The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Widows Bay' Episodes 6-7: Generational Trauma

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Jo and Rob brave stormy waters, family trauma, and possibly a kraken in their 'Widow’s Bay' recap. Intro (0:00)Mailbag Check-In (2:56)‘Our History’ (17:08)The Door-Chair Set Up (22:40)Favorite Bit of Lore (26:15)‘Seasickness’ (32:15)Best Bit of Lore Round 2 (38:27)Favorite City Employee (44:20)Favorite Obvious Joke (46:02)Favorite Throw Away Joke (46:44)Favorite Horror Movie Reference / Easter Egg (47:29)Best Haunt / Scare (49:03)New England’s Best Kept Secret (52:22)The Rhys Piece (54:56)The (Stephen) Root of the Matter (56:05)Theories (57:37)Outro (1:01:32) 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 MahoneyProducers: Devon Renaldo and Kai GradyStudio Production: Jacob CornettAdditional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

with the Prestige TV podcast feed, I'm Joyna Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney. And we're here to talk about Widows Bay. Episodes 6 and 7, which aired together. So if you only watched one episode, guess what? There's another one waiting for you. Just sitting there. Double drop.

Because it was a episode 6 was a little different. Meandering. A flashback sort of contained episode. And so they dropped another one just so you were like, how long were you to be in the 1700s? Not too long. Okay. How do you feel about that structure overall?

Like we get a lot of, you know, the penultimate steps. get back kind of episodes in a lot of shows right now. I kind of like it if you're going to do it. You also have to do the follow up moving the ball forward episode packaged with it. I think it was really smart to double drop them. And also we'll talk about this, but I was always watching it. I was like, wow, this is as if the lost episode across the sea, which is a notoriously hated episode in the final season, was like in season one instead.

There's just like a lot of lore info here. It's amazing. Out of the gate. I was like, that's a fascinating thing to do. Okay, so episode six, our history, directed by famed horror director Ty West, written by Alberto Roldan, who wrote on Gaslit, which I've brought up a couple times because of my fondness for Betty Gilpin. Maybe not on pod, but you've heard me reference it a couple times. Nobody talks about Gaslit, and they should because Betty Gilpin is amazing. And that Betty Gilpin, of course, is the star of, I would say the star of episode six.

Yes. Hamish Lynn Claytors also here we can talk about him. And then episode 7, C-Signess, directed by Sam Donovan, who also directed episode four Beatriz, which we loved. And written by Dave Harris, who is a staff writer on season one of interview with the vampire, one of my favorite shows of all time. So this is just an incredible assemblage of talent here. Thai West, I was asking you before we started recording. Obviously, this was a huge, like, film director to get for a TV show. Where are you on the Thai West filmography?

How do you feel about it? I mean, mixed, but kind of undeniable. You know, I think there are elements of those movies where it's like, okay, is this like particular Hollywood homage, like a bridge too far for me? Stacked on, stacked, on stacked, on stacked within my horror movie, sometimes. Yeah. I mean, the bona fide speak for themselves. And I think the atmospheric horror that they create really on Wadows Bay in general, but especially within these episodes, like that is the Thai West model for me. In the Pearl Trilogy, do you have a favorite one?

I guess probably just Pearl. Just Pearl. Is it more complicated than that? It's just me. Cassie. Where would you go? Yeah, I think it's Pearl. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The sickos say Maxine, but that's fine. They can have it. They can have it. Mailbag.

On that front, speaking of Cassie, we've received, you know, we asked, you answered, do you want Widows Bay coverage week to week? A lot of you said yes. These episodes are doing pretty well, so we're going to cover it week to week for the rest of the season. We also want this too. Yeah, it's what we wanted. We just wanted the numbers to prove that it's a good move for us. So here we are. Also on the mailbag front, I can't tell you the last time I was so delighted by the subject lines of so many emails. Babadooking.

So much babadooking going on. Another way in which the listeners have really shown up for us. Babadooking left and right. I really do appreciate the listener sharing their vulnerabilities with this. Including the people who literally babadook. And we will share some of those with you. But first, Jana wrote in to say, I need to understand why Widow's Bay has been relegated to B-tier lump coverage while you continue devoting weekly attention to Euphoria, a show that is essentially a massage. Genistic fever dream of an aggressively mid-nepo

uteur whose only good season was the one built on stolen IP. Meanwhile, Widows Bay is the Presti-TV podcast, Holy Grail, loss-level mystery, severance style puzzle box mechanics, razor-sharp comedy, god-tier casting, genuine pathos, actual formal ambition, and small detail, a masterpiece? We deserve week-to-week coverage. Is Sam Levinson personally wiring money to the ringer? We are suffering.

Janet, tell us how you really feel. I love that email. Um, Euphoria is a no-brainer just because it's like, got three of the most famous movie stars that are currently working. We're having a fun time covering it. And this is going to come out after, I guess. But we'll be covering the last two episodes of Euphoria live on Sundays. So if you want to witness some chaos,

if you want to witness me spilling several beverages all over myself, you might be able to enjoy that on a Sunday evening. And me doing my best, like, Matthew Reese wide-eyed stupor, trying to, like, contain my shit. in responding to those episodes, that will be the general vibe. The live experience. Why not Widows Bay?

I will say, you know, it's not just us wondering, was the audience going to be there? Because that is a question that we had. And a consideration when we pick what we want to cover. But also, like, I'm going to be curious

what it's going to be like for us to cover a single episode going forward. Because this is still a double episode drop. Yep. But we're going to be covering one episode at a time going forward. They're shorter runtime episodes it's a comedy we don't usually cover comedy.

And genre comedy, but still a comedy. So while there are sort of like lore mysteries, which of course we'll talk about this week and stuff like that, I've always, I've been wondering if there's enough meat on the bone for us to cover a single episode of Widows Bay at a time. We'll find out together. And I'm sure there probably will be.

It's just less of a no-brainer to me than like, what the hell's happening on Euphoria, which is, you know. I think there's like a very understandable misconception that we cover shows because, like, they're the best show or the show we love the most. And it's like, there's a lot of other considerations to go into it. Right. Sometimes that's true. Sometimes it's absolutely true. And sometimes we love it so much, we kind of will it into being a podcast. But, like, a show like How to Get to Heaven from Belfast is one of my favorites of the year.

I wouldn't know really had a podcast about it. And I would say that's a show that has a lot in common with Widows Bay. It's a little more, like, comedy thriller than it is comedy horror. Yeah. But a similar, like, joke cadence baked into this other genre trapping. it can be tricky and especially as you said the runtime itself kind of decides a lot of like how much you can really pack into one podcast discussion episode. If I were in charge of the world.

I would have done. Joe, let me tell you. You are. I'm not. If I were, I would have done 20 podcast episodes on the other Bennett sister. But you know what? Nobody wants to listen to that. Well, like five of you want to listen to that.

