Mysteries of 'Widow's Bay'; Plus, 'The Boroughs,' 'Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed,' and More!

[00:00:00] Hey, welcome again to Taking It Down, the TV podcast from The Alabama Take. On this week's episode, we have more than a few shows in the non-spoiler section, which begins each week. And then for spoilers in the back half, we're going to be talking about the sixth and seventh episodes of Apple TV's Widow's Bay. If you'll allow me, let me welcome in Adam and Donovan to the podcast. An Alabama Take projection.

[00:00:33] There's Adam, there's Donovan, just like I promised. I watched all of The Boroughs on Netflix this week, which got a small amount of buzz, likely due to it being produced by the Duffer brothers. Those are the guys who created and wrote most of Stranger Things. In fact, this has been called Stranger Things in a Retirement Community, and that's fair at first, but it did morph into a lot more than that after an episode. Do you recommend it?

[00:01:03] I really enjoyed it. My first thought is that it was awfully predictable, but that was just episode one. That changes to many degrees, and it really doesn't even matter after the second, third, and fourth episodes progress. Yes. Because it's a show that understands quite well that its leads are older, and all of that entails. There's a hint that it's dealing with aging as trauma, but as aging is probably a little bit more like aging as something as cosmic. Mm-hmm.

[00:01:33] I thought that was kind of okay. It did that on a generic kind of level, but the best thing it has going for it is that it's large cast, and they're all very interesting and likable as characters.

[00:01:46] Dennis O'Hare, he is a classic that guy. You don't recognize the name, but he steals every scene he's in. All of these actors are really good. They're all that guy and that lady type of actors. Alfred Molina, Alfre Woodard, Dennis O'Hare, I mentioned. Clark Peters and Bill Pullman.

[00:02:08] That's the main cast. I'm sorry, Geena Davis is also in this cast, and it's actually funny at times, and if you watch it, you'll have a favorite character. It's one of those kinds of shows. Blaine, Alfred Molina is not just that guy. He was Dr. Octopus in Spider-Man 2. In a very good role for him. He's not that guy, but he's also the lead, probably. Right. I love Clark Peters. Do you really? I do. Say more. I didn't think anybody would really catch his name.

[00:02:37] You're talking about of HBO fame. Yeah. And The Wire, and he was, I mean, I think you can make the argument that he's as much of a lead as there is in Treme. Right, which I didn't watch. You did. I love Treme. I think it's great. Well, he's fantastic in this. Very funny. And he, it's, that's interesting that it's an aging thing because, I mean, Treme has been out long enough now,

[00:03:03] but it's, I won't say too much, but it is a guy who is, Katrina comes at a time when, if he were a younger man, he would have responded, been physically able to respond in a different way than he is at that point in life. And that, that kind of plays out over the seasons. No, I just think he's, anytime he pops up in something like, like he's in episode one of True Detective season one, he plays the pastor of the church that they go to check in on. Okay.

[00:03:31] And I thought, well, one, I can't, if he is somehow tied to any nefarious deeds, I can't handle it because I like him so much. But that's also a great, almost like HBO insider joke. We got him and now you guys think that this character is more important than it actually ended up being. I mean, he's amazing when he's on screen, but you're like, how could you not use Clark Peters more than you did?

[00:03:56] But it's, it's kind of a, especially at that time, a good like fake out. Anyway, sorry, I'm, I've digressed here. No, I encouraged that because I was flabbergasted that you recognized him by his, his name, his actual name. Yeah, he gets ample screen time here and he's great. On the flip side of that, I also dove into the new season of the AMC Plus series, The Terror. The first two seasons were on AMC.

[00:04:24] This one's only on AMC Plus and I kind of see why it's subtitled Devil in Silver. It's based off a novel of the same name by Victor LaValle. The second Victor LaValle TV series we've, we've looked at here. That's right. The man's having a moment, I suppose. Yeah, he did the novel that The Changeling is based on from Apple TV. Devil in Silver though has a good cast too.

[00:04:49] It stars Dan Stevens, Stephen Root, Maren Ireland, Judith Lott, Asif Mondi, Monvi, excuse me, let me get the pronunciation right. But I'm kind of convinced Dan Stevens is not a good actor. Is that fair? Based on this or? Based on this and Legion and a couple other things I've seen him in. I just don't think he's convincing. I liked him in Legion. Yeah, I know you did. I liked him a lot. Yeah.

[00:05:15] Are you just seeking out more ways to have Stephen Root on your television week to week right now? Stephen Root. He is a joy to watch. Isn't he? The, but speaking of Devil in Silver, the first episode had some trite moments, but it was interesting enough. And the four episodes that are all streaming, they just, they're mostly interesting, but they're just not as good as those, that first season, which was a spectacle of a show. I love the first season.

