“The weight of previous generations hangs over us like a nightmare,” Karl Marx once observed, a sentiment that resonates both in reality and within the eerie confines of Widow’s Bay. This series serves as an intricate metaphor for navigating the chaos inherited from our predecessors. In this world of horrors, shaped by ancestral failures, the price of liberation might be more than we can bear. As we grapple with this legacy, we risk transforming into the very monsters we seek to vanquish.

But that’s the analytical, outsider’s perspective. From the island’s viewpoint, the scenario is more like: Can you believe they’re doing human sacrifices based on the number of tolls from a cursed bell? And now Loftis is eternally trapped because his son Evan, a direct descendant of Richard Warren, means the sacrifices must continue as long as he’s alive?

And yet, amidst this grim narrative, there’s humor. To echo Stephen King: Dear Reader, that’s what makes captivating television.

Indeed, the season finale of Widow’s Bay (cheers for the Season 2 renewal!) presents a somber tale. Both Mayor Tom and Sheriff Bechir face the moral dilemma of potentially killing the kindly Ruth Livingston to save the island and their loved ones. It’s a classic ethical quandary: do nothing and let many perish, or take action and ensure the death of one individual?

When Tom broaches the topic with Ruth, without revealing the full context, her response likely resonates with many viewers. “Life is the runaway trolley — and I’m the lever,” she reflects. “You can’t control the misfortunes life throws at you, Tom! But if I pull that lever, it’s a choice, and I’m consciously deciding to end a life, something I could never bring myself to do.”

She then shows him a lengthy Tennessee Williams quote she’s cross-stitched: “We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.” The abyss gazes also, as Nietzsche said, and we must not allow it in. By that standard, Tom and Bechir fail. Only dumb luck prevents them from being murderers.

And for no reason, too! Doped up by Tom, Ruth reveals that she had a secret daughter with a married man, whom she gave to him and his wife to raise as their own. That, of course, was Lauren, Tom’s late wife, making his son Evan Richard Warren’s final descendant, as it long appeared he would be. I don’t mind the predictable outcome given the unpredicted twist it took the show to get there, and the outstanding work done by K Callan as Ruth as a result.

Yet the horrors cease even though both Ruth and Evan are still alive, because the evil in the island has claimed a different victim instead. While panic grips the shelter because food, water, and light are running low, Dale discovers a cache of old film canisters and fires them up.

That’s how he learns the horrifying truth about Widow’s Bay: When the church bell tolls, that number of souls must be sacrificed to the island entity. As recently as this 1960s-ish film was made, it appeared to be the town’s official policy.

He doesn’t take it well.

So yes, that’s the purpose of the torture chair and subterranean doors that Evan and his jackass friends find beneath the shelter — which is where poor Kenny the custodian (Michael Malvesti) is dragged off into oblivion while Evan tries in vain to rescue him from the other side of the door. 

And just like that, the storm lifts, and the panic with it.

I went back and checked, and the church bell tolls nine times in the middle of the night at the start of Episode 2. Unless my count is off, nine souls have met their end this season: Shep the fisherman, the Sea Hag, Rev. Bryce, Richard Warren, an EMT and a gas station attendant killed by the Boogeyman, the Boogeyman, Todd the Shaman, and Kenny the custodian. It’s possible my count is off, and I’m not sure if, uh, entities fit the requirements laid out in the “So, you’re an Offering” filmstrip.

If not, there’s the grimmer possibility: The bell is counting down, and only Kenny’s death counts. So it’s probably bad that as a peaceful Tom and Evan look out over the sunlit water after he tosses the Warren family’s heirloom brooch into the depths, the church bell rings eight times, huh?

Speaking only for my own preferences, I find sitcoms to be weak as a load-bearing structure. The whole project is often dragged down into sappiness when serious themes are broached, because the need to make the audience laugh undercuts the seriousness, even the pain, of those themes. It takes a show willing to really sit with that pain (Girls) or go in the complete opposite direction and offset the seriousness with absolute silliness (Scrubs) to make it work, and those kinds of balances are hard to strike.

Widow’s Bay makes it looks easy at an even higher difficulty setting. Creator Katie Dippold’s script for this episode alone layers black comedy (Dale’s horrified face after watching the filmstrips, the “HOW TO SUBDUE SOMEBODY” poster on the examining room wall), genuine scares (those eerie commands on the loudspeaker, the footage of human sacrifices in their underwear with bags over their heads), real human drama and ethical issues (the moral dilemma facing Tom and Bechir, the question of whether Ruth’s overwhelming goodness is mere naïveté or essential to remaining human), and the whole Karl Marx thing if you wanna read that deep into it, which I do. A lot of shows would simply collapse under all that weight.

But just as it has been from the start, Widow’s Bay is built to withstand that test. Dippold’s concept and writing, Hiro Murai’s directing, the perfect cast full of incredible actors creating instantly recognizable and indelible characters, the strength of the world-building as both a parody of Stephen King/H.P. Lovecraft cursed New England towns and as an exemplar of them…Widow’s Bay is well constructed in a way that leaves one reaching for comparisons like Mad Men or The Terror on one hand, Cheers or The Golden Girls on the other. I can’t wait until the next tourist season begins.

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.