So, um, okay, a couple other emails. Okay, we got several emails and comments about Evans Parentage, which is something that we raised last week and we got a lot of people commenting like, hey, didn't Tom say in episode one that his wife was already pregnant with Evan when he met her? I was like, how did I miss that? I went back and rewatch the scene. I think you could interpret it that way. The way that I interpreted is your mom was already pregnant when we got married. That's how I interpret what he says in that scene. I can see how you could interpret it. He says, it's no secret your mother was already pregnant. But the end of that sentence to me is when we got married. So like,

it's no secret. It was like a shotgun wedding sort of thing. And I have to think Evan, the rebellious teen that he is, if it's an open secret that, you know, his mom was already pregnant when Tom met her and that his dad is someone else, we would have been hit with a you're not my real dad at some point in this run. Anyway, if you work on Widows Bay and you're listening to this podcast. And we have heard that some people work on the show are listening to this podcast. And you know for a fact about Evans Parenthage, we would love an email. PressDGV at Spotify. But would we? Because is that not going to be potentially revealed in time? Okay. Could be. Could be.

I think here's where I'm standing with a lot of these, like, flashing back to early episode moments. Like we got another email from Kyle, who I thought had a great call about when Tom is first talking to the reporter from the New York Times. The idea is brought up that like if you were born on this island, you can't leave it. And Tom says, that's an old wives tale, which is a great line, great dismissal in the moment, but also the tale of his old, maybe dead, maybe disappeared wife. Young, but no longer. Not old, former, former not old. And so I wonder if this is the kind of show where, given the way they have so masterfully laid all of this track to this point,

and all of these lines that already feel different, all these moments of like Patricia calling Tom on the phone in a hurried way about the cocktails, and it's like, oh, now we know what that means in an episode or two later. it might just be one of those things we revisit and the fact that it plays both ways is very much intentional. Okay. I still want to know but I won't tell Rob. Tag it a spoiler in the subject line. Tell me secretly

if Evan's parentage is supposed to be a mystery or who's reading that scene correctly. But all the people wrote in and commented he does say it's no secret your mother was already pregnant. But if the end of that sentence is when we met or when we got married makes a difference.

Yes. So, okay. Babadooking. Did you, we got several emails from folks, and if you didn't listen to us last week, or if you haven't been listening at all, I will just premise that Katie Diplold, who created the show, has this great tweet about showing up in full Bobaduke regalia to a more, what is it, like, drinking wine. Grownups drinking wine, Halloween party, and she's in full Babadook costume.

Yes. So we were soliciting emails from our listeners of the time that they've babadooped into one- -ser- it turns out. Sure. So did you have any that you wanted to call out particularly? I did, Joe. In particular one email we got from Matt who accidentally Babadooked somebody else. Really

a sequence of events in which a party was throwing like a big dance on Halloween. And then a follow-up event from like a sister organization was thrown following up in March the following year at a later time. And someone who attended the first dance misunderstood that you're supposed to maybe only show up in costume

for the Halloween occasion and shown up to a March dance in full Maleficent regalia? Yeah. I mean, that is a true Babadook. And I'm curious if it was like animated Maleficent or if we're doing Jolie for Angelinaing. Like how sharp are the cheekbones for this occasion? I would love to see the photos.

Speaking of photos, our listener Alex Roden, to let us know that they literally Babaduque a party and they have photographic evidence. And they believe their babadooking predates the meme of the Babaduking. Tremendous. Yeah, the er babadooking, if you will. Just when you thought you were living a singular life, multiple people are literally Babadooking. Someone else Babadook before you. The last one that I want to share is like a pop culture reference Babadook and who among us has not dropped a movie quote that we thought everyone knew and we were wrong.

Jamie wrote in to say, I tagged along with a friend to a New Year's Eve party and at some point in the evening, a woman whom I had made party friends with spilled her drink all over the kitchen counter. Sounds like a real Joanna move. Since it was still the holiday season, I obviously said, look what you did, you little jerk. dead silence. So, Jamie, I see you, and I would have caught your reference, but sometimes you babadook yourself just by knowing too many movie quotes. Anything else you want to mention? Keep them coming.

I'm a big fan of the babadooking. And future babadooking. You know, if you find yourself a year from now, having listened to this podcast, accidentally babadooking yourself, I would still like to hear about it. Prestige TV at Spotify.com. Speaking of which, we did get an email from our listener, Matt. This is Pitt related.

So if you did not live out with the pay with us early this season But he sent us an ad for a thing called Yinser Palooza Okay, what? Incredible. Where they're giving away Dr. Robbie Bumbleheads at this Yinser Palluzza event. And I just thought the phrase Yinser Palluzza was worth sharing. Completely worth it. Also, I'm wondering, do we have room on our shelves here for a Dr. Robbie Bobblehead

If we can procure one of these somehow? Oh, we'll get, well, I'll knock that fucking bonsai out of the rotation. Just straight out? Yeah. Are you kidding me? All right, let's start Andrew Rodin to talk about Evan at the boogeyman house. Yes. And comparing the story of Tom being two chicken shit to doorbell ditch, Wick, which Wick was like,

that's a failing of you, Tom, and Evan's willingness to go up to the boogeyman house. Did you feel like this was an intentional parallel they were drawing between the two? Very much so. They're setting it up to see, does Evan behave as Tom did or not? Right. And then undercut it for comedy, for drama, for, you know, just like the jump scarebuchar being there, basically. Like, it's a great, I think, I think thematic tie-in is the way to portray it, right? It's just kind of an iteration of this idea that's already out there.

I was struck in watching these episodes six and seven about how much the Richard Warren's story felt familiar to the boogeyman story. We hear among the teenagers, right? Oh, tell me. Well, when the teenagers are talking, like, maybe honestly, maybe just trying to scare each other about what happened with, the man who lived in this house. It was like they tried to shoot him. They couldn't kill him. They had to bury him in cement.

And then we see what happened to Richard Warren. He's like stabbed repeatedly, couldn't kill him, had to bury him underground. It's like, you know, the boogeyman's story feels like a modernization of the Richard Warren myth. That's funny because I was thinking about when Bashir is talking to Patricia about like a town council is amassing to do something about Tom. An action committee. Yeah, an action committee.

I'm like, what is that group? in the flashback episode is not an action committee. All this has happened before, all this will happen again, Joe. All right. Caitlin wrote in with some experts, some notes for Jerry, our favorite historical society,

I think the lone employee of the historical society. The historical society. Jerry? Of the historical society? Of the historical society? Caitlin said, I did archival studies and you do not wear cotton gloves

to handle archival materials. The industry standard is, You know I love an expert email from someone. You really do. The industry standard is nitrile gloves, which I believe is, you know, what we snap on when we're giving TV recommendations. Theoretically. Though thoroughly washed and dried hands work great, too, cotton is more likely to tear the materials and leave fibers behind. Honestly, the entire way that she, Jerry, of the Historical Society, handles the book and the page is a hot mess.

Though, if she's never gotten formal archival training, never been off the island, question mark. How could you? just isn't knowledgeable about proper procedure. So, Caitlin, giving some grace for Jerry, but also saying your procedure is shit, Jerry, and you don't deserve to be near a historical document. It feels fair. Jerry's doing the best she can.

We're all working with what we got. Last email from Dave. You asked our listeners to come up with names, or asked me at least to come up with a name for what my bookmobile might be called. Yeah. Have you given any thought? I did not give it any thought.

