Widow’s Bay is over — for now. But given how popular and immediately beloved the Apple TV show has become, it was virtually inevitable that it wouldn’t be renewed for Season 2. Despite some early, apparently mistaken, beliefs that everything would be wrapped up in Season 1, the greenlight has been given, and we’ll be heading back to the island at some indeterminate point in the future. But even though the finale confirmed a bunch of fan theories, most notably that Ruth wasn’t the only living descendant of Richard Warren after all, there was still plenty left on the table, including several major questions about how things shook out for certain characters.
I’ve rounded up all the burning questions I still have coming out of the Season 1 finale, some of which will hopefully form the basis for Season 2 when it eventually rolls around.
Is Ruth Alive?
Despite being incredibly well preserved for her age, Ruth isn’t immortal. And in the course of the finale, she was not only drugged by Tom, but shot — I think in the head — by Bechir. That’s pretty difficult to come back from for anyone, let alone someone in their 80s.
However, Ruth was alive at the end of the season, and I would definitely like to believe that she has remained so into Season 2. Her unique connection to Tom and Evan would be a valuable source of drama as the inhabitants continue to deal with the curse.
Who Knows About Evan?
Speaking of Ruth, the big revelation of the finale was that she was Evan’s grandmother, making him the last living descendant of Richard Warren. Since Tom is a lot less inclined to smother his own son to death than he was Ruth, this means that the terms of battling the curse have very much changed.
When Bechir confronted Tom, he let on that there was another descendant, but not who. Anyone who knows about the curse will be able to theorise that killing the descendant will presumably end it, most notably Wyck, so Evan is at serious risk if this news gets out. Since Bechir knows that someone is the descendant, how is Tom going to keep him quiet?
Tom trying to juggle his responsibilities as mayor, including appeasing the island’s evil, while also making sure that nobody finds out about Evan, will surely form a key crux of the drama in Season 2.
Will Tom Continue the Sacrifices?
It has been fairly well established that offering the island human sacrifices keeps the evil at bay, preventing the various plague-style calamities from descending on the village. The fact that Tom has been dealing with these kinds of things all season means that the sacrifices weren’t being made, but Kenny becoming an inadvertent offering in the finale temporarily ended the storm. However, in the final scene, the island’s church bell tolled eight times, meaning that whatever’s lurking in the deep needs eight more entrees to feel satisfied.
With Tom stuck between a rock and a hard place, knowing that the only way to stop the curse is to kill Evan but still feeling a responsibility to protect the rest of the citizens, there’s a chance that he might voluntarily restart the officially sanctioned sacrifice process. The infrastructure is still in place, and several people are now in the know, so leading people to their deaths seems to be a viable solution.
In the past, the Widow’s Bay higher-ups had chosen the “offerings” based on people who fell into the fringes of society, such as criminals and the like, so perhaps that’ll seem morally justifiable to Tom. He was, after all, willing to smother an old lady to death.
What’s in Tom’s Basement?
We’ve theorised about this already, but we never got an appropriate answer. We now have a good idea of what’s not in there, so the potential answers are narrower, but there’s definitely something in there.
After the revelations about Lauren, I’m starting to lean towards it being something connected to her, perhaps that proves she isn’t as dead as Tom has been claiming. This would be a big reveal, since even Ruth believed that Lauren was dead. Either way, I still don’t think Tom has been totally honest about everything, least of all to Evan (not that he deserves it).
What’s Going On With All the Teeth?
There’s no way that the multiple references to teeth in Season 1 were an accident, but it never ended up being explained. There’s a chance I’m just hyper-fixating on a throwaway line, but between the mentions and the board game in the hotel, there’s definitely something amiss with the gnashers. Not returning to this idea would feel like missing an open goal, so I’m keen for some kind of explanation here, even if it’s only a jokey one.
What about you? What have I missed? Let us know in the comments what leaped to your mind following the finale, and what you think deserves a bit more explanation in Season 2.
