‘Widow’s Bay’ Team Gives Big Season 2 Updates

The Widow’s Bay Season 2 writers’ room has gotten to work, according to creator Katie Dippold. She, along with other cast and creators from the Apple TV breakout hit, gave some updates on Season 2 during promotional events, including the characters they want to explore more in the second season. Warning: Widow’s Bay spoilers ahead!

Widow’s Bay was the unexpected hit of this TV season. The new horror-comedy scored the most Emmy nominations out of any new show this year with 19, and based on the show’s quick popularity, we’d wager it’s bound for some wins. In it, desperate to revive the isolated island of Widow’s Bay, Mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) ignores local superstitions to attract tourists; but as visitors finally arrive, the town’s dormant curse awakens, proving the old legends true. His friends, Wyck (Stephen Root) and Patricia (Kate O’Flynn), plus a town of colorful characters help him navigate the hauntings that pop up after the island’s mysterious entity is reawakened.

Dippold told Deadline that the Widow’s Bay Season 2 writers’ room has been “great” so far. “Week 3, feeling great. I think it’s fun.” With the groundwork laid in Season 1, they have a lot more room to grow in Season 2. “I feel like I always look at Season 1 — what was really hard with that is having to lay all the groundwork. ‘Haunted Island’ sounds silly and terrible, honestly. I’m still happy they all signed up. It’s a tough pitch,” Dippold said. “I feel like a lot of groundwork was laid in Season 1 so you can buy it. So, it’s making Season 2 much more fun.”

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In another Deadline interview, Dippold revealed the main theme of Tom’s arc in Season 2. Season 1 was about accepting that the island’s curse is real, and now that his son, Evan (Kingston Rumi Southwick), is involved in the curse, Season 2’s theme is “endurance.”

“I really feel like we took this approach of following what’s fun,” Dippold said. “In Season 1, we all talked about, ‘It would be fun now to go to 1702 and just be in this dry colonial horror piece.’ And so, it’s taking that same mindset to Season 2. So, there are some things that have been mentioned that I’m like, ‘It’d be really fun to actually revisit that and do that.’ So, I think the spirit will be the same, of just like, ‘This feels fun to do. This feels fun to show this now,’ and that makes sense.”

Root, who plays the lovable, wacky Wyck, who has never doubted the island’s curse, said he’s hoping to explore his character’s backstory in Season 2.

“What made Wyck Wyck?” Root told Deadline. “What kind of scenes did he see when he was a kid or a young man to make him to want to be a protector of the island to get him to the point where he couldn’t stand it anymore and he said, ‘No, I’m not sitting back anymore. I’m going to tell this mayor that I don’t respect, that I’m going to come out, and I’m going to sound the [warning] siren.’”

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At Televerse 26, the cast and creators said shared the characters they want to have more screen time in Season 2. Televerse is an annual TV festival launched by the Television Academy. The three-day event took place from August 14 to August 16 in Los Angeles.

“Definitely want to have way more Bechir,” Dippold told Collider. “Kevin Carroll is a great actor and he’s so funny. Definitely want to see some Jeff Hiller, Dale, point of view. Absolutely some more Rosemary [Dale Dickey] backstory. So, that makes Season 2 so fun in the room.”

Bechir is the Widow’s Bay sheriff who shot Ruth (K Callan) in the Season 1 finale after Tom spent the whole episode torn about whether he could kill her. They both believed that killing Ruth would lift the island’s curse, as she was believed to be the last living descendant of Richard Warren (Hamish Linklater). But there were more descendants to be revealed. Rosemary works at the mayor’s office with Tom and helped trace the Warren bloodline.

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Dicky told Deadline that she wants to find the Sea Hag with Dale in Season 2.

“I was talking to Jeff Hiller,” Dicky said. “I would love to do a boat scene where Rosemary and Dale are out searching for the sea hag to get some answers. I thought that would be fun. And then we tip over and there’s only one life jacket. Who’s going to live?”

Director Hiro Murai wants a character who only briefly appeared in Season 1 to come back.

“I have a real weird soft spot for Garrett [Fred Robbins], the lighthouse worker,” Murai shared. “I don’t even know if he says much in the first season, but I just think he has a really rich full life that we don’t know about, and I’m looking forward to hearing from him a little more.”

Linklater, whose character was turned to literal dust in Season 1, joked that he has a pitch for how he could come back in Season 2: “I’ll forward you the email. I sent it to Katie,” he told Deadline. “I’ve pitched it five ways from Sunday how a box of dust can become a three-episode arc in Season 2.”

Widow’s Bay, Season 2 Premiere, TBA, Apple TV