[00:05:44] Yeah, it was really good. That's some dude's TV. Probably. Yeah. A certain kind of dude. And I'm not saying that, I mean, Natalie really enjoyed it as well, but in the same way that like if you ask a certain part of the population about Master and Commander, they kind of like, they physically light up, you know? But I mean, are we going to talk about Master and Commander? Exactly. Donovan represents that population. I'm sorry. It's so good. It should have been 10 movies.

[00:06:15] My final check-in, just for listeners to know, you know, what's on, if it's for them or not. It's Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, Tatiana Maslany and Jake Johnson on Apple TV. In our text messages, we've tossed some possible interest around for this one. It's aired three or four episodes. It's Tatiana Maslany and Jake Johnson are a divorced couple, and she's privy to a crime.

[00:06:44] That's the first five minutes. It's tense. It's interesting. It's well-acted. I'll say that it's so well-acted by Maslany that I think I have some things figured out. And I'm not a viewer who tries to guess what's coming next. I'm usually too busy digesting what's in a particular frame or scene at the moment and try to soak that in. But here, Maslany's so good that I think I'm certain I know something that is to be revealed. I don't know, though.

[00:07:14] I haven't seen headlines. I haven't seen any kind of writing that would hint that I'm on the right path. But that doesn't hinder watching it. I think a lot of people get a lot of enjoyment out of this specific type of character. A divorced mom who's doing some smart and not-so-smart things on occasion. It's pretty fun so far. 35 minutes each episode. I'm always a fan of lean toward the shorter episodes. I'm going to watch this one.

[00:07:40] And I think my wife is also a big fan of Tatiana Maslany. So that it's almost enough. We're grown up, so we only have so much time, right? But it's almost enough to watch something sight unseen because she's so good in everything I've ever seen her in. Man, she's really good here. I believe it. She's enjoyable. You guys want to touch on hacks from HBO and non-spoilers at all? Do you like to laugh? I kind of did it last week, but Donovan, what do you make of this season?

[00:08:09] We know it's the final one. I don't think I have anything for spoilers, really. I do think that they have done something really good and really interesting by taking the arc of the two leads' relationship to the place where it should have been going instead of janking it around just for drama. That was an exhausting thing last season was the flip-flop every other episode of we're back together. No, we're not.

[00:08:39] We hate each other. Was it a dip in season three then? I know because the overall arc was still compelling enough, but it did start to feel tedious to me. That's just me, though. That's what I liked is that they were like, we've already done this, and the audience is respected enough to be like, hey, you know the journey these two have been on together. You know the way that they've grown or not grown together.

[00:09:06] There's also an arrested development level magician joke in this series. It's very good. All I could say after seeing that scene was where does the lighter fluid come from? I find it hard sometimes to figure out if I'm supposed to be frustrated with a character due to some bad decision-making or lack of growth.

[00:09:31] That's just maybe some bad writing or they didn't have anything else to do with them at that episode. I've had a genuine, well, not big, but a debate with a friend over whether the penultimate season of The Americans is bad or not. And I contend it is not bad. I think it's good. You are supposed to feel frustrated with the characters. But if you do it too well, then you're just like, I'm just sitting here being frustrated. I don't like this. This is bad.

[00:10:01] I don't know if you remember this years ago, Don, but when you and I first started hanging out, one of my gripes was that Don Draper kept sleeping with a woman. I was like, he constantly sleeps with a woman. When's he ever going to learn? And you're like, that's the point. And I said, oh. And now you're my podcast hero. That should be Adam.

[00:10:21] Since we're enjoying it, we'll continue now with the series Widow's Bay on Apple TV, which stars Matthew Rhys as the mayor of a New England island town where, gosh darn it, he wants more tourists. Can we just get a few more tourists? This week, Apple released two episodes of the show. Made sense to do so. I think I'll say a little more in spoilers. I won't say why. Adam did start the show.

[00:10:44] So I'm really eager to hear what he has thought of these first, I guess we're in episode seven now, aren't we? Yes. I started the show either last Sunday or Monday and caught up in a matter of days. And this was. That was a good time. The whole house watching, meaning me and Natalie. Well, and the boy, right? And the boy. Yeah. The dog.

[00:11:12] This doesn't always, even shows that we enjoy don't always end up doing this. I don't know if it is the right brand of like summer fun for the week after Memorial Day. Things kind of feel. We live in a kind of a university town that changes vibe in the summer. It's like, oh, well, this is, feels a bit like Finding Jaws on AMC on the ride summer evening. And you just, you want to know more every time.

[00:11:39] And I, when they put the font on the screen the first time, it's like, you know what? This is Stephen King. This is, I listened to y'all's thoughts from last week to make sure I didn't get too redundant. You know, I think the only thing that I would disagree with Blaine on is he called it folk horror. I don't think this is folk horror. I think this is adjacent, but it's much more King-esque.

