*Fans of “Widow’s Bay” have double the reason to tune in this Wednesday, May 27, as episodes six and seven drop simultaneously on Apple TV.
The 10-episode genre-bending series – led by Emmy Award winner Matthew Rhys, who also serves as executive producer, and hailing from creator and showrunner Katie Dippold and Emmy Award-winning director and executive producer Hiro Murai – made its global debut on April 29, with new episodes dropping every Wednesday through June 17.
Set in a quaint island town 40 miles off the coast of New England, “Widow’s Bay” follows Mayor Tom Loftis (Rhys) as he fights to revive a struggling, superstition-riddled community – until the tourists start arriving and the old legends stop feeling so ridiculous. The series blends genuine horror with character-driven comedy, featuring an ensemble cast that includes Stephen Root, Kingston Rumi Southwick, Kevin Carroll, Dale Dickey and Kate O’Flynn.
The British actress plays Patricia, the mayor’s fiercely dedicated assistant. In a recent conversation with EURweb, O’Flynn broke down her character’s journey, the episode that hit closest to home, and what audiences can expect as the mysteries of Widow’s Bay continue to unravel.
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From the moment O’Flynn read the scripts, she knew Patricia was a role she had to take. “I don’t know if I can articulate it. It was more that I just instinctively, she just came very clearly to me from the scripts, so I was very excited because she was three-dimensional to me almost.”
Patricia begins the series in a familiar but quietly desperate place. “At the start, you see her, she’s kind of a bit passive-aggressive,” O’Flynn explained. “She’s a kind of stuck in victim mode, and she goes on a journey where she manages to find a cause that enables her to break through that loop of being a victim. She kind of takes agency in quite a surprising way.”
What drew O’Flynn most to the character was the contradictions living inside her. “Most interesting is that mix of like, she’s kind of practical, but she’s also messing up a lot,” she said. “She wants to be noticed. She wants to be seen to be doing good, but there’s a kind of vulnerability to her. She can also be quite blunt. It was all the sort of conflicting things that lived in her that I thought were really well observed. She’s recognizable as a person.”
The relationship between Patricia and Mayor Tom occupies a peculiar emotional space. “They’re not siblings, but it felt like siblings that are too much in each other’s business.” She added that Patricia’s loyalty to Tom is ultimately rooted in a deeper need: “Patricia’s looking for connection with people. With Tom, she feels of value to him. He would ring up Patricia bitching about things and he knows that Patricia would always listen. So she’s just looking for connection and she feels like she has that kind of, she’s needed in a way by Tom.”
Episode four places Patricia squarely at the center of the story, as the character falls under the influence of a sinister self-help book with escalating consequences. For O’Flynn, it was a career highlight.
“It was an absolute thrill. I loved it. I mean, actors want to do that kind of thing, so it was great,” she said. “Also, the script was so brilliant. There were so many colors to her in that episode that I was just really excited to dive in, and I was really guided by Sam Donovan, who directed that episode. He would kind of become Patricia, and I’d become Patricia, and we kind of workshop Patricia, how she would respond in each scene. It was a blast. I had a lot of fun.”
The richly textured world of ‘Widow’s Bay’ – steeped in island lore, local legend, and production design that O’Flynn says the creative team built out to the finest detail – also proved to be a source of inspiration on set. The ensemble chemistry, O’Flynn says, came together almost without effort.
“From the first read through, actually, I have a very vivid memory of the core cast reading and immediately there was an understanding of what it means to be in an ensemble, which is so important when you’re building a community,” she said. “So it was unspoken, but there was a natural chemistry between us all, I feel. And a lot of that was all to do with the casting… when you cast it right, you don’t need to over-talk things.”
As for what viewers can look forward to in the episodes ahead, O’Flynn said: “I think they can look forward to being complete. You are not going to guess where it’s going to go, but you will be held by a confident showrunner, you know, creator, Katie Dippold, through it all. So get ready for a rollercoaster ride.”
Episodes six and seven of “Widow’s Bay” are now streaming on Apple TV.
Watch our conversation with Kate O’Flynn in the clip below.
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