stretch of the whole episode, even of putting the Nya aside. Just the whole thing of the shotgun to his head, beat for beat

for beat every step of the way. Really wonderful stuff. I mean, I did have just have the question of, I understand why Patricia is not doing this, but anyone else involved, the EMTs or otherwise, is there no curiosity whatsoever to take off this dude's mask? And maybe you already are so sure this is the exact same guy who was the boogeyman before. Do you not want to just make sure? Do you not want to see what state he's in. And I think earlier in the episode, too, when you first see the boogeyman and you first get this reveal that the mask has been stolen, I at least had the thought of, is this somebody playing a cruel prank on Patricia?

And clearly that has proven wrong over time. This isn't a mortal being who's getting up after every fall. But, like, I didn't think it was Chris, but it's like, could Chris have hired somebody to scare Patricia for some cheap revenge? I'm just saying, you got to take off the mask. We've seen this green franchise. It could be anyone under the mask. Could be Skeeterlrich, it could be Matthew Willard, it could be anyone.

Spoilers for all the screams. Just the first one. Okay, fair. I preserve the rest. The thing that I really like about this is because this is a recurrence of the boogeyman. Yeah. Because this is essentially like Halloween 2. Yes.

Right? This is any version of Halloween where Lori Strode is not believed about anything that happened to her. But specifically Halloween 2, there's a moment in Halloween 2. where, I think it's Dr. Loomis is saying, like, you know, a law enforcement officer is, like, over the corpse of Michael Myers, and he's, like, get away from him. He's not dead. And the Michael Myers slits that dude's throat, right?

So, like, we get exactly that with the EMT here. So I like that this is a sequel. And this whole idea of, like, again, believe women or whatever. Believe Patricia, except she wasn't always telling the truth. But she's mostly telling the truth. When she shows up at Book Club and she's, like, trying to help them. But also aren't we kind of like, get them, bogeyman? That's the thing.

Like, get Chris at least, you know? They really walk the line on like, and this is what great horror movies do. It's like, you kind of do want to see some people die. Yeah. And you want to pick and choose who it is and you may be right, you may be wrong. Protect Patricia. Obviously. But like, some of those women get to go.

Chris especially. Chris getting tased or stun gunned was like incredible. Incredibly funny. Yeah. A great, just like, surprise moment within this episode. But I love that kind of Halloween too dynamic. or if you even want to take the sequel part out of it, Patricia as like somebody who is very fluent in horror movies almost.

Like she's not doing any of the, I would say maybe putting aside the occasional like stop and wait to see if he shows up. But she's leaving nothing to chance. Like she's getting her traps laid. She's there with the shotgun. She's like, I am not, I'm not letting anyone fuck up this chain of incineration.

Well, the thing that I like, again, and Widows Bay has been so good about this from the beginning is we are not so far. far ahead of the audience. So we see that the boogeyman mask is gone and immediately Wix's like, I'm going to the house and then I'm going to find Patricia. And even though Wick does not ultimately like,

is not integral into saving Patricia already in case, like he's on it, right? And the Patricia, as soon, like, you know, she gets lured outside and doesn't notice that her front doors open, but like pretty quickly is like, there's fucking someone here. There's creepy breathing in this

next room. I'm out of here. You know, and so she's not like I'm going to take my time, get ready for better. You know what I mean? It's just sort of like she's with us, the audience, when we're like, there's a dude there and you've got to run. And the dread of that filmmaking, I thought was really effective. From the moment you see the open door and you get the heavy breathing and you get her trying

to sneak out the front and just like you as an audience member are trained to every dark corner and like trying to see like, is there somebody there? Is there a boogeyman there? Is there a normal human there? Like pulling us into that experience is such a key part of what makes effective horror. And like the fact that they're able to do that and do the jokes at the same time, I'm just never going to stop being impressed by that. I know, I know.

Something that I really love is that among all these other things, Cato Flynn's physical comedy, which we have been praising the whole time, her dancing in the previous episode, etc. Like all of her running stuff is so funny. Her costume in this episode, the oversized shirt, the shorts, and then the like muckluck wool like slippers that come up to your, like, that whole look is so good and just like so perfectly encapsulates this like beautifully awkward, storky sort of like run thing that she does and I just think it's so good.