[00:12:07] I think there's going to probably be, we can get into this in spoilers, but it does strike you a bit more as like a throwback monster of the week kind of thing. But with a really, really, really good cast that's kind of letting it operate on a different level. And I also, it's funny that y'all brought up Midnight Mass because I thought of that for several reasons that I'm sure we will touch on. Even before those, the idea of being on an island, something weird happens.

[00:12:37] You know, it's hard not to draw comparisons there. The difference being, I think there's some good acting in Midnight Mass, but the whole crew here is on a different level. And it feels like it's achieving that thing where you don't have to enjoy the genre necessarily. And I think they're constantly undercutting the genre. I mean, obviously it's- Transcending the genre. Right. And that's when things get good.

[00:13:02] I do think it's somehow both really funny and scary. And sometimes like the funny moment is, like there's a jump scare in the most recent episode that's a moment of humor. Yes. And like, I think I, can y'all think of that many times that that happens? I have been, like, I'd say the, I guess it would be episode six is probably like the least funny episode they've done. Yeah.

[00:13:30] And yet, and yet there are like genuinely laugh out loud parts. There really were. You know, and I'm like that, that is, that's hard to do that without making it while also having like the drama still dramatic and serious. That's tough. I'm notorious on this podcast for saying I don't laugh out loud. It takes a lot. It takes just really some pure slapstick comedy maybe.

[00:13:55] But I had a laugh out loud moment in this most recent episode where I heartily chuckled, I suppose. It is the cast too. Like even the people I didn't know, like there's a lot of familiar faces, you know, we get from somebody somewhere. Obviously we have Matthew Rhys. We have Stephen Hiller. Thank you. I couldn't think of his name. But then people I didn't know, like I had never really seen Kate O'Flynn in anything before. She's hilarious. She's so good. She's absolutely one of my favorite characters.

[00:14:25] She's perfect. Yep. How much does it pain Apple that they can't use their iPhones to talk to one another? Oh, I love that. Isn't it great that they're based off the landline? I was about to say something about the world building happening here that I don't suppose is a spoiler. To say a lot of the time you go to an island by episode three or say minute 25 in a film, you kind of know all the players.

[00:14:53] They've really made the island big enough that like you can still have new characters and they can go to new places and they do clever things like there's no cell service. So everybody's checking their answering machine and using land. And it just feels like, I mean, it is out of time, but it lets them do when they do an homage to like a classic film or something like that. It doesn't feel like, well, why don't you just text the person that you're, you know what I mean?

[00:15:21] And they managed to slice a lot of that away in this clever format. Does it surprise any of you that the showrunner Katie Dippel worked on Parks and Rec? Right. No, it's got that kind of dry sense of humor. You can see the DNA from one. I see it for sure. And even the, I mean, our heroes are like connected via local government, you know, in some way you get the inner workings.

[00:15:49] I mean, some of the scenes, I don't, I need you to stay all day. It's like, well, that sounds good. I got a little three. Like this is, this could be from the Pawnee Parks and Recreation Department for sure. Matthew Reese is so good. He's doing so many different things here, but I do genuinely enjoy him as the mayor constantly trying not to blow his top, which is, and I will say another thing I really like about the writing and I think Matthew Reese's performance, and I think this can be said of other characters

[00:16:17] too, is that exasperated mayor trying to blow his top is not the only thing he is. Yeah. I think it's good when you, when you have characters that have facets and you see how those different facets display. Well, they do such fast character studies that, and they're so good that I think you don't even notice them. Yeah. And I, I guess we won't get into specifics of that, but there are people with very, you

[00:16:42] know, I think if you tallied up their screen time, it would be surprisingly low on the minute count that you feel like have contributed significantly or that you know something. And that's such a, it makes me think that they know everything. There's probably some binder with hundreds of pages on the backstory of all of these people because you almost have to do that to be able to pull off. Yes. That tip of the iceberg thing.

[00:17:07] It feels like even smaller characters, like the waitress that Loftus doesn't like or the guy that runs the inn. Like he's been, it's like you said, Adam, he's been probably in 10 minutes of screen time, but like he's now he's making me laugh every time I see him. Cause. Well, and even the waitress, like you learn something about the island because you think, why should she care? Right. You know what I mean? Like she's been stuck here her entire life.

[00:17:34] And you start thinking about all of these things that there's a version of this that doesn't walk all of these tight ropes well. And people maybe just turn into like, well, they're quirky for quirky sake or whatever it is, but they, all the characters feel very realized. This, this is the thing that people who like you, there was like a spate of movies in the nineties that are not good that were trying to be Pulp Fiction.

