We’re in the endgame of Widow’s Bay, and as the title of episode nine, “Emergency Shelter,” suggests, there are still some monster-sized problems plaguing our favorite cursed island. Mayor Tom and the gang must batten down the hatches as part of the next crisis; as always, lives are at stake, and yet there are still moments of raw hilarity to be found along the way.
Plus: a very special showcase for all the Rosemary fanatics. Let’s dig in!
We begin with another 18th-century flashback to Sarah Warren making a break for it with Richard Warren’s many children. As Richard predicted, it’s a disaster. The tiny boat is wrapped in a thick fog and rocked by angry waves, and the kids start experiencing ghoulish side effects. The island will not let them leave alive.
Amid the turmoil, Richard’s only daughter, Frances, falls overboard. Sarah tries to help, but the little girl drifts away, still wearing the brooch that Sarah gave her. Suddenly we have a lot more understanding of what’s happening in that creepy painting we’ve seen at the inn—and a fresh sense of dread for what’s about to happen in present-day Widow’s Bay.
Speaking of, the “storm of the century” forecast in last week’s “Your Baggage” has arrived. Forget any of the optimism Tom was feeling just hours ago; it’s back to full-on despair as he stares out of his office window at the darkening skies. “You have to sound the siren, Tom,” Patricia tells him.
“She’s right,” chimes in a random geezer who appears in Tom’s doorway. “Those thunderheads ain’t natural!” As he’s launching into a story about the great Widow’s Bay storm of 1783, Tom tilts his head pleadingly, and Patricia gently closes the door in his face, cutting off whatever he’s saying about tornados ripping people up into the sky.
There’s already enough doom in the room as it is. The tracker on Tom’s computer shows an alarmingly large foul-weather blob bearing down on the island, and they’ve just lost contact with the mainland. It’s siren time, Patricia reiterates, but Tom’s reluctant to spook the tourists. He’s afraid they’ll all go home saying they went to Widow’s Bay and “ended up in a fucking storm shelter.”
Patricia puts it plainly: “At least they’ll get back home.”
Tom knows she’s right. But first, he has to mangle something to handle his boiling emotions. When tearing a calendar apart doesn’t help, he pulls an oversized portrait off the wall of his office, but it’s way heavier than he expected. After he accidentally rips a hole in it, he falls to the ground and becomes awkwardly pinned under its massive frame. It’s hilarious. It’s like, rewind-and-watch-again hilarious; bless you, Matthew Rhys, you stealth physical comedy genius.
As Patricia runs to help, she takes a closer look at the woman in the painting. “She’s missing a finger,” she murmurs. Before we can ruminate too long on that, other people from the office rush in to see what the commotion is about. Burly custodian Kenny makes a move, but Rosemary insists on taking over, which goes about as well as you’d expect. (More hilarity born from Tom’s agony ensues.)
Then, back to that missing digit. Patricia, holding Sarah Warren’s diary, reminds Tom (and us) that young Frances Warren lost a finger in a wagon accident. It’s quickly mentioned in “Our History,” and Sarah noted it in her diary.
Tom and Patricia realize the woman in the painting, Frances Fisher, is in fact… a slightly older Frances Warren. She clawed her way back to shore after all—and that’s why Richard Warren’s bloodline didn’t end with his death.
Tom takes this in. “If that is Frances Warren, that’s over 400 years of ancestry to untangle.” When Patricia points out that Rosemary probably already has all the records associated with “Barnabus”—the man seen in the painting with Frances and, no doubt, the namesake of the Barnabus Tavern—Tom just shrugs. “And then what? We round them up?”
He picks up the phone, and soon the emergency siren is heard blaring across the island. Down by the ferry docks, Bechir and Chelle are realizing they’ve waited too long to flee. Chelle, who doesn’t know the island won’t allow any child born there to ever leave—or anything at all about the local supernatural terrors—suggests they just go home. But her husband’s determined, with good reason, and starts gathering supplies for a small-craft escape.
Wyck materializes to give the sheriff a reality check. He understands the urgency of leaving before Chelle gives birth. But there’s no way they can travel 40 miles across the ocean in these conditions.
