Widow's Bay – S01E06-10 – The island's many mysteries

[00:00:18] Welcome to The Lorehounds, a Lorehounds podcast, your guides to the next Martha's Vineyard that's definitely not cursed. I'm Alicia, unfortunately not joined by John today because he got bit by an animal and became that animal. But I made it through the storm. I'm Lisa, co-host of Into the West. I'm counting up the dead bodies that didn't count towards a bell toll.

[00:00:41] And I'm Mark, co-host of Nevermind the Music, where even when we're locked in a death trap storm shelter, my co-host just wants to dish on Gwen Stefani's serial monogamy. She's always so real. Always the important aspects of the conversation on Nevermind the Music. That's a star.

[00:01:03] But today we're talking about episodes 6 through 10 of Widow's Bay, season 1, season 1 of 2, season 2 confirmed. Are we all happy about it? Yes. I liked it even more on a rewatch. Now, yes. Okay. And this relates to my fresh take. Okay. The finale makes me go, all right, all right, all right, fine, season 2, let's do it. It was feeling like a self-contained story, and it is not feeling like a self-contained story anymore.

[00:01:33] So, yes. Well, check out our mid-season coverage for our spoiler-free fresh takes on the season and to hear me say I wanted season 2 because there are so many stories. But one spoiler so far, we love it. So, we've already covered episodes 1 through 5. We set up the creators behind the show and why their combined experience makes this such a unique television series.

[00:02:00] And we broke down also then the characters and the haunts as we knew them so far at the mid-season point. So, this time we're focusing on the back half of the season, episodes 6 through 10. So, we're building on that first discussion. We're going to be organizing it by mystery this time, but that means all spoilers for the entire first season start now. And, yeah, as we said, John's not able to join us today. He said, tell everyone the chair got me.

[00:02:30] Patricia has avenged all the scream queens who ever got a sequel because they didn't make sure the murderer was dead. So, we still stan our girl Patricia here. Mark, what did you think of the back half of the season and the season as a whole? Yeah, so, I think I started the back half of the season liking it a little less than the, especially like the episodes 3 and 4. But, I'll start with the positive. You mean 6 and 7?

[00:02:59] The flashback and the... Specifically the flashback. Yeah, fine, I'll start with the negative. I was not as enthused with the Colonial Times flashback. I was like, are we going to see like the witch but funny? Like, and it kind of, I don't know, it kind of fell flat. I liked every, I really like everybody involved. I liked a lot of aspects to it, but it didn't have the kind of comedic element in balance as much in that.

[00:03:27] So, while I understand that it was necessary for some of the later stuff, and I liked once we got the founder in modern times, I liked all that. I just, when you compare to, was it episode 4, the sort of Patricia? The witch one? Yeah, I was really hoping that when we got the flashback it would be a little more like that, but 300 years ago or whatever. So, I don't know. But the finale really did it for me. I love the finale, especially the way it ends.

[00:03:56] Like, it just, it kind of reminds me why I listen to all your podcasts and why I'm involved. Like, I am a lorehound to my own core. And so, the teasing us of just like, oh, it's going to eat, it needs to eat more, or whatever they were talking about. And we'll talk about it. Like, this thing that has to come and take a sacrifice. Like, and then telling us basically nothing about it. Like, what's not to love there? Now I need another season.

[00:04:20] Like, as much as it feels so episodic and things move sort of monster of the week to monster of the week, and this could be a season that wrapped. It really, I just need a little more, you know? And it reminded me, the absurdity of some of those moments was simultaneously reminding me of Lost. Like, the found footage. Let's put in the Dharma Initiative kind of video. And you're like, what am I watching?

[00:04:48] And combine that with almost a cabin in the woods. No spoilers there, but like, that movie goes way off the rails in ways that feel like this could. And we didn't get a Lovecraftian moment at the end, but maybe it happened behind that door. You know what I mean? Which was still ajar, by the way. It was slightly open. Okay. See, I haven't rewatched it. So, yeah. So, I'm here for it. I enjoyed it.

[00:05:18] Not a perfect season of TV, but very thoroughly enjoyable the whole time. And curious to talk to you all about what we think it's going to do next season. It's okay to be wrong about this perfect season of TV. No, I'm just kidding. Perfect, huh? Okay. I think it's near perfect. What do you think, Lisa? Lisa. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Mark stole some of my thoughts as well, or shared my thoughts as well, as I was definitely

[00:05:46] thinking the Dharma initiative from Lost and all of that. So, that was really great. But I just cannot get enough of Cato Flynn as Patricia. You know, I mean, we shared on Discord how absolutely hysterical she was in like seasickness when she interrupts Tom while he's talking to Richard. And she's like, I forgot my purse and everyone has a jump scare.

[00:06:12] You know, those moments continued on, I felt, through the end of the season, you know, except for maybe the last one that did need to be, you know, more grounded, more serious, more consequential. And I was really holding my breath. It was interesting, my reactions to Tom learning the effects of what, you know, Ruth was saying.

[00:06:40] I was reacting the same way Matthew Rhys was, you know. I was just like holding my breath. My eyes are like this. I'm like, you know, oh, my God. And, you know, so, yeah. So, I really, really enjoyed it. I thought it was a fantastic season of television. Yeah. Yeah, this is really my kind of thing. So, of course, I'm going to like it. But it's just so well done.

[00:07:05] I love horror comedies, but it does take a special balance to do it tastefully, you know, surprisingly, in a fresh way. And there's just some magical timing, a mix of timing and absurdity and restraint that just, yeah, they're walking a tightrope and nailing it. That's mixing metaphors.

[00:07:30] Anyway, I'll say everyone came in raving about Matthew Rhys. I only knew him from the wine show. I've never watched The Americans. So, yeah. So, I've been my notes here. I did not know your game, Matthew Rhys. So, he really impressed me, especially in the finale episode with his reactions to things. Like, you know, we already made the joke about I got bit by an animal and became that animal. And he's just like, what? No. We're just going to let that go by.

[00:07:59] The whole journey that his reactions go on really sells everything else that's happening as well. But I like that this is a show that really gives, I mean, of course, we have our main characters and we'll talk about them more today. We'll talk about some of the side characters as well. But there's so many, like, in the background characters that are recurring, like Kathy, who always gets everything wrong, you know, at the cafe.

[00:08:29] Or Garrett from the lighthouse. This just makes it feel like a real full town. And this is why, you know, it felt to me that they were seeding more seasons because they have built such a wide foundation. We'll talk through, like, all of the little lore drops today, too.

[00:08:49] So that just they could keep this going for five years or more if they wanted to easily with everything that they've built so far. So but Mark's also right that it could have just ended with this season and that it would have been OK. I would have been sad about it because I really when I like something, I want more of it, obviously. But it would have, you know, been satisfying enough. And I'm sure they would have tweaked some things like maybe not having the eight bells at the end.

[00:09:19] Yeah, I guess it you know what? This also have you guys read the short story? Those who walk away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin. No, no, no. It's it's a famous short story. Very short, actually. I mean, I'm going to go ahead and spoil it right now if you want to pause and read it 10 minutes. But it's is this the one where the sorry, I haven't read it. I know there's one Ursula Le Guin story.