She somehow manages to look like someone who is running for the first time. And that's really all you want in this kind of horror setup. I have a question for the people for the inhabitants of Widows Bay. Okay. Are they all on sleeping pills? like no one's waking up, Patricia's running around and screaming her head off and everyone is sleeping soundly. It's very quiet there too. Yeah.

Anyone's running around screaming bloody murder. Although one of the things I do love about this sequence is how like out of breath she is. Like she's almost like trying to scream but gasping instead. Really effective. But yeah, the banging on the doors, the screaming, you would think some neighbor. Also who like, what time is it? Maybe the episode says, but like is it a really late night book club? Or are just a lot of people asleep very early on this island?

I think it's like 9 o'clock. Okay. The Lovely Bones Book Club. I just want to say, Chris, who one of our listeners a while ago emailed to remind us that Chris is the name of one of the bullies in Carrie. So like, you know, a perfect naming for this character. Chris reading the lovely bones and being like enraptured by the quote unquote love story inside the lovely bones.

I'm glad that her friends were making fun of her for that. Like, Goofy is not, you know, condemnation enough for Chris being like, oh, and they had their little, like, matching necklaces. Oh, my God. I was... Everything regarding the lovely bones in this episode is very good.

And just, like, the fact that they would pick that for their book club is very funny in a way that I cannot explain why. Like, exactly what that touches, but it certainly does. You shouted out the... In the gas station in the previous episode, they were playing 311. Amber, right? Yes.

In this episode, we're playing Absolutely Story of a Girl by nine days. How many days in a year? She looked so sad in photographs. We absolutely love her, though. That's Evan's mom. When she smiles.

And when she smiles. Only when she smiles. Absolutely, Story of a Girl nine days. Amber 311. This is a real, like, time warp gas station sort of thing. And on the one hand, is it, this is the muzac of

20 years ago. But also the lovely bones was written in 2002. Story of a Girl, absolutely story of a girl, is a 2000 track. The Boogie Man first appeared in like 2000.

So like is this just like sort of we're back in the time period of when the boogeyman was first haunted the island? Just like a subtle sort of time warp energy. I think it's probably some of that and also some of this idea

that we've talked about in previous pods of just like everything here feels a little behind the mainland, right? Like, there's just, like, a disconnect between normal, modern life and this place where, like, there's shit for cell reception. Maybe there's no Wi-Fi whatsoever. We're streaming, like, old British horror movies. This is just kind of what the vibe is on Widows Bay.

The dream. Look, I would welcome it. I would welcome many parts of living in Widows Bay. Boogie men aside. Can I just say that this, I think, further proves my theory that cell phones ruin most movies. Because if Patricia had a charged cell phone that she could use to call WIC or Tom or anyone else, those two people probably specifically, to come help her, that's the end of the episode to a certain degree. But all you have to do for that is like she was so scared or startled or she didn't bring it with her when she went to go check out the paddy wagon.

And then she comes back in and it's like across the room, it's upstairs. It's in the creepy room with the boogey man, whatever it is. I just think this show is so much better because we can't. not use the cell phone at all as a crutch, a narrative crutch. I'm not going to fight you on it. Everything about life in general will be better without the cell phone connection. And yet here we are tethered to them. Yeah.

Let's talk about Talman Evan, if there's anything we haven't hit so far. What do you want to talk about? I think it is scarier somehow that Lauren wasn't possessed or afflicted by something supernatural. And it is just like she had a stroke and a psychotic break. If that's all there is, maybe there's more to it. Maybe it's a deeper, darker story than that. But I think, I mean, you and I share, I think, a bond over these sorts of supernatural-type stories and when something just like very human and normal, but also depressing and tragic happens within them,

it can be like the most gutting element. And that's where kind of my mind went in hearing what it seems happened to Lauren. You're alluding to, I think, a very famous storyline that we won't spoil in case Mallory's listened to this podcast from Buffy Vampire Slayer. Yes. But like I was also thinking about Buffy and I was thinking about the way in which like real life tragedies can become supernatural inside of this world

because like if you know preeclampsia being becoming this sort of like I don't know Jane Eyre like mad woman in the attic like my hidden like you know mentally unwell wife like turning turning something that sounds so literal and medical into this sort of gothic horror idea of I've uncovered this secret that my father kept about my mother. And the ravings inside of these letters certainly sound, you know, spookier than you would think. So yeah, it can go either way, I think, in that regard. But either way, we're thinking about Buffy, which is very unbrand for us. It is very on brand for us. But yeah, I just love the treatment of it within those sorts of