[00:18:01] And the thing is that they were basically, they would, they would do that where it was just like, oh, it's quirky for quirky. You know, it's like, okay, there has to be a point. I can't, I just, I don't, I do not enjoy just watching a bundle of eccentricities unless there is some sort of point to it. Well, even say, this isn't a spoiler, but the, so the priest and Matthew Reese's interaction at the, I think it's in the first episode. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:29] Like that's a great example of they're just, he's picking up food. Priest is like, do you want to come by? And so we'll figure it out another time. And there's, you learn so much about how all of these people are related by those little interactions and experiences. For me, it goes back to the Russo brothers working on community, which had to be an ensemble piece in order to work. And then they took those skills over to the Avengers movies and made the best Avengers movies so well.

[00:18:59] It's, so it's really not the genre that matters as much as dealing with what elements of the story needs to shine and how to work those in. And because it's funny when I first heard about Widow's Bay and then I found out it was going to be ran by Dippold, who was, I might be saying her name wrong. And she worked on parts in Rick. I thought, oh, okay, well, you know, I hope it's just not a ridiculous comedy because it's

[00:19:25] got, it sounds like it's got potential, but it doesn't really matter because a good show is going to be a good show. And I think, you know, my initial concern with it was like, is it going to be dragged down by being a monster of the week? I think that fear of mine has been laid to rest. This is one that I look forward to watching every week. I also had that concern by episode two or three. And it's like, well, maybe, and it still felt like they were pushing something bigger, something

[00:19:54] overall was going to happen. And obviously they delivered on that, but. It manages to do that both, you know, we're talking about comedy and horror. It manages to be a monster of the week and have a strong through line. Yeah. You know, and I, I do think having watched more of it, the monster of the week thing has been, there's a little bit for me as the viewer of like having your cake and eating it too, where it's like, we can have the through line, but we can also do a fun one-off, you know, like the fun one-off thing that centers an episode.

[00:20:23] And I'm like, okay, that's, I enjoy this. It leads, it adds to my sense of fun watching it. Thoroughly agree. Let's take a break here. And on the back half, we'll talk about much more. Many interviews can ramble, or maybe the host asks the same questions you've all heard answered. Not with short takes.

[00:20:49] Not only does short takes have the guests you want to know more about, but also the summer series manages to go in depth with just four questions. Back again this summer, short takes will air new episodes each Friday on the YouTube channel for the Alabama Take. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe to the YouTube channel, and you'll know exactly when each episode of short takes premieres.

[00:21:16] Yeah, we're going to pick back up with Widow's Bay is the only thing in spoilers this week, but it's plenty. They gave us two episodes this week. Adam's still relatively new to the series. Did you guys know if you Google Widow's Bay, it'll give, you know, did you mean, the did you mean question will say, did you mean the next Martha's Vineyard and definitely not cursed? Does it actually do that? Yeah. I saw that on Reddit.

[00:21:45] I didn't know if it was like, oh, that's, that's very good. It is good. So two episodes this week in the first is what we saw coming is it's almost solely a flashback to 1702 where Sarah Westcott becomes Sarah Warren, the wife to Lord Protector of the Island, Richard Warren from the cold open last week. He was the man struggling to find food in the snow, eats the mushrooms. That's what we thought. Any thoughts on this being a flashback episode?

[00:22:13] I, for me, it was a great way to break up some of the action in present day. This is where I paused and yelled at the screen because there's a, I don't know a lot about this, but I know a passing amount of, there's a moment when she's walking through the town and there's a graveyard on her right. And if you look, you can see a rectangular gravestone. Gravestone, you're not seeing that shit till the 1820s. Absolute, couldn't suspend my disbelief anymore. Just, you were out. Ridiculous.

[00:22:42] Is that true though? Don't they know they're braves? You were there through the sea hag, everything. I mean, that stuff happens. I live in New England. It's a documentary. Yeah. I, at first I was like, we'll see how this goes because it does break up. And by the end of it, I would, well, honestly, when they changed the font for the, for the, for the, uh, I was like, oh, okay. They know exactly what they're doing.

[00:23:09] And it probably, like, I think as I alluded to earlier, probably like the least funny of all the episodes so far yet with some like really funny moments too. Yeah. It's like, I just, I, that's such a good balance. Yeah. Did you get a sense of the witch in watching? Oh, like a hint maybe. Yeah. A babble. Although the witch is different. Here's where I'll say I didn't get it. The witch is different because Eggers people are cast out from the community.

[00:23:39] Mm-hmm. Uh, and we do still have the community here. Uh, so it's more, honestly, there's not, not the same thing, but even like, uh, you know, there's, there's echoes of, you know, Salem witch trials, things like that. It does make you want to know more, at least it did me, about the nature of, like, why would you go to this island? Are these people, have they all been cast out? You know, like, what is the point of the seclusion happening there?