[00:09:49] That's the one where like somebody suffers so everybody else can be prosperous or something. Exactly. People like, OK, all right, all right. So it's it takes you through this like this thriving city on a celebration day and then eventually takes you to this basement where there's this abused, dank child who can't be comforted or, you know, and just has to take on the suffering for everyone else.

[00:10:16] So that really feels at the end of this like an inspiration for what's going on here in a way. Wow. OK. OK. Adding that to my to be to be read list. Yeah. And there's a few other short stories that respond to it as well. Sorry, Mark. I mean, it's also kind of like to some extent. Is there the sin eater trope? Right. Oh, sure.

[00:10:40] Of the idea of like somebody that's not really stuff, but like everybody is kind of cleansed by the suffering. But here it's weird because everybody is suffering. I think in the story you're talking about, isn't it utopian kind of it's like a great society because of the suffering. Right. Except for that. Whereas this is like also bad for a lot of the inhabitants kind of. But I think it's safe. Yeah.

[00:11:02] But the apparently if they feed the island, you know, its demands, the nine belt holes, which is now eight, then apparently it will go to sleep for a while, the entity, and then they can live in peace and nice days. Yeah. Reminded me of was it dairy? Exactly. Yeah. Like how long can we keep this evil contained in a sleep? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very Stephen King. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:31] They also said that the entity likes the taste of fear. So yeah. Yeah. Like Pennywise, did you? In conversation with it for sure. Yeah. Do we think just zooming way ahead? Do we think we will ever know what the entity, what it is? Or is it going to be this vague sort of notion of the island that also maybe is a different monster every single season? You know what I mean? Like, or do you think we're going to get answers or is that not the point? What kind of show is this? I guess is the question.

[00:12:01] I mean, I suppose it depends how long it goes on. I think they will get closer to answers. I do think that they have answers to a certain degree, but I also don't think it's that complex really. Or maybe that's just because I'm into folk horror. So I'm like, yeah, there's some sort of demonic entity that wants sacrifices. I'm like, yeah, that's enough story for me. You can give me whatever lore you want to build around it.

[00:12:28] Yeah, I'm probably more satisfied with however that ultimate it, that ultimate demon devil continues to manifest itself either through others, things brought back to life, that kind of thing. I definitely don't want to see what the ultimate boogeyman looks like. I don't feel it's that kind of show. I mean, we've seen dark shapes in the background or something. Right. And I'm fine with that. Yeah.

[00:12:57] If it happens in the future, I hope it's, you know, done well, obviously. I think that this is a group of people who have taste, as we've discussed. So I trust them. I don't think it should be something that would be like in the first three seasons necessarily even. I think it's more interesting to see how this entity manifests through things like the boogeyman. And they've laid so many stories to explore.

[00:13:25] Or it could be like Men in Black when it's actually this tiny little thing inside of a thing inside of a thing, you know. So, you know, we so much want to bring to our stories, you know, this big, bad, evil looking thing. And it's just little alien little things. Yeah, I'm here for it. I think the thing that they're going to need to tread lightly on is they've sort of established that anything is possible. Like any monster could be a manifestation of this.

[00:13:52] And as long as they don't cause us to lose our concern for the main characters or feel too nihilistic about the mystery. Like in the sense of like, well, there is nothing to learn. It's just it can just do whatever. Like, you know, the sort of fantasy novel trope of like your magic system has to have some rules or people will lose the stakes. Right. So I feel like they rode that line well in this season by really limiting our manifestations of this evil. There's the boogeyman.

[00:14:20] There's the like sea hag kind of thing. There's a few other things. But it could become endless. Like 10 seasons of anything you could possibly dream up. Hopefully they can keep riding that line well, I guess, to make us still because I still feel like there's there's a logic to it, even though I don't understand all of it. Right. Right. Right.

[00:14:47] Well, let's let's get into the mysteries themselves. I'm just setting up. So episode 10 was released just this week on June 16th or 17th, depending on where in the world you are. And so we're talking about the last five episodes in particular. But, of course, we'll be referring back.

[00:15:07] And so those last five episodes are episode six, Our History, which was directed by Ty West, who is the director of like the X trilogy, including Pearl, written by Alberto Roldan, who. Worked on Mrs. Davis, which I'm like, yeah, he did. Of course. Yeah. Explains a lot.

[00:15:28] Episode seven, Seasickness, directed by Sam Donovan, who also directed the witchy episode four that we all love so much and has also worked on like shows like Severance, written by Dave Harris, who worked was in a staff writer for Interview with a Vampire season one, which. You know, be still my heart.

[00:15:48] Episode eight, Your Baggage, directed by Andrew D. Young, who also directed episode five, the tripping episode and has also worked on like our Flag Meant's Death and the Chair Company and other shows. Written by Emma Ketchum, who is a production assistant on Hacks, amongst other things. I'm like, I know that name. I was like, I think they say her name on the Hacks podcast or something. Anyway, nine, Emergency Shelter, directed by Hiro Murai, the head director of the series. He directed the first two episodes and he directed the last two episodes.

[00:16:18] Also, of course, has a background with Atlanta, Station Eleven, Barry the Bear. This episode nine was written by Bobak Esfarjani, who worked on also WandaVision, Alien Earth, Kindred. Just like, wow. And then the finale was again directed by Murai and written by the showrunner Katie Dibbold. So we're not going to be talking episode by episode.

[00:16:46] We're going to be talking about all the episodes through each other. So make sure you're caught up on the whole season or we are about to spoil it for you. Let's start as we did last time with our girl Patricia. And let's let's talk about the it was almost a standalone episode, this boogeyman episode, like very Halloween Michael Myers-esque. What did you think of this one, Mark?

[00:17:16] Which episode was this? Was this eight? The funny thing about it is I'm trying to remember how it resolved. This worked for me for the most part. I think it was of the of the last five. It was the most direct homage. Right. In the sense that it was clear. We're talking about certain references in the first, you know, whether it's the fog episode, like everything had a very fixed scope. And I think this was the last one that felt as fixed. Right. Right.

[00:17:46] Why can't I remember how it resolves? Yeah. I'm surprised. Yeah. Well, and then Patricia follows him around with a gun for the rest of the time. That's right. And they burn him. That's right. Okay. That is so hilarious. Oh, my gosh. Thank you. Yes. That is the coup de grace pun intended of that episode is just her at the incinerator. There's no other way out, right? I have to say, Zatoichi has been doing fun emoji recaps of the episodes on Discord.

[00:18:18] Oh, my God. Yeah. No, I thought it was great. I was still the lore of it all. I'm still not totally sure on like, can everybody even see that manifestation? Right. Right. Obviously, Bashir does. Yeah. The women never really, the mean girls never really do, right? I mean, that's everyone else seemed, everyone who actually saw him seemed to see it. But that is the question is because Patricia went into the house and they were mean to her.

