Fans Flock to Widows Bay' for Lore and Politics Mix

Abigail De Kosnik admits it wasn't love at first sight when the new show Widow's Bay appeared in her Apple TV feed. It wasn't that the horror-comedy looked bad - in fact, it boasted an extraordinary cast, including Matthew Rhys of The Americans and prolific character actor Stephen Root. "I just wasn't in the mood to be scared," she explained. But eventually, with no better options on a late-night search, she and her husband gave the pilot a try.

"It was brilliant," said De Kosnik.

A UC Berkeley professor in the Berkeley Center for New Media and the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance studies, De Kosnik has spent years examining how audiences engage with serialized storytelling and fan culture. As an expert in how fans track narrative tropes and build digital archives around their favorite shows, few people are better poised to help explain the runaway success of Widow's Bay, whose genre-blending originality has sparked a massive online fandom and propelled it into a breakout hit.

Set on a fictional New England island with a 300-year history of serial killers, suicides, drownings and cannibalism, the show contrasts genuine menace with the mundane workplace ambitions of its mayor, Rhys' Tom Loftis, as he desperately tries to rebrand the town as "the next Martha's Vineyard." Navigating the chaos alongside the mayor is a cast of superstitious locals, each carrying private grievances, secrets and old heartbreak.

Since premiering in April, the series has become a critical sensation, earning 19 Emmy nominations, a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score and a swift season two renewal. De Kosnik credits much of that success to series creator Katie Dippold (Parks and Recreation) and contributing director Hiro Murai (Atlanta), whose pairing gives the show its dry, subversively funny tone - the kind where a life-or-death encounter with an alleged ancient curse quickly devolves into an argument over town curfews and tourist optics.

"There's something really wonderful about such a brilliantly designed, hilarious and moving universe," De Kosnik said. "People want original voices - there's a hunger for it."

In this UC Berkeley News interview, De Kosnik discusses how the show blends horror and comedy, why its eccentric cast of characters subverts classic tropes and the power of original storytelling in today's media landscape.

The following conversation includes specific plot points and spoilers of Widow's Bay.

UC Berkeley News: Horror and comedy isn't a pairing you see every day. How would you describe the particular genre of Widow's Bay?

Abigail De Kosnik: It isn't one thing or another - it's a mix. It's not a sitcom, it's not a workplace drama, it's not a cozy small-town mystery, it's not a slasher film. It is kind of all of those things.

There's some Lost in it, there's some Yellowjackets in it. It makes reference to movies like It, Jaws, Halloween, The Shining - you know, there are a lot of Amityville horror-type scenarios.

But at the same time, it also really feels like its own genre. I wouldn't be surprised if we actually get a few shows in the next couple of years that are basically in the Widow's Bay genre. I think it is opening up a lane that is really unique and hilarious.

Why do you think the genre works so well in this case?

I think Widow's Bay combines a couple of very high-stimulus genres that almost have opposite effects. The late Linda Williams, who was a Berkeley professor of film and media and of rhetoric, wrote a famous essay about what she called "body genres." The body genres she was interested in were melodrama, horror, pornography. She defined them as something you feel in your body - they make strong sensations, you experience them physically. And I do think we could add comedy to that list, too.

Humor is this genre of release - you're laughing with and at the characters, you're embarrassed for them. With horror, we like the tropes and repetition. We're terrified, but we're also sort of glad it's not us. And there is pleasure in that, too - the pleasure of a jump scare, the pleasure of a really intimidating, menacing, unstoppable killer.

So it's almost like double-stimulating because you're laughing and scared and cringing and appreciating the tropes and repetitions. It feels really dynamic, like everything is going on in the viewer all at the same time.

There has been an explosion of fandom around this show. A new episode was released each week, so fans had a lot of time to come up with theories and spot subtle hidden references, or Easter eggs. What have you seen on Reddit and Threads and other online spaces?

Fans are always trying to solve a puzzle. They're always trying to notice patterns, put clues together, then form their theories. I have seen some of that puzzle show approach to Widow's Bay, but I don't actually know if it's a puzzle show. I actually think a lot of the mysteries will just never be solved or make sense, and I will be totally OK with that.