concept. And like it doesn't feel out of scope with the genre trappings of this show. It felt it felt true to what the story is and has been. And the idea that of all of these secrets of, you know, dead, dead slash undead founders who were buried alive of like all of the mysteries of the island that some are just like family mysteries that become this larger than life legendary kind of thing. How did you feel about Matthew Reese's performance in this episode? I mean, he's had been having like so much slapstick fun all season. And we, We've raved about that. I love that aspect of what he's getting to do on the show

because I think it's very different from what he's often asked to do. To me, he has always been, or most commonly been, the kind of performer who can just so easily tap into this deep, profound sadness on a dime. Absolutely out of nowhere, he's so charming.

He can dial that part of it up and then it's just undercuts and just stabs you in the side with some bit of tragic backstory. This is the Welsh way, Rob. Is it? You know? Yeah.

We're a sorrowful person. I'm sorry about that for you and I guess from Matthew Reese but damn if it isn't effective. Yeah, he's so good in this episode. Like, he's so good always, but like I just think that and establishing all of that

with Tom and Evan with them finding, like him coming clean. Him having this other stash of photos of Lauren behind a book, like, I don't know, more at the ready for him to grab. I don't know why they were tucked away there. I think just the idea, though,

that there are, these are being hidden for multiple reasons, right? Like, there's the things he's keeping from Evan. And then there's just, like, the parts that he's keeping from himself. So, like, he doesn't want to have to grapple with on a daily basis. And so that part of, like, this, like, the person I love wouldn't want you to remember the person who wrote this letters is such an understandable and deeply depressing idea and one that would weigh down a family and weigh down a father. And the idea that we're seeing him try to understand, like, what do I share with Evan

when and I'm going to bring out these photos that are sad to me that bring me down because in this moment they're like a heartening idea. The idea of who Lauren was and the life that she led before all this is somehow like now the happy thing that brings them together. We did get an answer from production on this show about the parentage between Tom and Evan. Did we? They labeled the email, Rob, don't read this.

I did not read it. Do you want to like close your eyes for a second and I'll just. just tell the camera. Let's do it. Okay. We'll just zone out for a little bit. Do your thing. All right.

We're done. That was it? I just mount it. They have to leave my lips. And they have to watch the video in order to know. You got to throw on the subtitles, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's,

that's information we have that Rob doesn't have. Thank you for protecting my innocence. I always protect your innocence. So let's talk about, we've got two more episodes left. Yeah. What, you know, obviously this, you know, it isn't over. So our intrepresenting. But heroes are going to try to figure out if there's a warrant still alive.

How do we eliminate them? And presumably the reveal that it's Evan. The last two episodes are called emergency shelter, so a storms are brewing. And we hope you enjoyed your time. Bashir and his pregnant wife, you know, have been told by Patricia, get the full. fuck off the island. Yeah. But if this is Jurassic Park rules

and a storm is a brewing, can you even get off the island? You think this is like Isla Newbar? Like you got to get in my chopper? Well, you got to get on the last boat or else the storm's here and you can't get on the boat. We're on a ferry

schedule. Yeah. It seems morning based from what we've seen. Although I imagine there's a later in the evening off the island, right? That makes sense. Yeah, I mean, we've already had copious warnings about like, oh, if there's thick fog, we're going to throw that schedule to the wind. Like, it's nothing. So bad news for Bashir and his wife, bad news for all the off-island girls still on the island, bad news for the many visitors around the diner who were just like having a

good time planning their holiday. You don't care about the off-island girls. Don't pretend now that you care about the off-island girls. I care about their general well-being. In the pecking order of people who I wouldn't mind dying in Widows Bay, yeah, like Chris and some of the mean girls, really Chris most of all. The other women are like along for the ride in a way. They're a name. They are. They don't stop Chris. I'm not excusing them. And just the idea of like the whole like bye,

you don't have any friends because you're a psycho, just completely uncalled for. I mean, and then she got stun gunned and or tased and it was great. Can we stop for a moment and just appreciate what Patricia has been through over the stretch? You alluded to some of it, but it's like she almost kills the entire town in a bonfire.

Yeah. That night she goes with Wick and Tom and finds the Reverend's dead body hung on his own door. Then she spends the next day babysitting Tom through his spooky mushroom trip. I mean, kind of off and on. But she's got things to do. She's popping around town. Worst babysitter ever.