Thank you for taking my consideration seriously. I definitely forgot you asked. me that, but I did read Dave's email. He wrote like Borders, like Borders, Borders, Jorters, books, yep. Barnes and Jobel works a bit better. I do like Barnes and Jopal. And Jopal Library, like mobile library, but Jopal Library. Can we do better? Press hush TV as Spotify.com.

Let's keep workshopping. He also expected, like, he was trying to do a Joanne Fabrics joke, but he wrote Joanne Yarns and it's not really, it was, it was stretching. Dave, I appreciate you. You're the only one who remembered this. I didn't, so I appreciate it. How do you feel, we've never talked about this, about just Joanne's. I imagine it happens a lot to you where people call you Joanne instead of Joanna.

Like, do you, is there a blood feud? Is there a rivalry? Um, no. Uh, I embrace the Joans of the world. Really? Johanna is the problem. I get a Johanna. I've often said that.

Yeah. You're like, Johanna's are the real problem in the world. Shout out to the Johanhas out there. Do you have a, uh, a Robert, or Rob, Beto issue with anything something like on. Before this podcast. Joe compared me to Beto O'Rourke, and I can only imagine an unflattering way

because I don't know how else to take it. It was very rude. It's just the meanest thing you've ever said to me. Absolutely fucked up. But I will say my mortal enemy is less even the bobs. Frankly, there aren't many bobs anymore. Burt's are a rare breed.

I'm maybe poised for a midlife transition to Bert. Maybe that's a head for me at a certain point. For me, it's the Ron's. You know, that's the one that people mishear Rob as Ron and vice versa. And so we're not end. but it's like we can't be allies. You know, we're across purposes. On that front, by the way.

How could it possibly be on that front? It is on that front. Chris Fleming, who we brought up in last week's episode, has a great bit about how Joans is not Michaels. And he like, it's really, really funny. I recommend. Got to dig this up. You watch it.

It's so funny. How, like, Joanne's is, like, for the girls. And Michaels is for fake craft people. Wow. But Joanne's is now out of business, so RIP. Okay. Should we talk about Widows Pay? I think we probably should.

What a concept. All right. So our history, a significant departure. Yeah. But your first, like, real experience with the actress Betty Gilpin, how did you enjoy your experience here? Delightful. She's great. She's really wonderful here.

I mean, this is really, I mean, true to the direction and the theme of the show, like, a very scream queen kind of performance, but, like, stifled by her circumstances. And I had a particularly great time with all the nonverbal stuff she was doing, like the choking down. sobs, the screaming into pillows, like the random yelps she would let out as she's trying to formulate her thoughts to not get murdered by her husband. Just a wonderful performance. I just think she's so funny to you.

And this isn't, this is the least funny of all the episodes. Obviously, like the horror is horrifying. But even then still kind of funny. Like her, when she's trying to get the counsel to kill her husband and she just gives this little clap, like, let's go. Or they're like, go get the children. She's like, my children, I just met them. but the killer, and I know I might be stepping on like our joke category that we're going to do later.

But my favorite is like the runner through the episode is like, I'm so old. I never thought I would get married at this age. I'm so old. I'm so old. And then at one point she says, I am but four and ten and I will wither in my father's attic. So she's supposed to be 14. This like old maid at 14. And I just love, I mean like obviously Betty Guilford is not 14.

But she was just sort of like, but four and 10. And I was like, wait, did I hear that correct? So, yeah, the whole, like, I'm, I'm too decrepit to be married at 14 in the 17. I mean, her life is over, you know? She is a spinster and a treatress. It turns out, I also, I think the moment where I knew, again, not having a lot of Betty Gilpin experience to date that I was in, like, really good hands is like we open with her, you know, writing some of the diary that we later get the full tie-in as far as the

who is going to kill me, L-L-L-J-K, he's right here in the room. We get the full backstory for that. But the initial diary entry, like the moment, she almost has like a twinkle in her eye, the moment she dares to wish, like to God that her husband be handsome. And I'm like, okay, there's like,

there's something here that I'm already so interested in. And she delivered, I would say, at every step in this episode. Are you aware of the Broadway show, Oh, Mary at all? I'm actually not. Okay. It's a great, like, body,

retelling of Mary Todd Lincoln. And a fantastic show. Betty Gilpin is the first actor who like took over for the original actor who did the role. And my sister saw Betty Gilpin in this role. And she was just like, it's, it's sort of similar to this. Like in the way that you can do physical comedy wearing like so many skirts. Yeah.

Like how you navigate it is is incredible. I just think she's so talented. I'm so happy she's here. Hamish Linklater is also here. I will say this is not my, I love Hamish Linklater. This is not my, he's making a real vocal choice. He is. How would you describe it?

Sonorous? Sonorish is a great way to describe it. That's the word? I don't know. I'm just like, I feel like if I were directing this episode, if I were Tic West. People do often confuse the two of you. It's true. You've got that Beto energy.

I've got that tight west energy. I think he won that one. And I heard, and he was like, and Hamish came in and he's like, I'm going to go with this. I'd be like, let's run it back and try again. Maybe not. But I mean, he's, he has more to play with in the second episode than he does hear here. He's just like really the heavy, the villain. What did you think of this?

It does feel like he's kind of setting up the voice too to be like maybe not so jarring if he went from speaking like a normal person to all of a sudden gruff like dust for vocal cords. So yeah, he is doing like a certain marble mouth thing. Yeah. That did work for me. And I think kind of it makes it yes, a little bit sinister, but also like a little bit goofy. in the way that the show likes to do and the way that they're playing with those extremes

with this character, I thought was really nice. And it's a classic thing that Woodhouse Bay is starting to establish in its pattern, its rhythms, where you have these, like, horrific things that happen or these, like, really terrifying things that happen. And within an episode or two, we're sending them up already. And to me, Richard Warren is the perfect example of that. Of, like, he's murdering people left and right

or, like, leaving them for dead as human sacrifices, however you want to think about it. Sarah is clearly in danger his kids are potentially in danger and yet an episode later we're just doing like fuck you gags with Matthew Reese and eating Vienna sausages it's all ribs and Vienna sauce

as far as last meals go yeah where does Vienna sausage out of a can rank for you I mean he seemed to really enjoy himself that's true how did you feel about you know Hamish link later as Richard Warren just straight up moaning as he eats Vienna sausages tough really tough

So it would be low on my list. But who among us hasn't had a Vienna sausage moment? You know, for like a six-year-old boy, it's like, oh, my God, Vienna sausages. This is incredible. Can I offer you a one-up from Vienna sausages for a six-year-old boy, beanie weenies? See, aren't they, are they not basically the same thing? I mean, it's merely a Vienna sausage, but you add beans. See, I'm out.

I'm not interested in the beanie element of the beanie weenie. Are you serious? We're weanies only around here. That's the cloak card. All right, okay. I don't want to step on our like lore category that we have. It's robust this week. Just a massive lore dump inside of this episode.

The well is here. The door in the chair in older guys. How do you feel about like I feel like you had your theory validated where you were like when we first saw the chair in front of the rusted metal door? And you're like, I feel like that's been there forever. I was like that door looks more modern. You're like perhaps it was once a wooden hatch. And lo and behold, you nailed it. So, like, what's your current interpretation of the door chair setup that we get?