At the town hall, Dale leads the way to the basement storm shelter. It’s as uninviting as you’d expect, but tourists and locals dutifully start filing in. Tom tries to put on a cheerful front, but he’s clearly on edge; when Evan appears, Tom begs him to please, for real this time, follow instructions and stay put. At least the storm gives Tom an excuse to postpone his and Evan’s trip to Boston, planned back when Tom briefly believed the curse had been lifted.
Then, another crisis. The generator needs a replacement part or else the shelter will be plunged into darkness. Much like “The Inaugural Swim,” Tom must seek the assistance of Garrett, the ancient lighthouse keeper. This leads to a comedy of errors where Tom drives through the dangerous storm to pick up the part that Garrett has already carried (on his bicycle, no less) to the town hall.
Meanwhile, Chelle and Bechir show up at the shelter; she’s grimacing in pain, sort of like a woman who’s going into labor. Oh no. Patricia hustles them to Dr. Morgan. Then, Wyck arrives and connects the dots between the painting, the missing finger, Sarah’s diary, and Richard’s surviving bloodline. He finds Rosemary and asks for her help.
Down by the water, Tom’s about to head back when he realizes the storm has taken a vicious turn. A flash of lightning illuminates an ugly tornado making its way toward the village. As he reaches the town hall, he’s able to intercept Garrett and send him indoors—but isn’t so lucky with our pal Todd the shaman.
Todd rolls up overloaded with stuff (he still thinks Tom’s name is “Wyck,” by the way) but doesn’t heed the mayor’s screamed warnings. The tornado looms up behind him and rips him into the sky, just like the old-timer predicted earlier in the episode. Noooooo!
After witnessing this harrowing incident, Tom heads to the shelter and tells Patricia that nobody is to leave, no matter what. However, there’s a problem: Ruth’s not there. She’s still at home… alone. “I’ll figure something out,” Tom reassures Patricia. Then Wyck walks up and tells them there’s something they both need to see.
In the conference room, Rosemary has worked out Richard Warren’s family tree. Yep, all the way to his one last living descendant. Patricia doesn’t want to know the person’s identity; she’s worried about how Tom and Wyck might react.
Rather than just telling everyone who it is outright, Rosemary takes the long way around, rasping her way through a generation-by-generation breakdown of who married who and all the names of their various offspring. It’s the most Rosemary scene ever, complete with cigarettes, sarcasm, a sprinkle of offensive language, and a particular way of saying “lesbian.” Rosemary, everybody!
Plus, we get a bonus Widow’s Bay history lesson as part of it, including Frances Warren’s unsettling journey from shipwreck survivor to reluctant teenage bride—and some fresh context on that other reluctant bride we’ve heard about, “the ungrateful Hortense.”
Several transparency pages and many repetitions of the phrase “dead baby” later, Rosemary’s presentation finally reaches the 1900s—and the big reveal. The final living descendent of Richard Warren was never married, never had children, and doesn’t know about their ties to the town founder. They’re also elderly, and it’s someone that everyone knows very well: Ruth!
It’s a lot to take in, and Tom, Wyck, and Patricia discuss what to do next. Patricia can’t believe they’re even entertaining the idea of eliminating Ruth, the sweet old lady who makes their birthday cakes and looks after Evan.
“No one wants this,” Tom emphasizes. “But there are hundreds of lives at stake, and one of them is my son.”
Always practical, Wyck’s ready to act. “Gunshot, back of the head,” he suggests.
Patricia is dead-set against it. It’s barbaric, not to mention morally wrong on so many levels.
She’s right, of course. But as Wyck emphasizes, “It’s been 300 years of hell on this place! It needs to end!”
Wyck offers to handle it, but Tom tells him, “You’re not doing anything.” The mayor doesn’t say what his plan is, but as the episode ends, we see him striding down the hall and out the exit, into the raging storm outside.
We’ll have to wait until the finale arrives—Wednesday on Apple TV—to find out what happens next on Widow’s Bay.
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