It's not great. I'm not saying she did a great job. Terrible job. Then she encounters the eternal corpse of Richard Boren, dug him up, clearly has seen some shit. Possibly offended him by something she said. And then it's chased down by the boogeyman. This is like 72 hours. Yeah.

You know? She's been through it. She's allowed to stun gun somebody. And if it happens to be Chris, all the better. I really agree. And you're right. It is... I'm not that you thought you were wrong, but I googled it.

You're right. It's a stun gun. We're just fact-checking gun-shy this week. You know what? I don't want to be wrong again. We'll be fucking dotted. Okay. So Bashir and his wife, anything about WIC

in terms of these final two episodes that you're thinking about. I mean, we have to get closure with Jerry. They have to have a conversation, no? Or you think this is it for them? Do you think, are you rooting for Jerry's husband to die so that Wiccan step in? I didn't say that. Sounds like. I'm also for the sake of fact checking.

Not sure they're married. Maybe they're just, you know. Or fella. They're partners. Sure. They're dating. I don't know. You're right.

I didn't ring check the fingers. Maybe Jerry's a swinger. I don't want to make too many assumptions. Whatever happens in Widows Bay stays in Widows Bay clearly because you cannot get off this goddamn island. Because the last fairy's gone and a storm's a Bruin. Yeah. All right.

So we have not talked about, uh, Dale and Rosemary, they're barely in this episode, but we do get this great, like, is it skin cancer? Yep, moment with Rosemary and Dale. Ruth is also here. Ruth, crucially, I will say, basically says,

hey, the mob, the angry mob has been calling for you. She names a bunch of people, and this sounds like sort of the action committee that is coming for Mayor Tom Loftus. So is that going to play a part in the final two episodes? Simply has to. So, yeah, what are the reminders we get of loose threads?

I think the angry mob, for sure. Just the existence of Rosemary and Dale and Ruth, who I imagine if everyone is like battening down the hatches. Sheltering in place sort of thing. We're going to have to account for them. Yeah. You know, touching base on the Wick Jerry stuff, but not concluding it.

Are there any other kind of dangling threads that we should keep an eye on? Um, I don't know. Where are the off island girls? What is PJ Glanfield doing? He may not be an immortal spirit, but he's up to no good. He's up to no good. Has everything been resolved churchwise? Has everything been resolved black mushroom wise, bell wise?

Never. Is that reptile still in a walkabout? I don't know. By the end of the season, will we see somebody in real-time present tense put in the sacrifice chair? Are we going to see that the big steel doors open? But then is it over?

If someone gets sacrificed before the season's over, is the cursiated or does it thirst for more blood? I mean, to me, that's like the out, right? It's not as so simple as like, do you kill your son or protect the island? It's like there is another path here to buy time. Well, right. This puts Tom in the Richard Warren spot. Right.

Richard Warren, who's like, my children, you know, had this tender, you know, thought towards his children, not towards his second wife, for sure, not towards his first wife, it seems like. Nope. Not really caring about the wives. But, yeah. Also, you know, it's interesting for Bashir's wife to show up in this episode. because a lot of people have pointed out that, like, other than now, Bashir and Shell, we have not seen any existent couples.

Well, Jerry and her fella, I guess. Yeah. But, like, that Tom is single, that Wick is single, that Patricia is single, and that we have not seen, like, any other, you know, couples. And they're like, is that, you know. I mean, it's a pretty limited dating pool. Like, you can marry an off-island person.

But you've got to convince him to come. Like, I'm just saying you get to the bottom of the hinge bucket real fast in Windows Bay. Like, you keep swiping and the app is just like, sorry, guy. I don't know. Two extremely handsome EMTs showed up. Now, only one of them walked away. Yeah, where are those guys come from? Really hot.

Like, I think Patricia keeps encountering like incredibly hot men on this island. So I love this for her, you know? I thought she and that other EMT had a moment. I mean, she at least tried to save his life. Maybe kind of did. Certainly save Bashir's life. Yeah. Patricia's a hero, you know?