Well, I mean, clearly this has been done for human sacrifices. I think the trail of blood leading from the chair to the then wooden hatch would suggest it. The hunk of hair, yeah. I mean, hair is the new teeth in this episode. There's just clumps of hair. We're constantly being told, like, oh, it's pretty gross. Yeah. I feel great about all of that paying off.

And to me, it feels like, you know, an extension of what? But Richard Warren is telling, you know, the priest and the townspeople before he's buried of, like, this is the covenant that we make here on the island. And so even though he is being buried underground, someone will continue parts of his work. And it seems like, I mean, they were asking for a specific instruction. So what do we do? Yeah. And so over time, it becomes part of the ritual of the town. Over time.

Is it every year? How many, do people on the island living right now know? Does like a rosemary know? Like who's doing it? This is, I think, one of the genius parts of this show is the who knows what and who is in on it. Like there is a small town conspiracy potential story within this one. And even Tom is kind of a part of that, right? Like we open the show.

And the way we're conditioned as viewers as like inherent skeptics of the supernatural, at least that's where I'm coming to it from. I'm like, oh, you know, some of this spooky stuff might be real. Some of it might be fake. I'm kind of like in a what I thought was a Tom perspective as far as what the supernatural elements that the island might be. But he, we get pretty hard confirmation within these episodes that he knows like for a fact if you leave the island as a native born person, you will die. Like my son is locked here in a hell prison.

Yeah. He at least believes, like having seen whatever it was that happened with his wife and we get more law information there, you know, he's at least believes it enough to not risk it with Evan for sure. And so this is the thing that he firmly believes and yet to everyone else in the world is like downplaying it, don't worry about it. That's an old wife's tale, et cetera, et cetera. And so that could be going on

in some form or fashion you would think with basically anyone else who lives here. Like, given the set that they inevitably have seen, how could you not be a part of it in some way or another? Or is there no one doing it and that's why the island is like angry. Well, that's definitely part of the problem. That they're going to have to feed it

someone. Whoever was the last mayor was keeping up to date with the human sacrifices. And Tom, I mean, like many things in Widows Bay, really slacken, really slacking. Really slacking. back and on the job. Absolutely. Civic services just aren't what they used to be. All right.

Are you satisfied with the well? Do we need more information about the well? I mean, we know it's part of the network. It's very losty, honestly. I mean, look, it's, this is the most losty part of the show. We are making our own kind of music. We are singing our own special songs. I like that it's part of the network,

but I also kind of would have loved if the well was something even discreet and spookier. The fact that the payoff for looking down into this of a well and seeing the, you know, the specter of death and then committing suicide or being hung on your own door is that, I guess, it's just kind of connected to everything else. Or did he go down there and see the chair? You don't go down the well. I mean, he might have.

You shouldn't. Yeah, one should not. Can I tell you my, I'm going to skip ahead to my favorite bit of lore. So, PJ Glanville, as played by Beck Nolan. Yeah. Evan's terrible friend is alive when she gets to the island

Very confusing Or his ancestor It could be his ancestor A previous Glenville A striking resemblance But he's the only I was like as soon as I saw him I was like oh are they going to populate

The whole thing with actors we recognize From the town but he's the only one And that makes it even spookier and more fun What do you think he is? So A Babadook? Uh On Reddit a while ago

someone had a PJ Glanville. I was actually just looking up who the actor was and this Reddit thread popped up. Okay, so I posted a few days ago about how I thought there might be something wrong with one of the teenagers after the Reverend saw them and said there is an evil here while looking at the group. We now know he was wandering around

with his third eye open. What did he see? Oh shit. Tom specifically said that PJ Glanville was an awful boy in the latest app while he was high on shrooms. In the same app, we saw PJ try to convince Evan to go into a dangerous house. So what's the deal with PJ Glenville? Oh my God.

I'm excited. It's been here all along right under our noses. I'm thrilled. Like, I don't know what the answer is going to be. And maybe it'll be nothing. But I'm just like, off island girls, you are off the hook. Because I think the villain in the Volvo is PJ Glenville. I'm excited.

It seems safe to say, yeah. What could he be up to? Is it a he? Is it the island inhabiting a human form? See the embodiment of the island as a trickster teen. One can only dream. I hope so. There's always been a.

P.J. Glanville every generation on the island. Wow. I would say even more than every generation and more than just on the island. There are tricks or cheans everywhere for those who care to look. Anything else specifically you want to say about episode five? And this is an unfavorable comparison. I did like this episode. I would say I think it's my least favorite

episode of this season. Well, it's a break from all the characters we like and care about. Absolutely. Though it does end with WIC and an incredible needle drop. Brandy is one of my favorite songs of all time. Guardians tried to ruin it, but it is like, it's such a jam. Could not ruin it for you. And I let the full credits play both times I watched this episode just so I could hear Brandy, like, all the way through.

I love that song. But last week I was on the watch, and Chris, after episodes four and five Widows Bay, Chris is making the argument that, like, if episode six is an absolute banger, four, five and six will be like an incredible run of TV episodes. And we were talking about other incredible runs. Yes. Buffy Season 2 is one I always bring up. Hell yeah. End of season three of lost. You know, like, you know, like,

what's a great run of episodes on a show? His definition of run was anything more than two. I think six, like, is enough of, for me, a step back in, like, my overwhelming enjoyment of Widows Bay that I would not call that, like, a, you know, you could do three, four, five if you wanted to, like, see, hag it up. Like, I would support that. But I don't think I would put six in, like, an all-timer run. But I really loved seven.

And so, you know, like, again, it was a great idea to double drop them. And it did remind me of, like, American horror story. So it gave me some, like, American horror. Just apologize right now. It gave me some, like, Roanoke flashbacks. But also, like, the vich, the witch, like, you know, some, you know, pilgrims are scary people. They can be. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, whoever they cast to be, like, the doctor's severe wife slash future zombie. She's been a lot of stuff. I really like her a lot. She's got a great voice. I love her. Does have a great voice. It does have a great voice. It's not as dynamite and propulsive as those previous episodes.

It strikes me as the kind of thing that is probably for the greater good of the season. The greater good. Yeah. We simply have to. If we're going to talk to small town conspiracies, like it's baked into the formula there. Hot buzz, maybe. So I think we are stepping back. We're explaining a lot of things in a way that I would rather do this now than later.

Exactly. Maybe there is a more artful way to do it without the flashback in real time where you're still with all the characters you're invested in. That's something you could probably do. I didn't mind it as much here. And frankly, like, I did appreciate the confidence of this episode because this is the kind of episode that we really usually only get in, as you alluded to, a final season or at least like a season two or three, something where like the proof of

concept is established. The show was a hit. And part of the reason is like, these are not cheap episodes to make. You have to, you know, barring like one teen who is mysteriously still alive and well, do a whole new cast, he's bringing guest stars, you have to have new costumes, your livestock budget. I mean, the chickens alone, the chicken wranglers are such divas.

You have to build log cabins, whole cloth. Yeah. Like, it's not a cheap thing to do. And I would say, I appreciate that Widows Bay is, like, already coming out with the confidence of a show. Yeah. They can deliver on that kind of thing. And also, like, I'll do credit to Apple who, like, they do put their money out there

in terms of production. And so in a world where I'm just, like, volumed to death, put me a real place where we're making like real old-timey 1702 sets. Like I'm just, I'm just going to salute that on principle, even if the episode isn't as good as the other. No, I agree.

