Last week’s Widow’s Bay double feature took us back to 1702 to illuminate a crucial moment in the island’s early history—then saw Mayor Tom and Wyck set sail with the 350-year-old Richard Warren, hoping that destroying the town’s founder would also destroy its curse.
But there are still three episodes of Widow’s Bay left in the season, which is way too early for anything resembling a happy ending. Plus, there’s still plenty of unfinished business to attend to. Like, for instance… Patricia’s Boogeyman trauma, which comes to the forefront in “Your Baggage.”
There’s a peaceful, dreamy, almost giddy feeling as Tom, Wyck, and Patricia share a victorious breakfast. Richard Warren is finally gone, and for the moment, it feels like the healing has begun in Widow’s Bay.
Tom is already dreaming about taking Evan to a Red Sox game. All those angry townspeople that have been looking for their conspicuously MIA mayor for the past two days? Water under the bridge. Everything’s fine!
Well, not exactly. Tom arrives home to find a somber Evan waiting for him, eager for answers about the photographs he’s found—which contain proof that his mother, Lauren, did not die in childbirth. But instead of the screaming fight Widow’s Bay viewers might have primed to expect, given the stormy vibes between father and son lately, it turns into a very touching scene.
For the first time, Tom is honest with Evan about what happened to Lauren. (Mostly, anyway; he doesn’t mention that she became ill while they were leaving Widow’s Bay on the ferry.) She had a stroke after giving birth, Tom explains, and after that, “she wasn’t right… it did something to her mind, and it affected her behavior.”
It wasn’t just that Lauren wasn’t herself anymore; she became dangerous. Tom had no choice but to commit her to “the Home,” a now-defunct psychiatric hospital on the island. (An abandoned insane asylum is a peak Widow’s Bay location, is it not?) Two years later, she died of a brain aneurysm.
And it turns out there aren’t just photographs in Tom’s secret stash. There are haunting letters written from Lauren to her son, and Evan reads some aloud so we can soak in the horror of her illness.
Meanwhile, Wyck pays a visit to Gerrie at the museum. His talk with Tom in “Seasickness” about the death of Gerrie’s brother all those years ago—which he still feels guilty about—has stirred something in him.
But just as he pulls out that old photograph and starts to tell her the story, her husband walks in. He’s friendly, but Wyck loses his nerve and takes his leave, forcing a laugh to avert any awkwardness: “I got a lot of photos I gotta give away today.”
However, he notices something on the way out. The glass museum case holding the rubber “Murderer’s Mask” has been smashed, and the artifact from the island’s Boogeyman era is missing. Gerrie’s husband blames tourist kids, but Wyck looks worried.
He heads to the Boogeyman’s cottage and sees the door is open—like, way more than when we last saw it, when Evan started to go inside. It is smashed open, with bits and pieces of wood strewn around on the porch. Almost as if someone trapped inside has broken out.
Across town, Patricia has Driftwood Diner takeout and a bottle of wine, ready for a relaxing dinner. But when she opens the containers, she realizes her order is all wrong and in no way resembles the yummy spread she was anticipating. Because she’s Patricia, she calls and leaves a very polite message to communicate her displeasure—you know, just so the person responsible (KATHY) will hopefully learn from their mistake.
After that, her big project for the evening is a closet cleanout, listening to some Enya, as one does. Suddenly, a car alarm blares from the Patti Wagon. Patricia goes outside to investigate, closing her front door behind her. When she comes back, though, it’s open. She doesn’t notice at first… but then she realizes an intruder is lurking in one of the upstairs rooms.
As silently as she can, she creeps back outside, grabbing her taser (which has a dangerously low battery). She waits, and we wait, and suddenly, there he is! The Boogeyman, looking like Michael Myers crossed with Jason Voorhees—and acting exactly like that combination too.
As she flees, he follows, never breaking into a run but walking with that perfect slasher-villain determination. Just like Laurie Strode in Halloween, Patricia bangs on doors asking for help, but nobody answers.
Back at Patricia’s place, Wyck has arrived to find it empty. He has a pretty good idea of what’s happening—like Tom with the sea hag, Wyck just knows—and sets out to try and find her.