[00:24:08] And why, why have they given this power to, I mean, you gotta know, you can't give power to Hamish Linklater. You know what I mean? Have we learned nothing? This is, this is, come on guys. Have they not seen TV? This is Midnight Mass 101. He apparently sold his soul to the devil while in the midst of starvation, helps him to feed the island. Apparently the island needs death in order to keep this bond going.

[00:24:37] And he claims to do it to keep his children safe. Even going to the, to lengths to kill his own wife. As one does. Uh. I mean, who, who do you love more? But, you know, it immediately made me think of Tom doing all he can to keep Evan safe in modern day. Sure, I mean, they're immediately set up as mirrors, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And how much of that is his story going to look like Richard Warren's?

[00:25:03] I'm not saying Tom killed his wife, but I believe he's going to have a, to face a lot more to protect Evan as the story moves on. By the time we leave these two episodes, we have many, many questions about the missing wife. Yes. And, and it definitely seemed, I don't think anything necessarily like nefarious has happening, but definitely like with Loftus, but definitely like your natural desire to

[00:25:30] protect has maybe warped and is, is harming instead of helping. Well, all along. So as someone who watched all of it last week and missed, uh, people, I got my answer fairly fast, you know, cause I could just watch the next episode, you know, thinking through like Loftus is he early on shown to be so dismissive of everything because he knows it's true and it drives him insane.

[00:25:56] That his family is trapped in this cycle, you know, and there's, and he's powerless to do anything about it. And I, I think as time goes on, it's like, well, yeah, that's obviously what's, what's happening here. It's Don and I thought you had a great few lines last week talking about, uh, the yelling match that he gets in with his son and like how, how that impacted both of them. That, that he's not only wanting his son to act right because he's the mayor and the mayor's

[00:26:25] kid has the microscope on him, but he also just wants to keep him alive. Like there's this existential threat that he can't really talk about out there, which is a great, I mean, I'm not a parent, but it does seem like a fairly, uh, obviously dramatized version of like, you, you can't see everything right now. You have a limited view and I'm just trying to keep you safe. Yeah. Which again is a credit to what we've said about the show that it, it's not only doing horror comedy.

[00:26:54] It's, it's like making you think about things like that. I thought this isn't popping up as much now, but yeah, Matthew Reese and the performance and the writing was, was he, I thought he was great as a guy who like believed everything was, could not acknowledge that he believed, right? Like he did it. He desperately did not want it to be true. And then he was constantly like, but when he, like his lizard brain would revert to like, yep, that's the sea hag. Yeah.

[00:27:21] And how, how quick he is to absolutely lose his shit, you know, once confronted with the thing, he's like rolling around on the beach or yelling, please don't go out into the fog or whatever. Yeah. Which does not bode well for the idea that the Island itself can feel fear in men, you know, and take advantage of that as he's, he's told by Wick. Like I was also thought on the, maybe it's because I've been thinking about America at

[00:27:49] large and possibly our original sins as we go towards 250 years of existing, but this is getting out there a little bit. Bring it. And I was talking Faulkner with a friend and how Sound of the Fury and Absalom, Absalom taken together, I think are so much about how you can't run away from the original sin, the compromise that you made and how they use these two families to show eventually it comes back to bite you

[00:28:16] when there's this Southern Gothic downfall and what Faulkner was saying, cause he's tying in like Haiti and the Caribbean and the fabric of America. It's like, are they, are they trying to say something about the desperation of going to an inhospitable place and the deals that you make with evil to stay there? I mean, I don't, I don't think so. I think this is just me projecting something that was already in my head, but I, I was

[00:28:46] thinking about it this morning, how built into so many, Donovan can speak more on this, I'm sure like survival of initial waves of pilgrims, explorers, whatever the deal with the devil may have been. I do think we're asked to think about those things with, especially with the Puritan episode, especially, um, you know, so many, uh, people who, uh, you know, were in small communities initially

[00:29:14] set out there and what they'd call the howling wilderness. A lot of times, you know, they had to make deals with, um, the native Americans, not devil's deals, but just like they were alive because the native Americans allowed them to be alive. And then, uh, let's just say things kind of go South, uh, eventually, you know, like we, we, we have, we have the, the Pequot war in Connecticut. We have, which was the end of the Pequot tribe. We had, um, King Philip's war.

[00:29:41] And so I think, I think Adams got it there, right? It's like those wars brought out things in the Puritans that they were themselves shocked and disturbed by that they were doing to keep, you know, have power, control their communities, all this kind of, you know, have government, all that kind of stuff. And I think, I mean, anytime they're jumping us back to 17, whatever like that, I think we're meant to think about it at least a little bit.