[00:18:46] And so she ran out and then she saw him in the window and they're like, oh, Patricia. But then he falls out the window. So they must have heard that. Right. But we never see them again, I don't think, for the rest of the season. Were they even in the bunker? No. I don't remember them there. We don't see them. The other thing I liked about this is like, she gets to be right and wrong. Like her character was lying. She did make all that up. But it's real now, right? And she's... Well, she didn't make it all up.

[00:19:15] She only made up the phone calls part. He did go to her house. And then after he killed one of the other victims, she started saying it had gone further than that or something like that? No, well, she, before he came to her house, she lied about getting the phone calls too. Got it. So maybe she even called him on herself when she was a teenager in a way by doing that. But I love how they like, they went to, she did make this up, but does that even matter? Right? Because it's real now. Right.

[00:19:45] And yeah, so what do you do with that information now? Right? And they, the mean girls are found wanting in that regard, to say the least. I love that Patricia tasered her and said, what? She's the worst. She's the fucking worst. Yeah. She is. I do wonder, the fact that we didn't see them after that, we didn't see their reactions. I wonder if that part got cut out because they decided to go a different direction with it or something for next season. Because it's conspicuous.

[00:20:14] They suddenly disappear after, like, I wanted to see, do, they must know, right? They must know. She's got a broken window. Yeah. I mean, are they going to keep the group in season two as still being some of the naysayers, perhaps, or something? Yeah. I, too, wonder if, you know, it's not like they're going away, but those characters still have a place.

[00:20:38] We still definitely need to, like we're saying, see the reaction to what Patricia said and did and what's been happening. But I hope we see them in season two. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure, I bet there'll be mean girls still. Oh, of course. I hope so. It was interesting. So he stole the murderer's mask from the museum and I guess it was got burned in his skin when Patricia was like so badass final girl in this. I need 20 on three.

[00:21:09] And then she lights the gasoline on fire. So he lights on fire. But yeah, so I guess that burned his skin, which is a shame because I looked up who was played it and it's played by stuntman Aaron Armstrong and he's really hot.

[00:21:28] So Patricia Spaceman 94 on Discord shared a quote from this article in The Wrap about this character and the direction they were initially. Like I heard in other interviews from Katie Dippold that she was going to have, she had a different character in mind until she met Kato Flynn and was like, oh, that's who Patricia has to be. And so originally, this is quoting The Wrap.

[00:21:57] Originally, we talked about that episode as just doing it as a flashback of when Patricia was a teenager and showing what happened. But then we were like, well, we have this amazing actress who's so funny. It'd be so much more fun to watch this 40 year old woman running through the streets. And she was right. Yeah, I agree. And it's more fun to learn what happened by her telling these other women, you know, like because there's still the the question of, well, what really happened?

[00:22:25] How did it actually go down? But we so we still get to see the boogeyman, but we don't. We don't get to remove a little bit of the veil and the mystery of what happened. What actually happened? Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, but that is a question like what I still have a lot of questions about the boogeyman. I hope we're not completely done with it. We see. So he's burned and there's just like bullets in the ashes. So I presume he's gone.

[00:22:52] But OK, why couldn't he be killed in the first place? That reminds me, obviously, of Richard Warren, who we'll talk about in a moment. And also, I think it's interesting when she's talking about it to Bashir. Patricia's theory is the island corrupts. So she thinks he was created through the corruption of the island. I don't know. What do you think about these theories? Hmm. I would ask whether the reason is even a one boogeyman.

[00:23:20] Like, why do we need to think this is even the same guy? Could this just be created by the island as a manifestation for a couple days and then just disappears or wanders into the sea and comes back? And there's no reason to think. They buried him in the basement and that's where he popped out of. So it seems like it was one entity. OK, so it's the same entity. Do we have any understanding of the rules of this that they couldn't just make another one?

[00:23:44] Like, I know I I do think like the fact that I couldn't remember exactly how this wrapped up is testament to how much this didn't come back in the rest of the season. So I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't some grand part of the lore in the same way that the the sea witch that sits on your face just kind of is gone now. Like it may just be a one off thing that maybe it comes back every season or maybe never again.

[00:24:12] And we're going to get a completely different take on any of this. The boogeyman could be gone as far as the storytelling is concerned. Well, so it's interesting because on the one hand, there's stuff like the sea witch or like the tentacle creature that Wick talks about at another point. It seems like the island just manifests things like the voices and the radios it keeps doing. But then the boogeyman, presumably he like had a house, lived in town.

[00:24:41] So presumably or another comp for that would be Willie, the clown. Right. That was seems like that was a real person who was corrupted by the island, as Patricia would say, and became, I don't know, in the boogeyman's case, supernatural. We don't know about the clown. Yeah, I kind of see it again as that Stephen King influence where I don't think it's a throwaway line for them to say in the last episode that, you know, he prefers a little bit.

[00:25:10] He likes fear because it gives them a better taste. So to me, that indicates that these different monsters are in some way a manifestation of one's greatest fear. So whether Wick is just guilt written over what happened, you know, and has, I don't want to say invented, but that guilt just became this sea creature.

[00:25:35] And if Patricia is feeling a little bit guilty about maybe not telling the right story, you know, does her fear about that, especially after her, you know, her little party went awry. If she if there's just something in there that the island says, OK, we're going to throw the boogeyman back at you because that's your manifestation. So that's that's still where I am.

[00:26:02] I'm still in in a good way, like at a certain point. Not that they're in their head and imaginary because that's not true, but I think that's why they come up. I don't know. OK. OK. Yeah. Yeah. I would say like the show is telling us that it doesn't engage with the realities of this much. So think about the actual sheriff was there when this all went down with the gunshot.

[00:26:30] And yet and we see an actual coroner or someone working at a crematorium or something burning this thing. But there's no talk on the town about, oh, the identity of this person that's been living here is this. But like the actual way this intersects with people's lived reality is almost in a surreal kind of. Sitcom way where like you just reset the next week, almost like nothing happened.

[00:26:55] So I I hate to say none of it matters because that's the path down getting frustrated with the show one day. But I think is there's almost. A capital are real and a lowercase are real and like this really happened, but did not. Capital are really happened maybe on some level like the the impact of it is treated almost as irrelevant in this show, it seems, which is really interesting.

[00:27:22] Like there could be a whole episode of the aftermath of the boogeyman being real and everybody realizes Patricia was being true. And who is this demonic guy? But no, none of it gone. Next thing never mentioned again. But then the storm comes. There's no time to catch your breath on this island. But nobody's sitting in that shelter talking about it either. Like it's really much on to the next thing. And they're almost telling us not to engage in these conversations. Yet here we are. I mean, I'm more interested. I you know whether or not the boogeyman himself comes back.

[00:27:51] I'm doubting it. But I'm more interested in what is the through line corruptive influence that's creating all of these entities. What is the common thread between them? Yeah. So we're going to take a quick break here. And when we come back, we're going to go back to the beginning. We're going to talk about the founder and his bloodline as lovingly laid out by Rosemary.