I agree. If the dating pool isn't good enough for her, who is it good enough for? I was really worried when Bashir got slashed in the belly. I'm glad that he seems okay. Along those lines, I mean, just the coolest thing anyone can do on screen is reload a pump action shotgun. And the fact that Patricia gets to do it, let's fucking ride. I also loved her, like, I mean, obviously, sorry, we're all over the map now. But I will say the whole, like, her plan that she forms to, like, put gas in the ground and then use her stun gun, not a taser to light it up.

and then she's like, oh, wait, I have to go pay for gas and runs inside. Like, hey, guess what? The show rules. It's so funny. It's such a funny payoff for just the slow walking Michael Myers thing in general. I really thought they nailed so many of those aspects. That's what happens when you get one of the Armstrong brothers potentially to play Michael Myers. This is why you go to the source of one of the random Halloween sequel slash reboots to get a version of Michael Myers.

There's one shot in particular where we get a lot during the chase of Patricia kind of runs off screen. and then you're kind of waiting for the boogeyman to catch up. And on one of those occasions, the boogeyman is like three times closer to the camera than you expect. And it's just like it's something like that where it just kind of depressurizes the situation. You get kind of the jump of being scared, but also the relief of the surprise at the same time. Just yet another way the show is just kind of perfectly calibrated right now. Also, the score is really good in terms of the sort of mimicking of the Halloween score, but doing its own special thing in the same time.

It's a tough one to mimic, you know? Carpenter's Carpenter for a reason. Anything else. Joe, I do have one last thing. If you were Jerry or a member of the historical society, if you're a fine citizen of Widows Bay, are you eager to put the implements of a mass murderer who may be an immortal beast of some kind,

like the Bucky Man, on display in your museum? Are you putting the mask in there? If you're also saying like the witches, caught them, burn them, like if that's your vibe, Jerry, I think you are. If you're like cannibalism, you know, Like that's what the whole historical society is. That feels like history.

This is not an outlier at all. I guess not. Especially, look, we live in a true crime era for the people of Wittos Bay. This is true crime. Maybe I am just a little squeamish around this idea. But like serial killer notes and recollections and masks feels a little grotesque. I don't even like true crime podcasts. Like I don't like a murder podcast.

I'm not. You prefer the lived experience. You prefer to be doing the murders. But so would I go to the historical society? No, not ever, not once. Okay. But again, options are limited on this island of recreations. So something to think about.

We got to get Evan off here. We got to get him to college. To college. Gets to ponder. He was so excited. He doesn't want to walk the freedom trail, but he has a lot of other things that he wants to do. Well, now that he's known one off island girl, he's like, one, are they all like that?

that, and I need to investigate. And clearly, he wants, he wants to go to campus, whatever campus that might be in the greater Boston area. Or off campus, you know. Hey, all right. So that is where it was. Bay, episode eight. If we missed anything on like brooch watch or anything else,

press TV at Spotify.com. I did enjoy all of the secret warrant emails that we got this week, some great stuff. Genuinely amazing. If you are one of the Armstrong Stunt brothers and you're actually brothers, and I could not confirm that, please let us know. Anything else that they should email us about, Rob? Or if you're Emma Ketchum, right? Those are our two asks for the week.

And Aaron and David Armstrong email us. I think that's it. I think that's a great podcast. Okay. I think we did it. I think we said everything completely factually accurately. Possibly. Maybe for the first time in podcast history, but we did it.

All right. Thank you to DeVernaldo. Hi, Grady. Jacob Cornett. I also heard Chris Weller's voice. So Chris is around here somewhere. Of course. Thank you to Chris Waller's.

Thank you to mysterious basements. Thank you to broaches. Thank you to brooches. I mean, they're always doing important work. Yeah. Thank you to a lone. sausage link in a styrofoam container. Nothing has ever looked

sadder. Thank you to Patricia for phoning in her complaint. It fell on deaf ears in a full voicemail inbox. But she didn't want to get that person in trouble. She's not trying to cost anybody their job. No. Just wants them to know so they can learn. That's very me energy. Thank you, Rob Mahoney.

Thank you, Joe. I should say, Friday Night Lights, we did an episode that's in the feed. If you guys didn't check that out. Euphoria finale will have happened by the time this episode's drop. But it'll be there on the feed for you to revisit. Will we ever be the same again? Who's to say? And then of course, more what was and Cape Fear is something we're going to be starting soon. We will be covering Cape Fear. Also on Apple. Apple spooks and chills and fears. It really is stalking season. Oh, also, the Hacks finale aired last night.

I haven't had a chance to watch it yet by the time we're recording this, but I might drop like a hacks finale reaction into our Euphoria finale. Just like a brief like, this is how much I cried or whatever. I would love that. Okay. Bye. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up?

That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.