Like I, I appreciate it. I'm glad it wasn't like a penultimate before the finale episode. I'm glad they put it midseason. I just like wouldn't say four built to five, built to six, you know, necessarily.

Here's the thing. So if we didn't have the flashback and we just dug up Richard Warren and we still have basically the same. kind of tone and comedic beats and Hamishling Clayers still gets to do his thing. Do we miss a ton? So, I mean, that might be the tell that maybe we just didn't need to do this in the first place. But now we know some like, you know, packs and, you know. We do.

We know that the, it was starving. The demon was starving and so was he. I don't know. I just think it's, I think it's super interesting to give us as much lore info as they gave us in this episode. And I'm glad to have it. When you're a mid-sized business, you need every competitive advantage you can get. Like an AI solution that works for you, not against you. SAP Grow is built with AI embedded at its core, working across every system.

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And you're right next to artists like me, Lizzo. So, are you ready to talk to fans? Spotify advertising. You're among fans. Let's talk about episode seven. I think this is great. Tom brought in after his drug trip. Patricia and Wick have already been wounded by the capsule.

We dug him up. Yeah, we dug him up. He's a lot. He's a live upstairs. I mean, Patricia, iconic, incredible. Her, like, no, her forceful know when Tom is going to, like, open the, yeah. Yeah. I know that her widow's bay pods are just us repeating, like, Patricia jokes, but, like.

What else are we to do? They're so good. This is the thing that I was so impressed with in seven, though, is, like, clearly, especially from six, we are entering into, I would say, darker and spookier territory overall. Like, it's just a slightly different tone in six. We come back in seven, and we're not abandoning. anything about what makes the show so funny. And like that you can just slink right back in. And Richard Warren is a part of it.

And now like a part of literally every comedic bit of banter that's happening in this episode. And I think really what cemented it for me was everything that happens when Tom goes up to meet Richard Warren for the first time. And the two Patricia cut-ins of like, I'm just going to leave you two to talk. And then also I forgot my purse. Like I, again, it's like horror is so atmospheric. And I thought this episode in particular was. a great reminder that, like, comedy can live anywhere, right? Like, you can set that, you can set that, and then you have the jump scare be a great joke, basically.

The way they framed him sitting on the corner of the bed like that in the dark and we don't see his, like, ashen face yet and stuff like that is very scary. Like, it's really good. And it's moving, all that scene is moving so slowly, just ratcheting out of attention. And then, like, you know, Matthew Reese is giving us all the physical comedy we could hope for. I genuinely think, and again, I'm stepping on some categories, but I genuinely think the funniest joke, of the whole season, perhaps for me, is the notepad, which is like,

hi, my name is Patricia. And then are you mad at something I said? Like, someone in the Ryers room was just like, what's the most Patricia thing we could put on this notepad? And it's to the undead man from 1702. Are you mad at something I said? Not, sorry you were locked in a coffin for hundreds of years, but is this about me?

And is it something I? I said, I think it's so funny. I think we got to say, not only is that one of the best gags of the season, this is the most elite notepad show I've ever seen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we just had so many moments pay off of it. It's just literally like a pan to what someone has written down on a pad of paper. And it's funnier than you're going to see in basically another comedy rolling right now.

I really agree. And then this, you know, it goes and we get the Patricia Bashir sort of side quest, which is incredible and iconic and really, really good. And then we get Wick and Tom and Richard Warren out on the. see and we get the most overt Jaws reference yet. How do you feel about a sea shanty? I mean, I'm glad they're back. I thought we were, I was, I feared that we were done with shanties.

Right, we did the pandemic. There was the shanty revival. Oh, no, earlier this season I'm talking about. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got one breakthrough shanty and I'm like, is that going to be it? Okay. But no, we're on the seas, doing the shanties, almost in like a round. Did you happen to notice who wrote this sea shanty?

No. Okay, so lyrics by Neil Casey, who is a writer on the show and plays. the innkeeper on the show. So he did the lyrics of Who Will Be the Last Man. Music by Richard Reed Perry of Arcade Fire fame. This is an Arcade Fire shanty.

That's the Apple Money. Who can we get to write our shanty? No, Arcade Fire. Why not? Yeah, yeah. I loved this. I thought this is so good. This is a very Jaws

showing me the way to go home, like, sort of a moment. But I thought there's a, I mean, to our, irate listener who was like, why aren't you covering Widows Bay week to week? The pathos here.

So we have Patricia genuinely crying when Bashir is driving her home and she thinks he's driving her to the station and she has thrown herself comedically on the sword of like, Tom, I got this. And like getting herself in trouble once again. But Bashir is just sort of like,

he's being sympathetic to her. He's going to take Patricia home. And he's also like, tell me what the fuck is going on. And also, I don't care. I'm over it. I'm agreeing. I am done. So funny. Really good. Worried about you, Bashar. And then Tom and Wick, out on the boat,

Wick sort of giving his tragic backstory of what happened with his best friend and his girl, Jerry. Jair. Kicking his friend off, you know, like this trauma that he has. And then like Tom throwing him overboard to save him and then like rescuing him. Like there's just like some real emotion and bonding and sort of like you have it in you, Tom, like mutual respect building that's happening between these. I care about them so much. I care about the relationships that they're building with each other. Even the line from Richard Warren, when they take him to the Richard Warren Museum, about how he spent years thinking about how his children died.

I'm like, this is a throwaway line sandwich between a bunch of jokes. And I'm just like... Show me my children's things. The efficiency of that emotion, I think, is one of Widows Bay's, like, strongest suits. They just, they really sneak it in, and then all of a sudden you feel kind of the dagger between your ribs as you're trying to. walk through the rest of the episode. I love that. Can I spoil another one of the jokes that I love?

Do you want to just jump to those? Do you just want to get into the categories? Maybe. I don't know. Anything else you want to say in a big picture way before we do that? I think let's just get into it. Okay. Don't say I didn't warrant you. Is it in the gift shop? Like, the dissonance of being a man from 1702 buried alive for hundreds of years, coming back and seeing your life, your children's objects and a museum. Yes. This paper mache replica of your hated second wife. I have questions about that.

And then a t-shirt with your face on it and it says, don't say I didn't warren you. I mean, who came up? Did Jerry come up with that? Must have. I love that. Literally who else works here. I love that. But also the restrain of the show.

Like another show might have come up with it. Yeah. But at some point it would be like Richard Warren's clothes get tattered and he has to literally wear the shirt. It's like, no, this is just in the background. It's just hanging on the wall. It's just there. Not even in like full light.

No. I was just like, what does that say? But also we need those shirts. Yeah, yeah. We do. We really, really do. We do. All right, let's do the categories.

Best bit of war. We've already talked about plenty of this. What do you want to add? I mean, there's so much here. Okay, I have a couple of questions slash general comments on what's happening here. The bell tolling. So we hear the bell's toll on Richard and Sarah's wedding night. He goes off into the dark, comes back.

And this is when she finds him. him like in communion with whatever beast he speaks to. From that are we to interpret that the bell's tolling is like calling for the Lord Protector of the Island. Is it for the sacrifice or is it for like a meeting? You know, is this the calendar invite? If the apocalypse comes to be me. Basically.