[00:28:24] OK, so I want to start out with this quote for Lisa shared this article from Deadline on the Discord. And there's this brilliant bit in it about Hamish Linklater, who plays Richard Warren, the founder. The actor admitted some similarities to his role in the 2021 Netflix limited series Midnight Mass, explaining why he risked typecasting to play another quote bad leader of a parish on a little fishing island in the Apple TV Plus series from Katie Dippold.

[00:28:52] You definitely worry that people will only think of you as a bad leader of a parish on a little fishing island, he told Decider. But then you start getting jealous and you're like, I don't want to see anybody else run a haunted little island better than me. So then you've got to defend your territory. Oh, that's great. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that's really great.

[00:29:17] And I know we talk about, I mean, Betty Gilpin was just terrific in this, you know, just right away. And I know we'll kind of go into the deep end. But speaking of Mrs. Davis. Yeah. Yes. It's funny that he says that because I was at first a wee bit annoyed. I'm like, really? Can't you find somebody else to, you know, play that part? And, you know, but then.

[00:29:47] Then I just got over myself, you know, and just said, no, let me just, you know, absorb the character. He certainly doesn't look at look that much like him in the sense of the hair. And then in the next episode, all the makeup and the zombie zombification of him. But yeah, at first I was a little annoyed. I'm like, really? I mean, this is such a, this is such a referential show. I love all of the references to other things. And if it's a literal act or two, then great. Especially if it's Hamish Linklater. I do like him.

[00:30:16] I think part of why I liked him more as a zombie or whatever, or extremely supernaturally aged man in the subsequent episodes is there was a humor to, there was a satire to that. And maybe I wanted them to play the flashback a little less straight because you can be like, yeah, I'm this, I'm this priest that's got this demonic element though. Midnight Mass, not to get spoilery, like he's actually very sweet in his nature in that show.

[00:30:47] Maybe a little more parody of that would have been welcome, I think, because we got that later. Like, I really think they handled him as this, like, what would it actually be to have this like 300 year old guy in your boat or whatever? Just maybe a little more. And the same, you know, and I haven't seen Mrs. Davis, but like I've seen Betty Gilpin in Glow and stuff. And she's kind of a straight man in a comedic situation and that that works really well.

[00:31:12] And just a little more of that, one of the, could the priest, the pastor, could he have been a little kookier? Like, yeah, that's the only thing. I thought from a lore building perspective, this was nice. Maybe it would have structurally worked better in bits and pieces for me, like five minutes per episode or something. So then I didn't feel like it was heavy. But yeah, I get it. Once it was over, I was glad I'd watched it, you know. Right.

[00:31:42] It doesn't work as well, maybe, as some of the other episodes. That is very much just a my opinion and taste thing. Right. No, I mean, I really, I enjoyed it, I think, more on, it's not my favorite episode of the season. I liked it the first time. I enjoyed it more on rewatch. Um, not just for the lore building. So we find out that 1702 is when Sarah Westcott, the Betty Gilpin character, goes to Widow's Bay to marry Richard Warren.

[00:32:09] And, you know, you feel for her in that situation where she's, she's apparently 40, you know, she's unmarried. And, uh, especially in those times there's this, oh, well then you're just, your life is over. You're a spinster now idea. Um, and, so she shows up and, and, you know, just daring to hope and people keep saying these nice things.

[00:32:34] And then she's in this situation where she's literally being boarded into her house. And, um, and what I like about it also, I think is that I don't, some small part of me understands Richard Warren a little bit. And I wonder if he is in a way a warning for Tom, because at the end of the day, I think Richard Warren did the things he did because he wanted to protect his children. Right.

[00:33:03] Yeah, we get that in the subsequent episode where how meaningful it was for him to see his children's things and then smash in the eyeballs of the, uh, you know, uh, uh, you know, head of his wife there. So he was clearly very upset that she essentially killed them by trying to leave the island.

[00:33:21] You know, I found on second watch, you know, the things where, um, when, uh, Sarah Westcott is absolutely panicked seeing him go after the doctor and she goes to the pastor and she's like, you know, everyone said that, you know, being a spinster was bad. But, you know, now that I'm looking at this life, I kind of want to, you know, what's so bad about it? You know, and so I picked up a lot of knitting done, you know, and so she had that.

[00:33:47] And then there was that other one where she busted into the committee meeting and said, you've got to kill him now. And she's like, and then one of the, you know, committee members said, um, yeah, but think of your children. She's like, why? I knew them for a day. You know, she did think of them though. So there were little things, but you know, to Mark's point, I, I didn't really hone in on it until a rewatch. Right. Right. It wasn't as overtly funny as the other episodes. I don't think. Yeah.

[00:34:17] I do wonder. So I'm, I'm thinking like, are there just like the, whatever the entity is, um, does the, the entity just have like a greatest hits playlist of favorite types of atrocities to inflict on the inhabitants of the island? Until it gets what it wants. Like, um, uh, there seems in 1702, we find out that there was a plague tied to a fog. So we've already seen a fog.

[00:34:45] Um, there's also, we've heard several stories about storms throughout. So that's one of the ones that goes to these singular serial killer entities. That seems to be something it goes back to again and again. What I find interesting about Richard between the two episodes, uh, the two Richard episodes is in 1702. He says about the entity, it is not the devil. It is our God.

[00:35:10] And then once he's woken up after, you know, thinking in his, uh, coffin for centuries, he says, I thanked God, but something else came to me, a demon, the island itself. So it seems like, I don't know, do you, he feels remorse, right? Even though he signed the pact with his own blood, semen and feces. Well, he had a, probably a long time to think about his own religious religiosity.

[00:35:39] You know, you know, he was probably picking apart, is there a God, you know, and all that. And he's come to the conclusion that, well, you know, I thank God, but something else came. He definitely had a lot of time to think. Yeah. I do wonder if in a future season, in season two or something, they'll bring Hamish Linklater back and show us more. Like, for example, why he killed his first wife. I mean, he's got a, he's got a body count.

[00:36:07] I know, but killing random locals, I get, but why? Yeah, sure. But why his wife? You would think the mother of his children. You can just send for another one, you know? I don't know. I mean, is it just, is there a discovery of what he's doing or something? That would probably be the thing, right? She didn't take it well or something? As one might not. The blood, semen and feces signing a pact.

[00:36:34] Yeah, that's quite the scene to walk in on, I think, if you're somebody's wife. Leader or no leader. I loved when he said it to Tom. Tom, like, immediately dropped the scroll and, like, wiped his hands off. But see, that's great. That second episode, it's almost like the writer of that second episode, the seventh episode specifically, was making fun of the sixth almost, right? Right. Like, because they could have had that align about blood, semen and feces

[00:37:02] be an eyebrow raising moment in the actual flashback. But instead it was commentary on the flashback or reflection of the flashback. And it's interesting that they are different writers because, like, did they give the first, you know, did the writers get to look at each other's scripts and work together and kind of play off of each other to a certain extent? I don't know. Probably there's a writer's room. Obviously the showrunners are, but. Mm-hmm. Um, I think it's interesting.

