A review of this week's Widow's Bay, "What to Expect on Your Trip" — with spoilers — coming up just as soon as I'm a shaman, and that's cocaine...
Alan Sepinwall
Widow's Bay has been pretty deft at balancing its creepy and comedic sides. Every time you think a scene is going to be played entirely for laughs, like Patricia micromanaging the sunset cocktails in "Beach Reads," something incredibly unnerving will happen, and we get a glimpse of everyone in the mirror standing still, mouths agape.
"What to Expect on Your Trip" is the closest the series has come so far to aiming for pure humor, especially before the flashback at the end revealing what happened to Tom's wife Lauren. For the most part, it's a drug trip comedy episode that just lets Matthew Rhys cook. But even in the midst of Tom going off the rails after being slipped some of the "true sight" drug by Patricia's old classmate Todd(*), there's a sense of darker forces at work.
(*) Todd (played by comedian Chris Fleming) is a bad shaman. Not only does he mistake Tom for Wyck, but he warns Tom not to look at any mirrors, then immediately closes the door of the room Tom's in, revealing a mirror on its inside. ("You've got this, Wyck!" he tries to reassure him.)