Maybe. That's curious. I don't know. I was thinking of sort of like it's time. I'm hungry. Do you remember? Yeah. Do you remember, it's a dinner bell.

Do you remember what the Reverend. read about like should the bell chime. We might have to go back into the archives on that one. I can't remember exactly what the language was. Yeah. It was basically like if the bell chimed like, shit's about to go down. Getting real, you know, it was definitely to that effect.

I think it's, I'm hungry. I mean, one can follow the other. A little shop of hers. That's the general vibe around here these days. But what else is going? I mean, yeah, so like the idea of the pact, we kind of covered that a little bit in terms of the sacrificing of life. Yeah, the play.

slash zombieing happening. I guess they're not really zombies. When Richard Warren is communing with the mushrooms or whatever it is he's doing, he's got the eyes rolled back in the head and the mouth open. Is that supposed to invoke the mouth open at Patricia's like witching party?

I can't remember if their eyes were rolled back in their head when they were doing it. They had their eyes, I think, more fully fixed forward. But also, I don't know if that's something that Hamish Link later could do or if that's a contact lens situation or just like CGI. Oh, that'd be a contact.

I don't know. Some people can do that shit. If they're in communion with the beast. PressyTVbottvide.com, if you can roll your irises all the way to the back of your head. I think some people can do it. But there may be something to it, especially when you think about the idea of like this is a man who has sold his soul of like the extraction of even this kind of communication. That would that would make sense to me. A plague, a pact. Yep.

PJ Glenville, the door well. From Wick talking about, you know, it's not just should you, cross past this buoy, the light lights up, gone too far. The dead zone. The dead zone. A Stephen King novel. But also it struck from below. Struck hard saw a tentacle.

There's like a crack in? It's got to be. Did you think about Buffy at Eatsy starting with your bottom? You know, I did not. But this is why we do this podcast. You can remind me of the Buffy references I have missed. There's a critter in the water. There's tentacles in the water.

I mean, now we're just getting real lovecraft. in with it. Here's my real question. Here's a real question I have. Okay. That was also a real question, but here's a real question. So Richard Warren says, kill me. Yep. You end my bloodline. And if you end my bloodline... Do we have secret warrens?

Well, at the end of the... Okay, so he says, if you end my bloodline, packed over, we're done. We saw Sarah get in the boat with all the children. Yes. And like, you know, if the story of the of the island is true, those children would have died, right? Presumably.

Okay. Except for the one in the water. Except for the one of the water. Wow. Joe, you've had done yourself. We get that close up on the painting of the one in the water. I thought the painting of the one in the water

or the zoom in and the revisiting of that was great. I almost interpreted watching as just like, oh, we're kind of like closing this loop. They all died was kind of my assumption, but I love the idea of the one in the water who got away, and now the curse lives on. And who? Oh my God, who is the secret warrant?

Of the bloodline. Well, how do we identify a warrant, do you think? Like, what are the telltale signs? We're going to be the historical society on the case, I think. Let's get the genetic code down. Let's figure out, like, the biometric markers. Let's, there's a lot to be answered for. Press HGV at Spotify.com, if you have a secret warrant theory.

Is it Rosemary? Is it like... I mean, Rosemary would be among the funniest possible options. Like, who is it? It's got to be someone who has been introduced, but hasn't been significant enough in terms of what they've been given to do yet. So maybe it is Dale.

Maybe Dale is the secret of Warren. I'm excited to find out. But while we're out at sea, so going beyond the dead zone is what causes people to die. Yes. It's also the limit of the covenant with Richard Warren and the island or the beast or whatever. And so, like, I guess is the best way we know to explain what is happening in terms of the very existence of widows bay. Like the people who are going out past the dead zone and dying, are they products of the magic that made, the island's sustainable and thus that's why they're dying, do you think?

Or is it simply that there's a sea creature out there who's scooping them up and eating them? Well, yeah, the tentacle was like a new added... Because I figured, like, given what we saw in the flashback with Tom and his wife, it's just like you grow past this barrier, some shit happens to you internally. But what if the tentacle isn't real? Like, what if it was, you know, like his friend fell in the water? I mean, you've got to be really wary about metaphorical tentacles. Like, they will do damage to your life.

What is the tentacle inside of the darkness of your heart? You know what I mean? That's the one I'm worried about the most. Yeah. And so, like, I don't know what's real and what's kind of in these characters' imaginations sometimes. And, like, we've even seen that with kind of Tom and the haunted hotel, right? It's like, this is a thing that's, like, kind of a nightmare, but kind of real. I don't know.

I don't know where one ends and the other begins. I don't know what is the product, like, product of magic versus what is just a person literally dying because they are at sea. But I love that we don't know. Okay. Favorite city employee. This is usually where we talk about Patricia. And it's incredible Patricia thing. But I'm Bashir is who I'm.

naming inside of it. I mean, Bashir does have a great episode. Yeah. But I'm, like, I'm going to zoom out and just say it's Sarah, who is the Reeve prime of the colony. And what is that, if not a civic position? Great point. Great point.

You support women. I do. But I support Bashir as well. And, yeah, his whole spiel with Patricia, I thought was really wonderful. Patricia stealing his car in the first place as, we got to say, a very effective distraction. Which he goes, someone may have reported my screaming. And then, yeah. Just her, Cato Flynn, comedic genius.

On fire in the show. I got this. Whenever Patricia does her, like, false, like, confidence thing, it's just really funny. And then, yeah, the whole, like, bit with the car, Tom watching with, like, his hand over his mouth. But, look, if you have to smuggle out a coffin, you got to do something dramatic. So here's my question. Bashir's, like, I'm done. I'm out.

I'm leaving. My one week resignation. First of all, sir. There's too many episodes left. You are not leaving. his pregnant wife, which is our theory that he has a pregnant wife, like, is Bashir making, or Bashir and his wife making it off the island? The horror movie formula tells us Bashir doubles back to help at an opportune time, right?

He's not making it. Bashir, we're rooting for you. His wife has to make it because we haven't seen her. So it's like, you can't hold this character back for so long, introduce her, and then she dies. Well, if we haven't seen her because they're holding back a pregnancy reveal, again, is just a theory that a listener wrote in, but I really think it's compelling. I mean, you love to run with a pregnancy rumor. I love to look closely women's bodies and make comments about them.

All right, favorite obvious joke. I don't even know what is obvious and what's throwaway anymore. So these two categories are kind of blending into one another. I'm going to say this is obvious and it's Wick circling the amulet around Richard Warren's neck on the portrait in Sharpie. I'm just like, this could have been him pointing to it. This could have been a camera cut, but it's like, no. Let's just really commit to it and deface this portrait.

For me, it's when Richard is talking to Tom about signing the covenant with his own blood feces and semen. See, this is a throwaway joke, in part because not just the blood feces and semen, but the slow setting down and wiping of his fingers on his pants. That might be in contention for the best bit of the show so far. It's so good. Then, yeah, throwaway joke. I'm going to give it to castering rollers on the suitcase. It's just there are menace And they should be stopped

What else deserves a shout out here? I think when the assassin comes to Richard Warren And Sarah has to like aggressively point him in the right direction To not get stabbed very good Her just like dribbling the spiked brandy Back into the cup again it's like They're finding ways just like undercut it ever so slightly But it still feels menacing.

