‘Widow’s Bay’ Revealed Richard Warren’s Last Living Descendent, And the Clues Were There All Along

In yet another kick-yourself plot development, Widow’s Bay has just revealed Richard Warren’s last living descendant, and annoyingly, the writing was kind of on the wall all along. Who else could it have been? The satisfaction of the pieces clicking into place is tempered slightly by the frustration that we probably should have been able to guess what was going on for ourselves. Of course, several people already did, but that’s on account of multiple clues, some subtle and some less so, that were sprinkled throughout previous episodes. With the truth revealed, it’s as good a motivation as any to look back on how the show steered us in the right direction, even if we didn’t realise it.

Richard Warren’s Last Living Descendant Is… Ruth Livingston

Ruth, played by K Callan, is Tom’s forgetful assistant at the Town Hall. She’s a satellite character, someone who has consistently orbited events with just enough character and backstory for her presence to be noteworthy without having any particular bearing on the main plot. At least, not until now.

In Episode 9, Rosemary traced Richard Warren’s genealogy through his surviving daughter, Frances, after Patricia and then Wyck figured out that she survived Sarah’s attempted escape from the island and washed up back on shore. Frances Warren was missing a finger after an accident with a wagon wheel, and in the portrait on Ruth’s office wall, Patricia realises that Frances Fisher is missing the same finger. Putting two and two together with Sarah’s journal, Patricia realises that Frances Fisher is Frances Warren.

On the shore, Frances was discovered by a wealthy whaler named Barnabas Fisher, whom she was eventually forced to marry. Their son, Jonathan, continued the Warren bloodline. After exploring pretty much every branch of the family tree, Rosemary eventually reveals that the only living descendant of the bloodline is Ruth.

The Clues Were There

In a Reddit thread, a user noticed something off about Ruth and her scenes with Tom, noticing that she seemed to consistently be the last person he interacted with just before something significant happened:

I noticed something about the show. In Episode 2, everything in the hotel is normal until the moment the mayor gets on the phone with Ruth . From that point forward, even while still on the phone with her, is when mysterious things start to happen to Loftis in the hotel.

So I went back and rewatched the other episodes. In Episode 1 she is the last character to speak before Loftis talks to the Sheriff to find out Shep is missing. In Episode 3, the last person in the office that Loftis speaks to before it cuts to that night (where things go downhill) is also her. In Episode 4, she’s the person who points out to Patricia that the woman who hates Patricia and her friends just walked in, and right about then is when the bachelorette party walks in and the party takes off. Finally in Episode 5, she’s the last person in the office who talks to Loftis before it cuts to him going to the Priest’s office and finding the mysterious messages and the mushrooms.

While not necessarily hinting at Ruth’s familial history, these coincidences do tie Ruth very explicitly into the island’s unseen evil, almost using her as a kind of starter pistol for each moment of horror. It’s creating an unconscious feeling in the audience’s mind that this character is significant, even though she doesn’t initially appear to be.

The genealogy stuff was teased too, though. In the same thread, another user points out the following:

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This is referencing Tom’s mushroom trip in Episode 5, where — it’s also pointed out in the thread — Tom’s interactions with Ruth with his “third eye” open were completely distinct from those with anyone else, further implying that she is connected to what’s going on in a much deeper way.

Is Tom Going to Kill Ruth?

We already know from Richard Warren himself that the eradication of his bloodline will end the curse, since it was he who made the pact with the island in the first place. This was the motivation behind Tom and Wyck sailing him out beyond the boundary line, which killed the seemingly immortal Richard, but failed to lift the curse, which Episode 8 revealed to still be ongoing. Now, we know why.

But Tom and Wyck are still operating on the belief that ending the bloodline will end the curse. At the end of Episode 9, after learning the truth about Ruth, both Tom and Wyck debate murdering Ruth, who never married and had no children, and presumably knows nothing about her family tree. The episode even ends with the strong implication that Tom is heading out into the storm to do just that.

Personally, I don’t think Tom will go that far. But he is determined to protect the town, and particularly his son, and given the strength of the storm, everyone is at serious risk from the curse if he doesn’t do something. Is an old lady’s life a worthwhile trade? We’ll have to wait and see.