[00:37:29] So are we supposed to understand that the Warren's house is the future salty whale because that sacrificial chair was underneath? Or is this just tunnels all through the town? Because we know it also connects to that well next to the church. Oh, that's a good point. Hmm. Good question. Yeah. I think clearly there's a tunnel system larger than, you know, we realize. So, yeah. Yeah.

[00:37:55] I did love the bit in the first episode, though, where, uh, so Pastor Collins asked Sarah to help him kill Richard. And so someone comes in to stab her and she just, like, points, uh, to the other side of the bed. Nope, not me. I'm not the one. He sleeps on the other side of the bed. That was a great gag. I had to rewatch that scene, though, to figure out exactly what was going on. Yeah. Um, who was stabbing who? Yes. Okay. It was dark, you know? Yeah.

[00:38:24] So then, and then, of course, we find out, so Sarah flees with Richard's children and, and they all start bleeding from their eyes and mouth once they get to that, that, uh, boundary line, except for Francis, the girl, because she, who is missing part of one finger, um, she fell out of the boat and washes back ashore with the brooch that Sarah gave her. And we find out that she was raised and later married by Barnabas Fisher, the whaler.

[00:38:55] So, yeah, it actually tracks, but, yeah. And that brooch comes back later. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And does it matter? Yeah. For anything more than emotional sort of weight of history of moving on? I do. Well, why do you think he threw it in the bay at the end? Like, what, that doesn't solve anything. Was that just an emotional act of frustration? Yeah.

[00:39:24] That part of him that just wishes it could all go away, screw all this, um, you know, emotional reaction kind of thing. And, uh, enough people know what the brooch means and, you know, meaning Wick or some others. And he's like, I don't want this to be near Evan at all. So let me just throw it out of the water. But he's got to know, you know, things, tides go back and things come ashore. And so, yeah, I don't know. I saw it more as an emotional beat. Yeah.

[00:39:53] I would really not be surprised if it washes back up, though. Oh, 100%. Yeah. But, yeah, I agree. It's probably more of an emotional thing. It was funny when Tom pulls down the painting of Frances Warren onto herself and Rosemary won't let Kenny. Like, Rosemary, I keep trying to pin down what kind of character she is. Yeah. Like, she was trolling him there, right? She's like, oh, sorry, pushing it on him and stuff. And gosh, I was expecting.

[00:40:22] Well, let the man behind her, the big muscle guy behind her help. Yeah. I was surprised something crazy with her didn't happen during the shelter scene. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But it didn't. She's just Rosemary, you know? Mm-hmm. I do wonder, by the way, why Richard Warren has a headless statue. That's just like they're seeding all these things they could explore or could just leave it as a headless statue, whatever. Kids be kids, right? Right. Right.

[00:40:49] Yeah, it would be fun, actually, to see flashbacks of Tom as a teenager and compare to Evan. Because we've had some stories. I want to see, I'm looking at your next part of the notes. I want to see Wick as a teenager. I want to see young Wick. Yeah. Because he's got stories. Rosemary has stories. They've got stories. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. And his gal, yeah, Jerry. Well, before we get to the boat, the Jaws scene. Okay.

[00:41:18] I did think it was really funny we didn't say yet about Patricia's notes for when Richard was woken up. And she said, are you mad at something I said? Oh, my God. Mm-hmm. That was such a keen insight into who Patricia is. Yeah. It's so recognizable, too. True. Yeah. Don't make this about you, Patricia, but she's also the most helpful of all of them, too. True. Also, yeah.

[00:41:45] Who said never separate a woman from her purse? Yeah. But, okay. Logistical question. When Tom wakes up before this bit, he said he had been asleep for a day. Like, he was sleeping on the toilet for a day. And where was Evan during all this? Where was Evan during all this? Hmm. With his new girlfriend? I think so, probably. With his friends, yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:15] But, okay. So, we have the Jaws boat ride with the coffin argument. And, by the way, saying fuck you is something that was also said in 1702. So, we haven't evolved our curse words yet. But, I do think Wick, you know, he looks like the loony guy at the beginning of the season. But, he's really starting to show his wisdom here. And, you know, he's, it sounds cruel. But, he says, can't trust a man that knows death is coming for him. He's not wrong.

[00:42:44] He's not wrong. 100%. Yeah. Well, and he, it's because he, that happened to him. He thought, well, surely I will save my best friend. And then, he's obviously shocked with himself that his reaction was to let go. So, for him, definitely, it's very real for him. He can't trust a man. You know, he was a man who was changed by death staring at him in the face. Yeah.

[00:43:13] Because he, he was dating Jerry, the historian. And, he let her, he not only let her brother die, he kind of contributed to it. Yeah. He kind of pushed or whatever. Yeah. Kicked him off. Yeah. Because they were being attacked by a tentacle monster. And, he's like, take him, not me. That sort of thing. Right. Yeah. So, I think that's where he's coming from. Yeah. So, that's definitely haunting him. What do you think about, how has your opinion of Wick changed over the season, Mark?

[00:43:41] Wick might be my favorite character, just to watch. Him and Patricia, I would say, the two of them. Yeah. Over the season, it's, you know, he starts off the crazy person, but he's the crazy person that might actually be right. Of course, that's the trope he is. But, what I like about it is, he became full allies with Tom. Like, there wasn't the tension of, oh, Wick's the crazy person. And, that got dispensed with very early on.

[00:44:11] And, it lets you, I think, appreciate the humor in the situation. Like, the gravity of his character and what he's saying. But, the lightheartedness. Like, it's not the laughs. Like, the laugh at how silly the person is became more Rosemary. Right? And, maybe to a lesser extent, Ruth in some things like that. So, I think it's the relationship with Tom getting sort of settled. Because, Tom, I was pretty down on Tom in the first four episodes. If you remember, like, I was like, this guy is not really a protagonist.

[00:44:38] Like, once he crosses the threshold of, like, I will accept this reality, he becomes a much more likable character. Which lets me appreciate the little gang. The, like, adventuring party they create a lot. Everybody's quirks complement each other really well. And, Wick is a huge part of that. Yeah. I do love, in general, getting the gang together stories. You know, forming the posse. And so, for me, the latter half of the season did shine also. Because, especially the three of them.

[00:45:08] And now, well, Bashir's full in on it for season two. So, I guess that's the four of them are going to be the Scooby gang going into season two. Scooby gang. I love the level of talent they've brought in also just for small things for this. So, from our Discord, MotorridersD said, Oh, and the sea shanty in episode seven was written by Richard R. Perry of Arcade Fire. Wow. Yeah.

[00:45:37] I'll put a link to Richard R. Perry's Instagram post about it with a clip of the song in the show notes. But, yeah. The rest of the score was composed by David Fleming. But, again, it's cool that this is something, obviously, with the talent involved, people are like, oh, yeah, I want to contribute. And now, I think season two, that'll be even more so than ever. But I do hope they don't become some cameo fest. I'm not worried about it because I think that there's the taste level, like I said.

