In the coastal town of Widow’s Bay, a storm is brewing, both literally and figuratively. The eccentric and well-informed local, Rosemary, is about to take center stage. Known for her extensive knowledge of the town’s history and its residents, Rosemary becomes the go-to source when Tom, Wyck, and Patricia urgently require genealogical data to trace the lineage of the cursed town founder, Richard Warren. Unfazed by a bizarre storm threatening to lift people skyward, reminiscent of the movie “Nope,” Rosemary is determined to reveal every detail of the Warren family tree.
A formidable storm looms on the horizon—a supernatural nor’easter depicted as a swirling mass of purple on the radar. Widow’s Bay has a designated shelter beneath the town hall for such severe weather events. However, the last thing Tom wants is to corral tourists into an underground bunker, an occurrence that he insists would never happen in Martha’s Vineyard.
Frustrated with his predicament, Tom attempts humorously, yet unsuccessfully, to destroy the calendar from the first episode, which features wolves and a car wreck. His comedic misadventures continue as he tries to remove a large portrait of a town dignitary and his wife from the wall. The attempt results in a mess of wall debris and a comedic collapse under the painting’s weight, showcasing Matthew Rhys’s talent for physical comedy. Rosemary’s futile attempt to assist, despite lacking strength and first aid knowledge, adds to the hilarity as she inadvertently pushes the frame down harder on Tom.
However, the damaged portrait holds a vital clue. In the opening flashback, a young Frances Warren is shown falling overboard from a rowboat, piloted by Sarah Warren, played by Betty Gipin. Other children, afflicted by a mysterious illness, are rescued by Sarah, adding to the tense atmosphere. The scene of them disappearing into the fog, with their cries echoing into the distance, stands out as one of the series’ most chilling moments, evoking a blend of supernatural dread and nature’s indifferent cruelty reminiscent of the first season of “The Terror.”
Meanwhile, Patricia makes a startling observation: the woman in the portrait, Frances Fisher, is missing a finger—mirroring young Frances Warren, who lost a finger in an earlier accident. Rescued at sea by a whaling captain who later adopted and married her (a fact that raises eyebrows), she became the matriarch of a line that has endured for nearly 300 years.
But Rosemary is able to trace every branch of the Frances Warren Fisher family tree till it dies out, which she does at extraordinary length. “Well, I guess I don’t know what I’m talking about and should just stop,” she says passive-aggressively when Tom takes issue with one of the colorful idioms she deploys along the way. (“The family that swims together drowns together.”) Honestly, the episode is mostly a showcase for actor Dale Dickey, who has a whale of a time as a woman in her glory. Whether she’s crossing off name after name while repeating the phrase “dead baby,” or noting notables like “Sophia the Heretic” or “The Ungrateful Hortence,” or being asked by the group not to use slurs, she’s marvelous.
The Warren bloodline, it turns out, has one sole survivor: Ruth (K Callan), the elderly woman who works for the mayor’s office…and the one person unaccounted for in the shelter. Which leaves Tom and Wyck and Patricia with a moral dilemma: Do they kill her themselves to spare god knows how many others?
For Patricia, this is no dilemma at all. It’s simply evil and insane to even contemplate the idea. But Wyck is a salty dog, and Tom just watched Todd the Shaman get sucked into some kind of wind portal in the sky, so he knows this storm has gone well beyond dangerous and into outright malevolence. In the end, he opts to do the job himself.
In other news around town, Sheriff Bechir and his wife Chelle (Sipiwe Moyo) have to turn back when their ferry never shows up. The very pregnant Chelle feels contractions nearly the second they head into town hall to take shelter. Evan’s still on good terms with his dad (and he’s not the final descendant, as I’d have bet money he was), but he doesn’t know that the curse is still in place and there can be no raincheck on his canceled Red Sox game until that changes. Tom does a lengthy bit where he and the lighthouse keeper go back and forth trying to get a necessary part for the shelter’s generator that really is like something that would happen to John Cleese on Fawlty Towers if there were a very special supernatural storm episode of that show.
The funny thing is that this isn’t a super-funny episode of Widow’s Bay, or a super scary one, or one that riffs on one or two very specific stories or subgenres. Sure, there are shades of Nope and The Lighthouse here and there, and a twister straight out of The Wizard of Oz, but there’s no one central horror here — no sea hag, no sunset cocktails death ritual, no machete-wielding Boogeyman. Other than Chris Fleming’s untimely demise and the genuinely chilling cold open, this episode feels mostly like set-up for the finale. It’s funny in places and creepy in others, but in both the horror and comedy categories, I’m hoping it’s just the calm before the storm.
Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com on Bluesky and theseantcollins on Patreon) has written about television for The New York Times, Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pain Don’t Hurt: Meditations on Road House. He lives with his family on Long Island.