[00:30:06] When it comes to the Puritans and that many of the colonizers at that point, Native Americans weren't literally the devil, but that was how they were referenced. The heathens, the. Yeah. Something I found. Well, when I say deal with the devil too, I mean like you're making some deal to access your own brutality, not, not anything exterior. That's why, yeah, that's why I thought you were very fair in your.

[00:30:33] This is, this is a complete side note, but I'm, I was, I learned this a couple of years ago and I'm fascinated. It's the word swamp did not come into the English language until your English folks in North America and they were, the Puritans were completely confused by swamps. They thought they were like dark, horrible places. They're like all the Native Americans live in them. They could not figure them out.

[00:30:59] And I think we smartly see like that, some of that confusion echoed in Widow's Bay here. Yeah. Yeah. Go back to, you need that Hawthorne style of text or era of text and you got the wilderness is the devil basically. Yeah. I mean, it's, it will kill you if it rains too much, your crops fail. If it rains too little, they fail. If it's too cold, people just start dying and all this stuff.

[00:31:24] That line of, I think they maybe even undersold the idea of he eats the mushrooms because some people are eating corpses and other people are eating dirt. You know, that is, that is true horror. It is. It wasn't an episode full of humor like Donald has pointed out, but having Betty Gilpin as Sarah Warren helps when you need that balance of humor and serious tone.

[00:31:52] There was a bit when, you know, the bit where she comes to like the, the, the league that's conspiring to kill her husband and, and she's like freaking out. She's like, well, go do it. Go, go get them. That was great. The followup to that is that she's laying in the bed and the idiot comes in to stab the husband and she has to point to which one the husband is. That was, that, that was so unexpected.

[00:32:17] And then coupled with like gore, it just worked really well. That's like a, as like a, as comic relief, really. Doesn't she even say to the townspeople when she's trying to flee the island, I don't even know these kids. Yes. Just like, I just met them. Because they say like, aren't you concerned about your children? And she said, well, I mean. She's like, I just, I just met them. That was it. That was funny.

[00:32:42] Good job of maintaining this motif of misogyny that the town is known for in its past and creeps into the folklore of the present. You know, Sarah's there because she's getting too old to marry and probably has to settle for Richard or betrothed to Richard because of that, whom she hadn't even met before the episode begins. Yeah. Those scenes were so claustrophobic. Like, you know, there's moments in the modern day island where you think, oh, there's a

[00:33:11] lot of people who live here. They seem to have vibrant social lives, blah, blah, blah. That one where she shows up and it's already less than ideal, you know? And then she, the first two people that she meets are like, well, the guy driving the buggy seems to be a fan of her future husband, but everybody else, yeah, they're kind of like, yeah, good luck. Yeah. A little wary. For what he's done, I guess.

[00:33:40] Did you guys catch the, when the episode first started, I thought, are they going to have the actors play their ancestors? You know, as you're slowly making your way through the town because of the guy driving the buggy looks so much like the stoner friend that's always driving the teenagers around. I didn't make that connection. He's got the long hair, the same kind of, I haven't looked to see if it's the same actor

[00:34:07] or not, but I had a brief moment of like, oh, are they going to do one of these where, you know, Matthew Reese is going to show up in a. Right. Some costume that Donovan can pick apart with his authentic knowledge. Look, I'm just saying, if you've been asked to leave as many graveyards as I have, you pick up a thing or two about carving styles. And that rectangular carving style came out of Boston, spread through, you know, most

[00:34:34] of the gravestone innovations started kind of in Boston and spread throughout New England. And you're really not going to see it until the 1820s or 30s. So I turned off my TV in disgust. There you have it, folks. Maybe they had an innovator. God damn it, Blaine, they didn't. The second of the two episodes this week was, is the seventh overall. It's titled Seasickness. It was almost a full piece of foreshadowing because the past literally comes back to haunt them with Richard Warren.

[00:35:04] He was never dead at all. He's buried alive and he stayed alive for 300 some odd years. That's not, not bad for a bit of fasting. Wait, this was intermittent my ass. This was one, this episode was where, one where both Reese, Hamish Linklater and Kate O'Flynn really showed. Oh yeah.

[00:35:31] Especially just the constant, like Kate O'Flynn's character constantly undercutting like this really scary stuff that's going on. And that was the jumpstick scare Adam was talking about in the non-spirit drive. Hilarious. I thought the funniest one to me, are you talking about like the purse scene? Yes, the purse. Yeah, yeah, like she's opening the door. I forgot my purse. That was good, but when they're not sure that he can talk, you know, already Loftus is like,

[00:36:00] and I thought the way that they did this, Blaine, you alluded to this, and I think maybe it's what you're going to say is that releasing these two together makes a lot of sense because flashback episode, great. But if I had been a week to week person at that point and not immediately got to check in on our leads, I would have been frustrated. So I'm- A little bit, yeah. It makes sense that they did both. But to end with, they hit the coffin, what's going to happen?