[00:46:07] But I just, yeah. I hope they hold back and, like, oh, everyone, all their famous friends want to get involved. That's okay. They don't have to. So, we have this thing where they take Richard past the boundary into the so-called dead zone. You know, Richard's willing at first and then not. And then all that's left behind is bones and Vienna wieners. And then, like, for a day, they think it's all over.

[00:46:36] But, obviously, we, as an audience at home, know that there's more episodes left. So, what did you think at that point? Oh, yeah. That it was very short-lived. And, you know, because we know there's another living descendant. But did you expect it to last longer? No. No. No. I think they did a really great job of giving us just enough of our characters thinking that it was over.

[00:47:06] I definitely felt buoyant, relieved, happy for them. It really bonded Tom with his son about you really began. I began to really see and feel what Evan was missing out on, what Tom felt he was. And I was thinking, my God, yeah, he can't even go to a Red Sox game. You know, what is he going to do about college? You know, and so that was really helpful. But I didn't need it to go on longer, you know, than it did.

[00:47:34] Because I knew, you know, they zoomed in to the painting, you know, I think after that episode. And, you know, someone survived. And you're like, oh, okay. So, they're going to be happy for like two minutes. And then we're going to be like, oh, crap. Yeah. I mean, I would say because we were all hypothesizing that there would be more descendants, especially because of the painting with the kid falling out and all that stuff. People have been piecing this together.

[00:48:03] It added this extra layer of dread when he gives him the Red Sox tickets and stuff. They're like, oh, no, don't try to go. And it was almost like, oh, phew, there's a storm coming. They can't. And he's not going to see his son die on the ferry as well. Yes. Well, true, true. Mark, what did you think of Rosemary's presentation of the genealogy of Richard Warren? Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

[00:48:31] It's just long enough that I started zoning out a little bit. And like, it was so clearly just kind of almost to be taken as nonsense. Like, you almost wonder if if she improvised some of that. Obviously, there was a there was a list of an image she would be looking at. But all the stuff about lesbians and oh, they're died. Like you could. It's almost so. I don't like the way you're saying lesbian. More of the performative. Yeah.

[00:49:00] 2026 speak from some of the characters. Like I. I just there's something about the way she delivers it that feels like she's got to be a really good, like improv comedian or something. Her sense of timing. Um. I don't get it. Just in the sense it's overwhelming, kind of. And I that's I think part of that's fine. That's what it's supposed to be. Because I'm just like almost looking at my watch going like this is there's someone at the end of this list and she's not getting there fast.

[00:49:28] Well, and I was like, how did she put that all together so fast? You know, I was a little confused by that, too. I'm like, clearly she's got to either she's had this in her back pocket and she understands it and now just needs to write it out on, you know, those slides. But, you know, I was just kind of like, oh, OK. Well, on the town hall, one of the many signs of things that are there is the genealogy department.

[00:49:51] So they said, yeah, OK, they did say that she already had information on Barnabas's descendancy. So I guess she pulled that together. What is her job? What is her role? Like, what does she do? I mean, she yeah, she works in the office. I guess genealogy is her focus. But I don't know. We just know her as an employee. Yeah. Genealogy, this doesn't come up often. You know what I mean? Like, she's not a full time. They have a historical person. Right. Right. Right.

[00:50:20] Um, it's so unclear to me what her. I mean, I guess she does whatever they need her to do, you know, handing out flyers for the cocktail hour. Right. I do think it's funny that I understand why you say that it dragged on the watching her give that whole genealogy talk. It is interestingly the one a scene that I hear people talk about rewatching the most.

[00:50:50] Hmm. And I think it's the first time you do it, there is like this stress because you were with Tom. We're like, just tell us who it is. Yeah. And then when you rewatch it and you're like, oh, it's going to Ruth. And you start like luxuriating the details of like her, you know, crankiness and her kind crankiness. So it's like this specific personality. It's so I don't know if I've seen another character quite like her. I know.

[00:51:15] I think I read in an interview that Matthew Reese said that that episode was one of the hardest to keep a straight face in. They just kept laughing because Stale Dickie was so amazing. And I'm sure she probably improv some things that they kept in. Well, I heard them in an interview somewhere. I can't remember where someone was saying that that was an enormous amount for her to memorize. So I do think it was written out because also there was all the visual props and everything too.

[00:51:45] Very helpful. But I think that this is another one of those places where they're seeding all this lore so that in future seasons, they can expand on these stories. And we'll talk about some highlights at the end about that might come up in future seasons. But I think, yeah, so that and then you can point back like, oh, see, it was all laid out in season one. Right. Okay. So Tom, they find out it's Ruth. Ruth.

[00:52:13] So Wick is very pro kill Ruth and the curse. Right. Patricia is very, all life is valuable. So I'll say Dopamini on our Discord put up a poll. And we do have an empathetic Discord. 63% said the question was, what do you do to the final war in Descendants? 63% said inform her of her genealogy and what it means.

[00:52:40] 25% do not protect her in the storm and hope she dies. 13% actively kill her. No one said do nothing. What would you guys do? Well, I probably would have done what Tom did. I think he was, you know, trying when he was getting into the trolley problem and the philosophy and who would you save.

[00:53:03] I definitely was, I felt that he hoped that she would be like, well, of course, you know, I would kill the one person, you know, and because he was very upset with her. He's like, really? You'd let them all die? You know, he was very upset about that, you know, so I probably would have approached it like Tom did and maybe try and give her the choice. You know, but, you know, I'm not a parent, so I don't know what this feels like. Like you do anything for your kid. Yeah.

[00:53:33] You tell her about what's happening, I think. Yeah. I don't know if she's, you know, what is she in her 80s, maybe? 84. 84. You could think that was a short-term problem to deal with, but then will she just literally live forever? Right? That is the question. Now, because I was going to say if she's the last descendant, but I don't think it matters because Richard was not the last descendant, yet he was still kept alive. Maybe it's the oldest descendant.

[00:54:03] Oh, interesting. So maybe it passed to her when he died or something, but she was already super healthy. We saw there was like a wow next to her thyroid score, which actually means she has hyperthyroid, which isn't necessarily healthy. But anyway, and then we saw her like, she's like, oh, I just did two miles. And then she does this little jog up the step and he looks so despondent, like, oh, wow, look at that skipper step. God, she's healthy. Gosh, God.

[00:54:33] Yeah, I do wonder if there is something going on more about her. Like, I'm glad that she survived for a few reasons. One is just to pick up on the trolley problem thing that you brought up. She actually was a real source of wisdom and kind of like a cold comfort where she said, you know, about the trolley problem, the runaway trolley is life. The lever is me. You can't control the bad things that happen in life, Tom.

[00:55:02] But if I pull that lever, it's a choice. And I'm choosing to kill that person. And I could never do that. And we see like this is a consistent philosophy for her. There's a good things come to those who wait. We'll come back to the Tennessee Williams thing separately in a moment. But she's she's worried about Tom that she says, like, you just need to accept that life is a house of horrors. It's that all that makes sense to you, Mark, as well. I.

