A review of this week's Widow's Bay, "Beach Reads" — with spoilers — coming up just as soon as I don't have Spotify Premium...
Like Charly Clive on Rooster, Kate O'Flynn is a British actress whose work I was wholly unfamiliar with before watching this show. And like Clive, she's been stealing the series out from under a bunch of terrific American TV veterans. Matthew Rhys and Stephen Root have been fantastic so far, while "Beach Reads" is the first real Patricia spotlight. But even in the earlier chapters, O'Flynn's dry delivery, and the way she plays Patricia's anxiety-provoking energy, jumps off the screen. So it's unsurprising that, when she's placed at the center of the action, Widow's Bay somehow jumps up another level.
Alan Sepinwall
Much of the episode takes place parallel to the events of "The Inaugural Swim," though it starts several days before Tom's horny misadventure with the Sea Hag. Because Tom has been our point of view character so far, we haven't quite gotten a sense of Patricia's whole deal, nor what it's like to be a Widow's Bay native. As we know, people born on the island tend to believe they can never leave it. So Patricia has lived among the same people, in the same confined space, for her whole life. And not just any space, but one infamous for the many horrors and tragedies that seem to constantly happen here. She can't go, whether it's to escape the various monsters and killers, or to simply reinvent herself around people who don't already know her. She is an outcast, with seemingly no hope of ever becoming otherwise.