‘Widow’s Bay’ Cast Explains Scary Premiere Twists & Tease What’s Next (VIDEO)

Widow’s Bay is here to haunt and delight you. The Apple TV horror-comedy starring Matthew Rhys, Stephen Root, and Kate O’Flynn premiered on April 29 with two episodes, the second of which made a believer out of Widow’s Bay mayor, Tom Loftis, who has long rejected the island community’s deep-rooted superstitions that their home is cursed. Rhys, Root, and O’Flynn, in addition to series creator Katie Dippold, break down the Widow’s Bay premiere in the video interview above. Warning: Widow’s Bay Episodes 1 and 2 spoilers ahead.

In Widow’s Bay, something lurks beneath the surface. Mayor Tom Loftis (Rhys) is desperate to revive his struggling community. There’s no Wi-Fi, spotty cellular reception, and he must contend with superstitious locals who believe their island is cursed. He wants these people to respect him. They don’t. They think he is soft and cowardly. And he is. But Loftis is determined to build a better future for his teenage son and turn the island into a tourist destination. Miraculously, he succeeds: tourists are finally coming. Unfortunately, the locals were right. After decades of calm, the old stories that seemed too ludicrous to be true start happening again. The show pulls inspiration from spooky classics from Stephen King and suspense thrillers such as Jaws, while creating its own unique blend of horror and comedy and original lore.

Episode 1 showed Tom desperately trying to get a good review of the island from a New York Times travel writer, with the hopes that the review would cause a tourism boom on the lonely island about 40 miles off the coast of New England. He’s trying to compete with Cape Cod, and the travel writer gave him a boon by declaring Widow’s Bay the next Martha’s Vineyard. The tourists are coming. Great! But so are the ghosts. Oh, no.

Tom spent the night in an allegedly haunted inn in Episode 2 with the intent to prove it was safe enough for guests, but all it did was prove their suspicions (with the help of a surprise guest star — expect more of those this season). Tom is now faced with accepting that what Wyck (Root) warned him about is true. But the mayor is still invested in making tourism boom on the struggling island with crumbling infrastructure. He’s going to deny the scary truth as much as he can.

Rhys, Root, and O’Flynn tease what’s next now that Tom is a reluctant believer.

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“As we heard in the inn, his understanding of the island started at a very early age, and he heard a number of things that he thinks he shouldn’t have heard,” Rhys explains. “He’s now blinkered and blinded to the truth of the island in order to convince himself and hopefully others to bring the tourists in. There’s a lot of sitting on the truth [with] Tom, sitting on real big emotions that he’s trying to suppress in order to bring ferries full of visitors.”

Tom spent his summers on the island with his dad after his parents got divorced. His dad was born and raised in Widow’s Bay, and like other locals, he never left the island. There’s a belief that anyone born and raised there will die if they go to the mainland. Root plays Wyck, a former fisherman who has never doubted the superstitions. He’ll continue to try to convince Tom that there are supernatural things to fear.

“Strange things hadn’t happened in [Tom’s] lifetime,” Root says, “whereas people who have been on the island the whole time, things have been happening and will continue to happen. That’s the conflict we have.”

Patricia is a lifelong Widow’s Bay native as well, but her relationship with Tom makes her want to help him more than the other people in town.

“It’s like a sibling dynamic, so there is a kind of platonic codependency. It’s a safe space,” O’Flynn explains. “They can irritate each other, it’s OK. She finds comfort in the relationship and comfort in the status. Her job is very important to her, to be of service as the mayor’s assistant. She’s got her blinkers on as well, in terms of, ‘I’m going to help him achieve what he wants to, even if I think it’s a terrible idea.'”

Learn more about Widow’s Bay from the cast and creator in the full video interview above.

Widow’s Bay, Wednesdays, Apple TV