[00:36:28] And then to just immediately start, let's not bury the lead here. Yeah. There's the coffin. Well, where is he? Oh, he's upstairs. He's upstairs. Isn't that great? That was so good. You didn't have to plow through that stuff, though it could have been interesting. But when they- Oh, but it was hilarious the way they presented it, yeah. The jump scare was when Loftus goes up there and he has the notepad, and they're like, he'll only communicate this way.

[00:36:52] And then when Hamish Linkletter finally makes a noise, and Matthew Rhys, the acting is so good. I feel like he's so horrified at the noise that happens, and it's so unexpected. But he is trying to hold it together. It's great. And both times he's writing the note, Rhys is so slowly giving that notepad to him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You just keep thinking he's going to grab his arm at any moment. Right. Right.

[00:37:18] That there was, and it wasn't even an essential gag, but they were like, the notepad was cracking me up because there's a bit as he's flipping through. Have I done something to offend you? Yeah. It's like, are you mad at me? Yeah. Like- And I think it's like, are you mad at me? Within minutes of meeting a ghost figure. I think it's also important- That's good. That is some very Parks and Rec style writing that works perfectly here too. We also got to zoom out and think about, a lot has happened in just a few days here.

[00:37:48] Like- Yes. When she finally sees the sheriff, and he's like, I have to take you in for questioning for meeting a bunch of people into the ocean last night. Yes, again. And I was talking about the past coming back to haunt someone. That does feel like something that Evan and Tom are going to have to face together. Their past coming back to haunt them. In some way or another, Matthew Reese has played up the role to this point as being a man who's

[00:38:15] both frightened and eager to help Evan do whatever it takes. And you got to think that his wife's story is going to play into that, of course. You know, Richard Warren's buried alive. The boogeyman was also buried alive. That's true. I would be interested to see if they tie those together or if those are separate things. Because the boogeyman has been built up by now. I was going to say, if they don't bring that in, it's going to be a massive failure. It almost feels like a final piece of conflict for Tom, Wick, Patricia, and the sheriff.

[00:38:44] That seems like maybe where they're going with the boogeyman. I don't know. Well, it has to tie in to, you know, the choice is like, what will you do to protect the majority of people? It's like, will you let this thing loose to like, well, what's the worst that could happen if a few tourists disappear? Right. You know, when we get to live in peace. I mean, they've got to spring back. They've talked about witches a few times, right? Yes.

[00:39:11] Patricia was very easily able to do whatever she did at her party. With her book. Yeah. And they're setting up all of these ideas of lineage, you know, who was inheriting things from Widow's Bay's past. You know, when she throws that book in that fire, her hand's in that damn flame. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. Interesting. And another thing the show hasn't returned to, it says from the opening episode, there's an electric chair beneath that restaurant.

[00:39:39] Is that the same chair that's in those tunnels under the Historical Society building? Yes. And turned into an electric chair? I think that these are the same tunnels that we see in the flashback episode. And we see a chair, and I think that those tunnels have been, as someone who watched it quick, like they're very clearly the same place that has been kept up all along. And the ribbon visited that role. The night he died. Right.

[00:40:07] So somebody like that went from torches to lights, they put in a more modern chair. I don't know that that's an electric chair as much as it's modernized restraints. Okay. Could be. Yeah. Like you'd see it in the popular horror imagination of an asylum. Yeah, it does. It's reminiscent of that for sure. I love the effect on Hamish Linkletter's voice when he does finally speak.

[00:40:36] It gave an ample amount of creepiness. But it also made for some, this is where I laughed out loud. And I mean, I think I had to pause it from laughing, is when Tom reveals he's not going to let him out of the coffin and go back and forth with some, fuck you, fuck you. And that had me on the floor almost when he said, fuck you, fuck off. There was another bit where like, this is just the comedy.

[00:41:03] Like when Reese is trying to convince Wick to let him out, he's like, I already did. Oh, that was so good. That was so well played. And so in character. Oh, it was so good. One-on-one is, you know, I've seen people say like, he does lie a lot, Loftus. But it's usually like, he's attempting to do white lies to help people. Yes. But he withholds information even more than he lies. Yes.

[00:41:32] And like that idea of like, because letting him out was weakness, you know, in some ways. It was kindness in other ways, but. And another quick comedic moment that they don't even acknowledge, but it's still funny. They don't just let him out. They feed him. Oh. Vienna sausages. Him crushing those Vienna sausages. So disgusting. Yeah. Tom, like, kind of gagging, doing like the dry. Yeah. So he's not only nice enough to let him out, but he gives him some food.

[00:42:02] I feel sorry for the sheriff. Got to be honest. He's putting in his week's notice. He's done. I feel sorry for him because he's had to put up with a lot of shit. He clearly has. This has been a three-day span at most, maybe four. It's always good when someone in law enforcement that you're supposed to like announces that they're leaving the force, right? I suppose so, yeah. That's good for their longevity.