[00:55:33] I was wondering through all of that conversation, especially when she's laying supine like he's about to smother her. How much of this is a manipulation? Like, what is she? Is this just her earnest way of life or does she know what he's trying to do? Is she like I do we know that she has any idea about any of this? Because it never comes out. He doesn't mention any of it. Right. So we can't gauge a reaction to learning about it.

[00:56:04] And and that changes how you would handle it. Right. Right. Is she. Is she controlling the scenario, manipulating it or the situation or is she completely sort of like she's alluding, you know. Sort of just the world is moving around you and you are just a, you know, a sort of passive participant in the world. But she is engaging in the trolley problem in a more deliberate way.

[00:56:34] She knows about her role in this curse. Right. I mean, I do wonder if she knew that he was there to kill her or is she's like messing with him sometimes in some ways. I mean, but then I also like this show makes me conspiratorial. I'm like, oh, she keeps talking about that herb garden. Is she actually one of the witches or something? I was I was combing her calendar, which, of course, you know, we see all the nice stuff.

[00:57:00] Like, apparently she helps Deirdre on and off the porch every day, which maybe we just need to get this woman a ramp. But OK. But then all the other things that came up on her calendar. Well, when she was like she had a list like snacks that get snacks that Evan likes and energy drinks for him and a bunch of other miscellaneous things. But also there's weekly or biweekly trivia or bingo nights calls with Francis, which granted is a is a common enough name.

[00:57:30] But this is interesting. It's the same as Francis Warren. Aquarobics, gardening club, librarians knitting classes and then goat yoga. OK, goat, of course, makes me think of the devil. But also we have not seen any goats. And if there is livestock on that island, why was where was it when the storm came? Ah, they didn't have the budget. No, I'm just kidding.

[00:57:59] Our university campus hosts goat yoga twice a year. So it's very interesting. So one of the what kind of I was very surprised, probably again, I clearly seem to be Tom in this scenario.

[00:58:11] But I was really surprised at how lucent and busy she was because I'm like, who is this woman, you know, who we sporadically got to see throughout the season who just seemed like she was sweet, but really couldn't connect A to B to C in so many ways. And, you know, the fact that she's tired and, you know, the fact that she's tired and all that.

[00:58:34] So I definitely could understand how maybe that's a part she's playing when she's at work and, you know, and she's that way over here. I kind of chalk her up to being like many other elderlies on the island in current day. It's just, look, we know about this curse, you know, and we just we're just gonna live with it. It's a part of our lives. That's just what it is.

[00:59:00] So she struck me as just being not that she's uncaring about anybody, obviously. But, you know, it's just, yeah, you know, hey, life's a bitch, you know, and so I don't know. Yeah, I do agree with something Cincinnati Joe brought up in the discord. He said this show did let me down with regard to the tea. There's no way Ruth doesn't notice all that flavor in her own tea.

[00:59:24] Maybe if he'd made her some strange tea that she wasn't familiar with, but she's got to notice that stuff in something a tea that's really familiar and made herself, especially since no appearance of milk or mention of sweetener. And I did I did think about that as well. And that's one reason why I wonder if she's playing along. But then another point she goes she reaches for it to drink more of her diazepam oxycodone whatever tea. So I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

[00:59:53] I don't know. They leave it up in the air. I'm not even sure if they know. I was struck while watching that how terrible I would be at poisoning somebody because I was just. I'm watching Tom going like, do you know which one is yours? Do you know which one is yours? Do you know which one is yours? Like, like how? How would how is he not what we know of Tom not sweating bullets, holding and keeping his eye on the one to hand to her like so nervous? Like there's something about that. The way that was shot, too.

[01:00:23] Especially since he's already had a he's already had a really bad drink in this season that he wasn't meant to, you know, throw down. And it turns out he was loaded up on mushrooms. So, yeah, I agree, Mark. It'd be kind of like, let's be really careful.

[01:00:38] It's interesting because the tension of this moment, I know we learned a lot and you talked about kind of experiencing it like the shock of Tom realizing his late wife is actually her daughter and his gradual horror realizing his son is now the holder of this curse. But the show is also comedic.

[01:00:59] So, like, I don't know watching her expression, if I'm supposed to interpret it like we've been talking about, like, oh, is she hiding something or no, she's just goofy because it's kind of goofy. It's interesting that that question of what is real versus like actually happening real. Right.

[01:01:17] I don't know if her not tasting the tea and that being improbable matters sort of because it's supposed to be kind of funny. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I do. Yeah, I said I was going to hold aside that Tennessee Williams quote she brings up because it was part of the sweet stuff that she said. The quote she said is the world is violent and mercurial.

[01:01:47] It will have its way with you. And then she said she couldn't read the part that says we are saved only by love, love for each other. And the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share. Being a parent, being a writer, being a painter, being a friend. And then she read we live in a perpetually burning building and what we must say from it all the time is love. And that's the part that's most quoted.

[01:02:08] But what's interesting about this quote, and I have to credit Motor Writers D again for sharing this post from Mastodon of this New Yorker article. Did this writer, referring to James Grissom, actually know Tennessee Williams? And I read the whole thing. It's a riveting read. I will put it in the show notes as well.

[01:02:34] But basically there's this guy, James Grissom, who wrote this book about Tennessee Williams giving him interviews toward the end of his life and then interviewing a bunch of like the actresses and stuff he worked with that he talked about and putting it together in this book. And it seems like all this was made up or most of it was made up.

[01:02:59] And actually this quote, we live in a perpetually burning building quote, doesn't even come from that book. It comes from one of his random social media posts because he would just keep manifesting, it seems, allegedly, new things. And some people were quoted as saying, anytime someone died, we knew that he was going to release something about, oh, I actually interviewed that person and this is what they said to me.

[01:03:26] So this quote, this alleged Tennessee Williams quote, very good chance. It was just written by this guy, James Grissom, and attributed to him. Interesting. Wow. Yeah, but so we got the double fake out where we all thought Evan was going to be the descendant. And then we were like, oh, no, it's Ruth. And then it's like, oh, no, it actually still is Evan.

[01:03:51] But it was so sweet that she's been babysitting her grandson the whole time, even if like she, I don't know, she does seem kind of naive. Like she granted his request for a ladder for fire safety. It was fun. Yeah. But it was cute. And, you know, when she had, I think, one of his earlier as a child, one of his not paintings, but, you know, construction paper and, you know, a turkey hand and all of that. So, you know, yeah, that was that was really sweet.

[01:04:21] It tied it all in together. I'm curious if you two ever thought that, yeah, there's no way Ruth was the final descendant. Did we do we all think that? Yeah, no, it's it's got to be Evan. Right. Eventually. Absolutely. Um, I mean, once like I thought it was Evan, but then once they said Ruth, I think I just I might have just accepted that for that week. Yeah. Until she starts.

[01:04:43] And then as soon as Ruth starts talking and telling her stories and I'm like, oh, no shit, this this illegitimate child is totally going to be Evan's mom. Mm hmm. Do we have a good sense of why she wouldn't have just said that I'm your grandma? Yeah. I mean, what what is there to gain? Even tidying it from Tom, like all those years, like why? Once once the parents died. Once the like once.