Right the seduction is happening And then she like takes a sweat Yeah Betty Gilpin You're genius I love you. The way she runs into the church screaming about Richard being alive and then it has to like quietly curtsy when she greets the room full of people

she didn't expect. It's so good. All right. Let's see. Then we have favorite horror movie reference slash Easter egg. I would like to start with the black and white horror movie that Evan and Kelly are watching. I know what it is. The City of the Dead. A.k.a. Horror Hotel. In the United

States. But it seems like City of the Dead is the honest to goodness original title. Rob, I love podcasting with you because I was like, Rob isn't going to type in Christ. Christopher Lee and a line dialogue and figure out what movie this is. I know the voice of Christopher Lee literally anywhere. I hear it in my dreams and my nightmares such as his power. Okay.

So yeah, looking up a little bit about this movie, I've not seen. Have you seen it? No, I thought about watching it, but I've, you know, my week got busy. But maybe we should watch it. There are limits, but maybe before next week's episode, we should find time to visit it. But I did read up about it. And specifically, a horror movie about a town in New England with a history of human sacrifice and witchcraft and deals with the devil.

and you guessed it, a haunted hotel. Yeah. I mean, they really know what they're doing in terms of the points of reference on this show. Yeah. Christopher Lee, our guy, this is great. I loved this.

Do I think Evan and Kelly, sorry, she's been upgraded from Off Island Girl. I know her name now. It's Kelly. Yes. Do I think Evan and Kelly are sitting down to watch horror hotel from 1960? I don't, but I enjoyed it being there.

Who do you think pulled it up? If one of them pulled it up? Evan. This is more of an Evan move. Yeah. Because Kelly would rather rifle through Tom's down. Clearly. But yeah, the fact that Evan is going to pull up a 1960 horror movie that presumably he hasn't seen,

he doesn't even seem too interested in it. Well, what are the movie offerings on the island? Like... You don't think that the island also has Roku City? Roku City is everywhere. I don't know, because they don't have cell phones. And, like, they're all watching, like, two televisions. But they have Wi-Fi, I assume?

Do they have a video store, like a video droid? Like, what are, you know, what are we doing? When did the movie stop being shipped at the island? Like, what is the cutoff date? Because clearly they can access 1960, but I think they must have color TV. This is not all black and white. Yeah. Aren't they watching, aren't they watching a baseball game or like?

Somebody was watching. Or I want to say maybe there was even like a tennis match or something happening. Yeah. Maybe I'm getting my shows blending together at this point. But like, yeah, I do think they have access to television. I was just curious how, like, how many channels do you get on the island? I don't know. But this is apparently the movie you watch.

if you want to maintain respectful distance from your off island would be hopeful girlfriend. Right. They are very far away on that couch. They are. But maybe he was hoping she would leap up in terror and, like, hop into his lap. Doesn't seem that scary. That's where you have to go more modern horror. Yeah.

I will also say the, you know, we are in deep, deep, deep lost territory with a lot in this episode. The Wick Tom dynamic of like the man of science, man of faith has always been there. How does it feel to say that on yet? another podcast. I never tired of it. But when they're charting a course and you hear garbled chattering on the radio and Wicke is like the islands playing games, I'm just like, that's a lost shit right there. It's extremely lost shit.

Also just in terms of the horror trope part of that, I just love haunted static. Like if you're on a plane or a boat and there's a ghostly voice saying May Day, May Day, I'm fucking dialed in. I'm here. I'm going down with the ship. That's how invested I am. I love it. Best haunt scare, spook, or fright.

Yeah, I think this one is going to have to be for me, Sarah trying to negotiate with plague-ridden Abigail on the dock. And her kind of emergence from, you know, whatever pit she has climbed her way out of. And the, like, tar black blood that's on her. The bile. There's just something like, again, insisting she's not sick. And then there's always something about like a zombie-esque kind of scream and lunch.

Yeah, yeah. I think it's just so effective here. Was that scarier or Tom lunging for his loafer scarier? What do you think? It depends on if you're a loafer. You know, if you're a loafer, you don't want to see Tom coming. If you're an employee of the one gas station on the island, definitely don't want to see Tom coming.

What was your biggest spook? Honestly, we saw multiple eye gouges, a real-life woman and then also, like the paper machet. What did you make of that? I don't know. Is that the go-to killing move of 1702? It might have been. It was really in season.

Got to gouache those eyes. Yeah, there was something of, and I wonder if that's another element where there's going to be an eye thematic tie-in of some kind, whether it's like the demon-possessed people, whether it's the people afflicted by this plague or whatever. I was like, I want those eyes. Everybody's after me. Ring the bell. I want those eyes. But yeah, the fact that when given the opportunity, that's exactly what he went for on the paper machine model of his wife. One that, if we're just going to talk to the construction of the show, looks a lot like Betty Gilpin.

And the props work. And frankly, all the portraits of Richard. But whoever did the in-world paper mache model really did her justice. Incredible work. New England's best kept secret. A moment where you thought, huh, would it actually be nice to live here? Yeah, I didn't have that this week. I have one.

Didn't have that sensation. Bashir, a nice cop. Oh. A nice local cop who you can trust. How quickly we've gone from fuck you pig to a nice cop you can trust. It just takes having one cop on the island. He has a deputy. because there are other people in the police station.

Although this is on brand for you because the moment in which he appeals to you is the moment he quits being a cop. He's like, I'm putting in my notice. I'm out of here. A cop's so good. He doesn't want to be a cop anymore. That's, I mean, that's the catch point. Where do you find that guy? On an island.

I mean, a spooky haunted island. If I were to find something in these two episodes, it's not going to be in 1702 in terms of when I want to be living there. But I always would aspire to be not someone with a boat, but someone who knows somebody with a boat. And so the idea that Wick, you know, you're sometimes. sometimes crazy buddy could just take you out to a reasonable distance at sea. Who can't enjoy a day like that? I got served a video that I almost sent to you of Matthew Reese being interviewed for Eater. And it was so, it was like a great, because I guess he like owns a seafood restaurant in New York.

We should go, don't you think? On company dime. Yes, that's research. So he's like sitting there with the interviewer eating like lobster rolls and like baked oysters and talking about like his like seafood, talking about Widows Bay, but talking about this like seafood restaurants. that he owns. It's like a little seafood shack on a dock. And then also, I guess he owned a boat at one point. And so the interviewer's like, why was your boat named rare bit? Like Welsh rare bit was named. He's like, oh, that's what it was named. It's like a superstition thing. You're not supposed to rename boats. I didn't know that either. He's like, but it was kind of, I bought a wooden boat. I thought it would be charming. It turns out it was a lot of upkeep. So I sold the boat. I don't have it anymore. There's so much work. But he does not have a boat. But he does not have a boat. But it was, this is just for me. Sorry. It's not great podcasting. I found, like, at the very end of the episode, we see the interviewer. It's my friend Nadia, who used to work for Eater, Austin, and now she works for Eater in New York.