[00:42:30] You know, I listened to a podcast that was only talking about Widow's Bay, and they, one of the hosts has a theory that there's like a lot. Well, I had already arrived at this. There's a lot of time stuff going on, right? Yeah. It shows us that there is in the hotel. Yeah. Episodes two and three happen simultaneously, or happening simultaneously. And then the thing in the hotel where there's like an absence of time almost.

[00:43:01] Right. Or like long. How long has the owner really been in there? Right. That was creepy. Another creepy but funny scene. Yeah. Yeah. And things like, you know, he's looking at the chart in the first episode, and it's like he's 37 or whatever he was supposed to be. But an old man's laying in front of him. He's like, that can't be right. Yeah.

[00:43:21] And people, ages come up, and something weird going on with time, and this guy had some sort of theory that time is this malleable thing. I think he said time travel, which I don't know if I buy that, but that somehow the sheriff's wife, who we've never seen, will have some relation to Tom's wife, if not be Tom's wife. I find it fascinating we haven't seen her. And are you saying that time is a flat circle?

[00:43:50] How big? Possibly. Well. I also think if you take that read and you look at how the sheriff interacts with Evan, it becomes fairly paternal. Yes. Now, maybe he's just a good guy. I think he's shown that too, but. He's probably one of those two. Yeah, you're supposed to take away he's a good guy or that he's paternal or both.

[00:44:14] But why does he show up right at the time when Evan is potentially about to make a fatal mistake in going into that house? You know? Interesting. I don't know that I buy all of that, but I definitely buy that time is doing something weird and they haven't addressed that yet. Same. I agree. And that plays well with what has happened, may happen with Tom's wife too. Do you think Tom's wife is still alive? Yeah, I think so. At this point, yeah. As much as we're not in the speculation business, I do think that.

[00:44:43] I mean, it kind of forces it, right? At the end of the episode where they zoom in and you realize one child came back. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, on the painting. And people have another speculation, might as well throw them all out there, is that Wick doesn't return to the boat with a preserver. They even think that his actions were questionable. I don't know. I think that's kind of the way Wick acted all along.

[00:45:09] Um, I read him that something weird was going on as I watched it. You did? He was a little too kind to love to. That was fair to say. Yeah, that was what they said, that he was too harsh and then too kind immediately. I'll tell you who I'm the most suspicious of. Evan's love interest. Yes. Even the nosiest of teens don't dig around in their dates. Yeah. That came out of nowhere. She has to be a teenage version of the sea hag or something.

[00:45:39] Something like that. Or maybe she's just a bad kid. She's just a bad kid. I wouldn't. But that does feel like a, like, she's like a tempting figure, you know? Mm-hmm. She's a tempting figure. That's what I, yeah, and interestingly, not sexually, but with this like, don't you want to know what your dad's hiding from you? Mm-hmm. I mean, the brooch has to be somewhere in that house, right? I assume. Yeah. I think so.

[00:46:08] Tom makes an exerted effort to save Wick, you know, by kicking him. Another example of, you know, funny and serious at the same time. That was fascinating. He was a genuine hero there. Yeah. It was great. But I like that it shows something about Tom that we've known all along. It just reinforces it, that he's irritated by the town, but he also wants the best. Maybe selfishly, but he does try to do the best by people.

[00:46:34] I keep thinking about when he reveals that he ran uncontested. Right. Did you, have y'all discussed this in previous episodes, what that could mean? No, we haven't. If you, if Wick and everybody like him, you know, now the question that's being asked is like, if the spell is technically, or the evil is broken now, does that mean, like, could Wick leave the island? Right.

[00:47:04] Or is everyone a descendant? Because when you keep the gene pool small, eventually everyone would be a descendant. How is that going to play out? Obviously there's still more episodes to go, but if everyone in the town is kind of like, knows these things, you know, knows things like Wick in his teenage years didn't abide by the curfew. And they went out and had this horrifying encounter.

[00:47:27] Like if everybody in town has some version of that story or connection to it, and they know what the Lord Protector is supposed to do, they're like, I'm not doing that job. Get the guy who wasn't born here to do it. He doesn't know any better. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And also the sheriff's duties, he's not from there. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. He's mentioned that he's not from Widow's Vacuum, which is basically Martha's Vineyard. Well, I think that's it for us this week.

[00:47:54] I'm always appreciative of Donovan and Adam's time and for our listeners for listening. And for Adam and Donovan, I'm playing. And if you dig up a dead body, don't feed it. It's just going to get stronger. But if you have to, Vianney Sausages, big hit. Love that Southern pronunciation there. Have a nice week, everyone.