Summary
It was obvious that Widow’s Bay wasn’t quite over yet, and “Your Baggage” proves that with a clever riff on Halloween that raises even more questions.
In what continues to be a stellar example of deft writing and direction, not to mention satisfying mystery-box-style storytelling, Widow’s Bay reinvents Halloween in the same way that the previous episode reworked Jaws. Its facility for cycling between different styles of horror and homage remains the key selling point of what is shaping up to be one of the very finest shows of the year, and with Episode 8, it’s obvious that Season 1 is far from over, despite how much the inhabitants of the titular island might have wanted to believe it was.
But that’s where we find Tom, Patricia, and Wyck in “Your Baggage”. After having disintegrated Richard Warren into a coffin full of dust and bones, the assumption was that the island had slipped the shackles of whatever ancient curse had been invoked by its undead founder’s deal with the devil. That last lingering look at a painting in the hotel gave it away, though. Warren’s bloodline survives, though through whom remains a mystery. Either way, as Wyck says to Tom at the end of this episode, “It’s not over”. Thank goodness for that.
Tom believing that the worst has passed is good for us on a storytelling level, though. Since he now believes that it’s safe to leave the island, he’s planning on taking Evan to a Red Sox game, and has even acquired the tickets in anticipation. But he has some personal matters to deal with before that, namely the fact that Evan found his old trunk and the photos of his mother that proved she didn’t die in childbirth, as Tom had always claimed.
Tom’s explanation is satisfying enough. Technically speaking, she did die in childbirth, at least insofar as never being the same afterward. A preeclampsia-induced stroke destroyed her mind, making her unpredictable and dangerous. Tom had no choice but to commit her to “The Home”, an asylum on the island, where she died of an aneurysm two years later, but not before sending Evan a load of creepy nutcase letters. Evan buys it, especially after being shown a bunch of pictures of his mother when she was well, and with the Red Sox tickets thrown in as a sweetener. It’s a nice father-and-son bonding moment.
Or is it? I still suspect there’s something amiss here. Tom and his wife were seen attempting to leave the island while she was pregnant, so was the stroke really preeclampsia-induced, or a consequence of the curse? Was there hidden meaning in the letters? Is there something else going on at The House? Something tells me we haven’t heard the end of this.
Still, it’s Patricia who hogs the bulk of the focus in Widow’s Bay Episode 8, which is always a good thing. Beginning with a dodgy take-out order and an alarm going off outside, her night quickly takes a turn into a full-on pursuit by the recently reappeared Boogeyman. It’s all very effectively Halloween-coded, but embellished with the social details we’ve already learned, especially when Patricia bursts into a little get-together with Kris and the other housewives and has to try and convince them that the Boogeyman is after her for real this time (she confesses to lying about the calls as a youngster after feeling “left out” of the killing spree).
Patricia’s only weapon is a taser on 2% charge, which she eventually uses to ignite a stream of fuel on the gas station forecourt and set the Boogeyman alight (after using it to knock Kris out, hilariously). But this whole sequence is a very adroit example of how good Widow’s Bay is at blending comedy and horror. There’s a bit where Patricia, standing outside in the street, spots the killer lurking upstairs in Kris’s house, then the Boogeyman does a comedy pratfall through the window, but then sits up again like Michael Myers and kills a paramedic. It sounds ridiculous written down, but it works like gangbusters in real-time.
At the gas station, the attendant and an off-duty Sheriff Bechir rush out to extinguish the flames, not recognising the danger. The Boogeyman tosses the attendant aside and wounds Bechir with the knife before Patricia is able to shoot him, seemingly fatally, with a shotgun. In a very funny visual beat, she keeps the shotgun trained on his head from the forecourt all the way to the morgue, via an ambulance, and even keeps it trained on the metal doors while the killer is being cremated. Only after she sees the pile of ash that was once the Boogeyman is she satisfied.
But the satisfaction doesn’t last long. When she visits the recovering Bechir, she discovers that his wife, Chelle, is heavily pregnant, despite being in her 40s. Somberly, Patricia warns Bechir that they can’t have their baby on the island, and presumably then explains that it’s on account of an ancient curse that applies to anyone born there. But we don’t see that bit.
Is Chelle’s age relevant? What did Wyck find in the old Boogeyman house? Who is Warren’s descendant? Is Tom telling the whole truth about what happened to his wife? With only two episodes left, there’s still plenty we don’t know. But what’s for certain is that we’ll have a lot of fun finding out.