A few blocks away, Patricia is shrieking her way through the residential streets of Widow’s Bay. Then, we come to a familiar home: where she’d attended the party with all her high school frenemies. In fact, they’re all gathered there now, having a book club meeting to discuss The Lovely Bones. When Patricia bursts in yelling about the Boogeyman, they’re skeptical and immediately hostile, as you’d expect.
And at long last, they get Patricia to admit she lied about getting the killer’s signature hang-up calls during his first reign of terror. But she insists he did come to her house back then, and that somehow, he’s returned.
It doesn’t matter. The Regina George of this group, Kris, stands up and gets right in Patricia’s face: “I am not the reason you don’t have any friends. It’s because you’re fucking insane!” Patricia takes the insults until Kris starts talking to her like she’s a toddler, urging her to “go bye-bye.” Then, she brandishes her taser and gives Kris a well-earned zap.
While the book club ladies gasp in alarm, Patricia goes outside, but she lingers on the lawn long enough to see the Boogeyman looming in the upstairs window—then leaping his way through the second-story glass. That doesn’t slow him down, and the chase resumes; when Patricia trips and falls, it seems the Boogeyman is about to do his worst when suddenly he’s hit by a car.
When Patricia comes to, she’s being tended by EMTs—one of whom is promptly killed by the seemingly immortal, clearly impervious-to-injury Boogeyman. Patricia gets up and starts running for her life yet again.
There’s a brief break in the mayhem when we check back in with Tom and Evan; the latter is still reading his mother’s sad, scary letters to him aloud: “I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m already dead. It’s too late.”
Tom gets up and produces photos of Lauren that weren’t hidden in that box of shame; they show her true, happy self. “This person wouldn’t want you to remember the other,” he tells Evan. He explains he hid the other pictures and the letters because “they make me sadder than I already am.”
Tom apologizes, but Evan has another big question: “Why do we never leave this island?” This could have been the moment to come completely clean, but Tom now believes that with Richard Warren’s death, the “dead zone” is a moot point. Instead, he hands Evan the Red Sox tickets.
“Things are gonna be different from now on,” Tom tells him. And they hug.
And now back to Patricia screaming her head off. She finally reaches the gas station, where an out-of-uniform Sheriff Clemons is doing some late-night shopping.
He’s naturally curious when she races in, very out of breath, and buys some gas to splatter a trap for the rapidly approaching Boogeyman. Her taser has just enough juice left in it to light the puddle on fire—as Clemons and the convenience store clerk watch, mouths agape. The clerk’s first instinct is to use a fire extinguisher to douse the knife-wielding inferno; the Boogeyman promptly chokes him out in return.
Clemons grabs the clerk’s shotgun and tries to intervene, but he’s quickly flattened by a knife slash. It’s looking very bad for him when Patricia picks up the gun and gets the Boogeyman’s attention—before landing a shot that makes him fall down and stay down.
And she keeps that weapon pointed at him and ready to fire (while Enya picks back up on the soundtrack) as his corpse is loaded into the ambulance, taken to the morgue, and loaded into the crematorium oven. She only stands down when she confirms the Boogeyman has been reduced to a pile of ashes. Go bye-bye, forever!
Patricia and Wyck meet up at the doctor’s office, where Clemons is getting treated for his wound. (In the background, a TV weather forecast warns that “the storm of the century” is coming… that feels important.) For the first time, we get a look at Clemons’ wife, who’s previously only been a voice on the phone. When she stands up, we see that she is very pregnant. Like, “due any day now” pregnant.
Oh no. Patricia, of course, shares our concern. “Does Loftis know?” she asks the sheriff. He explains he didn’t mention it to Tom, actually, because of Tom’s tragic experience with Lauren and her pregnancy. Patricia tells Clemons he has to go. Right now. “You can’t have your child here,” she stresses, and he understands that she’s deadly serious.
As the episode ends, Tom and Evan—finally back on good terms—are excitedly talking about their upcoming trip to Boston when there’s a knock at the door. It’s Wyck, of course, and we already know what he’s going to say: “It’s not over.”
The sounds of the storm begin to howl and rumble. What will this evil island unleash next? We’ll find out when episode nine arrives Wednesday on Apple TV.
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