I do think the fandom super appreciates every episode just for what it is, for its intelligence and its humor. But I guess let's keep an eye on it, whether the fandom turns more towards the puzzle aspect of it or whether I'm right and fans will get that not every mystery is going to be solved on the show.

The characters all feel really multidimensional. At first, they might seem to play into different tropes, but they always end up surprising you. One character who I think perfectly embodies this mix of comedy and horror is Patricia, Mayor Loftis's socially awkward, fiercely devoted municipal assistant. While introduced as a mild-mannered, underappreciated staffer who runs the town bookmobile, Patricia quickly proves to be far more complex.

I would say she's the breakout character of Widow's Bay. Patricia is very cringeworthy and at the same time is such a heroine in her own universe. It's interesting how separate Patricia's adventures are from most of the main cast. When she's alone, Patricia's doing really interesting things and facing down some enormous challenges and emerging pretty much on top, because of her own gumption and courage and willingness to fight.

I think there's something profound in that, where that person at work, who seems sort of geeky and solitary, kind of the odd one out, in their private life might be conquering huge demons - actual monsters, but also villains from high school who are still excluding her decades later. They might be a super warrior, and the other people in the workplace don't ever find out those sides of them. I feel like that's Patricia, and I love that for her.

It's such a strong cast, so everybody's a breakout in some way, but I think Patricia has attracted the most fan discourse.

What are fans saying about Patricia?

They really appreciate how she doesn't play into the usual tropes of girls or women in horror movies. For example, the series shows us Patricia walking up the stairs to where we know the serial killer is, then getting a bad feeling and walking back down the stairs and exiting the house, which no heroine in a horror movie has ever done. She actively avoids a lot of traps. Then when it's time to turn around and fight the killer, she really fights him head on. Everything that horror fans have been yelling at the screen all this time, Patricia is the character who actually hears.

Speaking of willingness to fight, Patricia and the two other main characters - the mayor, and longtime local Wyk, played by Root - battle a lot of monsters born from an ancient evil on the island. There's a sea hag, a killer clown, a boogeyman, the undead 300-year-old founder of the town. It's absurd and fantastical, but at the same time feels grounded in reality, believable even. Why do you think that is?

I think a lot of the writing can be read as analogous to important life situations. A lot of these scenarios can be read as metaphorical.

There are a lot of problems we face every day that were born hundreds of years ago. It has nothing to do with anyone who's alive right now, but nevertheless we have to reckon with that history and we have to do something about it. It's not enough to acknowledge that it happened - we actually have to treat history like it's alive. If there were evil people back then, we have to keep slaying the spirits of those people in the present. Otherwise the problems never get fixed. They're always kind of haunting us.

We want these cute, historical towns, but we don't always want to recognize what's underneath them or what made them. Like, what was the actual history? Like a lot of horror, Widow's Bay is about looking at the underside of things right in the eye and confronting them face to face and not letting them just lie.

And because the island doesn't get cell service or Wi-Fi, most interactions between characters are face to face, too.

That does seem to be one rule of that show. I think that also allows for these standalone episodes where one or two characters are on their own quest and for whatever reason, nobody else knows that or only a couple other supporting characters know it. It allows for this kind of partitioning of plots. I find that really effective and also mysterious.

You said earlier that Widow's Bay is in its own genre in many ways. What do you think the show's massive success tells us about creating art and other forms of entertainment?

I think there's a lesson in there about having a voice that's truly unique and your own, and that will find its own life and its own fans. Katie Dippold wrote this script 20 years ago - she actually used the pilot to get her the staff writing job for Parks and Rec. Art can sit for a long time like a seed, and then it can bloom.

It's so inspiring and it's a lesson for the industry. Widow's Bay is referential, but it's a fresh take on these old genres. I think it's really beautiful and magical and I'm so glad it found its audience. And it not only found its fans, it is also appreciated by the Emmys and by the platform that it's on. That's the trifecta - the money people appreciate it, the prestige people appreciate it, and the audience appreciates it. That's so rare for really good art. The most popular art isn't always the best art, but in the case of Widow's Bay, I really think it is.

This interview has been condensed and edited.