This story contains spoilers for the season finale of Widow’s Bay, titled “We Hope You Enjoyed Your Time!“
The first season of Widow’s Bay has wrapped up, and the bad times on the island have ended (for now). The Apple TV horror-comedy has (thankfully) been renewed for a Season 2, but that’s not that only indication that Mayor Tom Loftus (Matthew Rhys) is in for more trouble down the road.
Most of the season’s back half dealt with the deep lore of the show, specifically Richard Warren (Hamish Linklater) and the devil’s bargain he made to save the people of Widow’s Bay from a harsh winter. Much of Episode 7, “Seasickness,” revolved around the notion that to end the curse, the last person in the founder’s bloodline needed to be killed off. Tom and Wyk (Stephen Root) were able to get Warren past the island’s watery boundary and end his unnaturally long life, but one small detail kept the curse in place.
As the season’s penultimate episode revealed, the Warren bloodline lived on in Ruth (K Callan), Tom’s 84-year-old assistant, so the mayor faced his own version of the trolley problem during the finale.
And, well, the issue wasn’t even as simple as killing a little old lady.
In a stupor caused by the cocktail Tom prepared in her 27-minute-steeped tea, Ruth reveals that the two-mommy system Lauren Loftis (Meredith Casey) described to her son Evan (Kingston Rumi Southwick) wasn’t too far-fetched. Tom’s secretary is secretly his mother-in-law, having gotten pregnant with Lauren from a married man, who then raised the girl as his own. That means Evan is, in fact, the last of the Warren bloodline. Now both he and Ruth stand in the way of the curse being lifted from Widow’s Bay.
When Rhys originally learned about the finale’s twist, his reaction to the truth had more to do with his job security than implications for the plot. “I just thought, ‘Oh, what a cliffhanger to end on!'” he told Gold Derby. “That just puts a gun to Apple’s head saying, ‘We have to have a Season 2 because how’s that going to end?’ That was a revelation!”
And the ploy may have worked (along with the show being very popular). Apple TV renewed Widow’s Bay ahead of the finale, which makes the few teases that the episode offers for Season 2 all the more tantalizing.
“We spent so much time in the writers room thinking about the history of this island, because the more we thought about that and the more specific we got with the timeline and the history of the events that have happened, the better the show felt,” creator Katie Dippold told us. “In Widow’s Bay, there are some horrific events in the timeline that could be a throwaway joke, but that could come back to be its own terrifying episode.”
The final moments of the finale feature Tom throwing Ruth’s family heirloom, the pin that connects her to the Warren bloodline, into the ocean, seemingly burying the proof that his assistant — and therefore, his son — are a part of the curse. We then hear the church bell toll eight times.
As Dale (Jeff Hiller) learns from watching the very Dharma Initiative film reel, the malevolent force on the island demands “life for life. The island will make its needs known. One soul for each bell toll.” That means eight people will have to die before the next round of spooky happenings lift from the island. All that’s left to see now is how long the island will slumber.
And how long we’ll have to wait for Season 2.