And I was like, Nadia. Breaking Matthew Reese news, get to the bottom of the boat business. I was so excited. I was like, wow, first of all, I didn't know she had moved to New York years ago. And secondly, I didn't know she's out here interviewing Matthew Reese. You should watch that interview. It's very charming. He's talking about seafood and Widows Bay, and it's great.

This is how people keep up with each other in modern times. You know, in 1702, you're just walking across town, trying not to talk. trip over a chicken as you implore the help of a preacher. Now you're like, hey, here's my friend who I didn't know lives in this other city. And I find that out via an eater New York video. Yeah, the Instagram reel delivered for me. Thank you so much. All right, the Reese piece.

Anything you want to say about Matthew Reese that we haven't already? Yeah, I think the specific recoiling he does when Richard Warren speaks for the first time after the note patching in against had begun, like pops out of his chair, fully recoils. Does like a hold his breath and puff his cheeks kind of like form of terror? he's just inventing new ways to be scared. And I'm loving it. And as a counterpoint to that, by the end of that episode, we see a part of Tom that we haven't really seen on this show,

a part of Matthew Reese in performance that we haven't really seen on the show, which is him like really flexing. I did very fucking good. I've seen that Matthew Reese before. I love that version of Matthew Reese. Tom just usually isn't that kind of guy. And frankly, hasn't had that much to celebrate. Mine is a plusing of last week's,

which was about his inability to vomit. and this is him trying to handle his seasickness by sticking his head out the window like a Labrador. He can't vomit, but he's clearly seasick. So he's just like, I get seasick very easily. I get motion sick very easily. And that is like such a good hack. It's like try to just inhale as many lungfuls of cold air as you can.

It really helps if you're seeing. You're not going to get invited on rare bit that way. I know. And I deserve to go. All right, the root of the matter. Stephen Root. So I think this is a good time to kind of revisit the track. tragic backstory part of that.

And especially the way it's used within the show, which is like all of these hints and allusions to the fact that Tom is like such a feckless coward of a leader where he like says he's going to like loosen Richard Warren's ropes a little bit and then just basically lets him out. Says he's like has this fake conversation with Wick about like should we let him out of the coffin but also pan up and he's just sitting there at the table. Spoiler, that's my favorite. Stephen was like when he pops.

And there's just this desist. sicated man sitting there in the galley. Yeah. But the fact that you can ground all that in this like very real, as you alluded to with the pathos of the show, it's like very real, terrifying bit of history about where Wick and Jerry and, you know,

her fallen brother have come from. Yeah. It's just so artfully done and so well balanced. And the calibration on the show never ceases to amaze me. And I would say Stephen Root is as big a part of that as anybody is. I love that. The tragic backstory of the like us not knowing, like the,

I would guess the sort of like, subtle offhanded way we've learned so much about his relations with Jerry. Yeah. He's clearly like still like stuck on her, right? Like he still likes her. He wants to be handled with some cotton gloves. Absolutely. And so we're like, why aren't they together?

They were sweethearts when they were young. What happened? Well, like clearly overwhelmed by guilt over being involved in the death of her brother. Did he break up with her? Did she, does she know what happened and she broke up with him? Well, even if she believes her brother just drowned in the, ocean. That could be more than enough to decimate a relationship like that.

It's sad. Oh, incredibly so. All right. Speaking of young love. Evan and Kelly. Yeah. We didn't talk about this in the lore, but like this is a big reveal. Huge.

And you had sort of, we had been talking about this. We weren't sure exactly what we saw when we saw Tom's wife, his old wife, in the hospital bed. Right. It's like very terrifying. But we see that she was still alive in some form or. another. Yeah. After Evan's

birth was to something Evan didn't know. So to encounter photographs of yourself with your mom who you thought

died before you or when you were born. And the way he says, I knew her. Yeah. I was just really, I thought that was

really good. It's a hit story in the chest. And yet again, a moment where I think Widows Bade does a great job of sort of

balancing the interpretations of those photos where she does look like just haunted and vacant and vacant enough again? It's hard to tell. In a static image,

You can't really tell. But, like, yeah, she's kind of staring off in the distance. So was she just, like, not there? Yeah. And so they, like, hit the truth. Or is it a tasteful candid? One can never know. We really don't know.

But I think we have to talk about Kelly by association. Like, these off island girls only want one thing. And it's to rifle through all of your parents' stuff. Are you out on the off island girls now? She just, the way she goes from... Oh, who's not supporting women now? The way she goes from, I'm just sitting on this couch, not paying attention to this old horror movie to,

Can we just ransack your dad's room? Well, I think they've ceded that before with, you noted this, Evan, just going through his dad's desk. Sure. So, like, but he's like, you know. Even he seems a little hesitant about this. The locked box at the bottom of the trunk and she takes a paperclip and just like fix that lock. She's a bad influence on him.

Yeah, you know. Those Lof Highland girls. They're too fast. They're way too fast for our boy, Evan. You know, he needs to be protected. He's a sensitive boy. All right. Any theories that we haven't talked about already?

I don't have anything beyond the. That was a secret warren idea. You know, honestly, I don't have anything else. I think we covered pretty extensively all the lore that these episodes drudge up. And frankly, we don't even know what to make of it all yet. But I don't know. Here's a question. Do you think that the underground tunnels, we know that they go to the well?

We know that they connect to the sacrificial chair. Yeah. Which I believe we were shown to be almost directly underneath the salty whale. But do we know where, geographically speaking, in Widow's Bay, Richard Warren's house would have been? I wonder if it's Tom's house. Is it just that simple? Right. But that doesn't feel like a house he, like, got when he became mayor.

You're right. You know? That's the house he raised. Yeah, Evan's been there his whole life, I would assume. It still could be. I don't know. If you can draw us a map of Widows Bay, we love a map. We would love to have it.

If you have more Babaduking to share with us, we'd love to hear it. If you think my comparison of Rob and Beto O'Rourke is accurate, we would love to hear. No, we would. We'll stop. I'll stop. And theories. We want your theories. I really, really want your theories.

We are recording this early, so we have not had a chance to see how people are reacting to these episodes. And I'm sure there are things that the Reddit detectives got that we missed. So press each TV at Spotify.com. Keep those Widows Bay emails coming. And we will be covering this week to week

for the rest of the season. I'm really excited about it. Me too. And also before we get out of this, I want to, I feel like we bagged on episode six a little bit for just like not being the version of the show that we love.

Not unfairly. Not like bag. No. It was just like a, slight dip for me. It's a slight dip something very different, but I was like, even within that, I really love the writing in episode six. Like, even stuff like, there's

a line I wrote down about Cornelius Evans, who's like the infected man who gouged at his wife's eyes of like his eyes were yellow with spoiled moons. And it's just like, there are turns of phrase in that 1702 way that whether, whether historically true or not, I fucking loved. Yeah, I love it.

All right. Thank you to our small town that is here with us today, Jacob Cornette is here. Kai Grady is here. Dev Ronaldo's here. The dream team. Thank you to you listening and demanding that we cover Widows Bay.

We really appreciate it. Definitely. Thanks to Rob Mahoney. Thank you, Joe. The best Robert I know. Thank you to all the plagued people out there who may or may not be listening. Maybe zombies, maybe Krakens. We just hope to have your support.

And PJ Glanville. Yeah. If you're hungry, ring that bell. We'll see you soon. Bye.