[01:05:13] Let's say let's say. Tom's late wife is grown at this point. She knows, realizes who she is. Probably the daughter did, too. Why is it still a secret at this point? Yeah. Who does it protect? Sort of. This is also she she said it quite readily. And obviously, she wasn't going to bring it up in the office, I suppose. So and Tom wouldn't go to her house.

[01:05:41] So I wonder if that's that's why, because like Tom just never let her get close enough to reveal such a thing before. Well, I mean, she did say Ruth did say she was, you know, telling this story that she would go to see her daughter in the hospital after the stroke and say, I'm your secret mommy. So they definitely wanted to protect her. You know, so maybe that's why she didn't say anything.

[01:06:08] I mean, you know, she she wants her daughter and whatever, you know, the baby daddy and that side of the family would still be impacted by the truth. You know, yes, the her the baby daddy might be gone, as is the stepmother. But, you know, that that's the only thing I can think of in terms of like who she's protecting in some way. I don't know. Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, it's a good question.

[01:06:35] But I think that Tom kind of shot himself in the foot by being such a misanthrope. Oh, yeah, that's yeah. Well, he says that to her. He's like, you know, it's not that, you know, Lauren didn't tell me this. I just chose not to listen. And he really regrets that. So that definitely seems to be a big character arc or a character theme to him is that, you know, if I just listened, if I just paid attention. Yeah. You know, it's funny. Ruth is so insightful in some ways.

[01:07:04] But in other ways, she puts up an early 2000s Nissan Sentra and says, boys in their cars. Legendary muscle car. Yeah. The Nissan Sentra. Oh, my God. But yeah, when Bashir showed up and shot Ruth in the back of the head. I mean, it seems like she survived at the end. So, yeah.

[01:07:32] Wondering if she got that Richard Warren juice. No. It was like an ear scrape. Yeah. Either that or I chucked it as her ear was bleeding. Because Tom was like, no, and moved her or something probably. Yeah. And so it was just, yeah. Yeah. I was struck by this sort of dignity of not having that moment be gory at all. Right. We don't see anything. And this show has had some gross out stuff that's happened.

[01:07:59] And that was completely essentially off camera. Like the angle, like she just goes down. That's it. And she's got blood on her hand when she's cupping her head when they turn her over. Sure. Which maybe is, you know, our clue that she survived. But also it's just an interesting kind of, like I said, kind of like offering the character some more dignity than maybe having her head blow up all over everybody, which is what this show could do, I think. Yeah. Right. Right.

[01:08:29] Yeah. And but I did wonder also, I was kind of yelling at Tom when he was trying to kill her. It was like, we don't know what would happen if you did manage to kill the last descendant. Like at the very least, I would say get everyone else off the island because I would imagine, like all people who can go, because I would imagine that all hell would break loose, maybe somewhat literally. Yeah. The island could just sink into the ocean or something. Right. Exactly. Okay.

[01:08:59] Okay. You broke the deal. Fine. Yeah. That's that. Right. It'd be like the, you know, the house at the end of, oh my gosh, Steven Spielberg. At the end of, oh. Poltergeist. Thank you. You know, when the house just collapsed upon itself. Right. Right. Exactly. Spoilers for a 40 year old movie. Right. I was surprised that Patricia told Bashir what Tom was up to. And so I wonder if like, because obviously, because she said she wanted to protect Ruth.

[01:09:29] Does this mean, A, that part of her was like, oh, we do have to kill this lady? Because she did seem relieved when she thought it was done at the end when the storm stopped. Or did she think that Bashir was going to protect Ruth? She would be dumb to think that. I agree. Considering, you know. Yeah. So no, I don't think that is it. I think if I remember when she was trying to distract Bashir from what was going on in an earlier episode.

[01:09:59] And she, in the sheriff's car, tells, well, we don't see her tell Bashir anything, nor do we know exactly what she told him. So that's deliberately, you know, been held. And we, again, don't know what she told Bashir in this final episode. Right. So there's definitely some tension there. It's meant to be unclear, I think. Because he stopped her also. Like, she was talking about the boogeyman. He's like, I don't want to hear any more of this crazy shit, you know. Right.

[01:10:28] And then later she was like, oh, wait, no, but I have to tell you about the, you know, baby's born on the island, can't leave thing. But yeah, his baby has to be born there so that he stays in the show. Sorry. Right.

[01:11:08] Yeah. okay. Is Evan okay? It's just, that is his, you know, returning thought, just constant thought, number one, is Evan okay? And there's part of him that was like, you know, and another part was, he's just a rurally teenager, is Evan okay? And so to have him wrestle with that choice, and then to have Bashir come in and be like, yep, no question, boom, you know, because I'm not going

[01:11:35] to have my child born on this island and never be able to leave. So it was definitely really neat to see those two reactions in tension with one another. And I think that will work really well in season two, because that's, that's going to be a big conflict. You know, Tom obviously didn't say who it was. Bashir, I think is probably smart enough to figure out that it's probably Evan. And so what is, what is that, you know, so what's that going to be like in season two? Yeah. And I just wonder what, what the rules are for Richard's descendants, because obviously a lot

[01:12:05] of them die, many dead babies. So yes, many dead babies. Right, right, right. Is, is Ruth now immortal because she's, she's oldest or something? Does this affect Evan in any way? Is his mom really dead? I'm having doubts about that, but we'll talk about her separately in a bit. And I'm also wondering things like, you know, just all these, we'll talk about a Shep later, later on, but Patricia does, has an offhand comment. I learned my biological age is 28,

[01:12:32] which is a thing, you know, a lot of people, Patricia looks younger than she is. And usually that is manifest, you know, that, that is translated into your organs appear younger, things like that. But I just wonder if there's something that they're, I think in season two, they're probably going to discover the boosts they get from this demon protection. Yeah. Cause we've been questioning the age of everybody throughout the season. Yeah.

[01:13:00] All right. This is another good place for a quick break. And then when we come back, we're going to talk about the end of this season and some highlights from the mysteries still left on the table. So I have a thunderstorm starting here, just as we're about to talk about the storm of

[01:13:27] the century in the show. So if you hear 4d sound effects, that's why Amsterdam decided to join the podcast. The skies above Amsterdam. By the way, the, so we've been making a lot of jokes about the closing the door on the man gif where, you know, the, the older man's talking about the storm of 1783

[01:13:51] or, and then Ash Wednesday, nor'easter of 62 that lasted five days. And Patricia slowly shuts the door on him that the actor was Ed Peed and he passed away in December of 2025. So this was his final role. So RIP, it was an iconic final role that I think people are going to be recognizing for a long time. You know, he's memorable. Is he just in those two scenes that scene? And then later in the shelter and the earlier in the

[01:14:20] season also, I don't think we've seen him earlier in the season as far as I know. No, no. So we find out here in the bunker, Shell is waiting. The Bashir's wife is waiting to give birth. I love the Dr. Morgan's come back. Okay. Here's my question about Dr. Morgan. So we've seen him a few times, like fine. We saw him at the party. He was off the clock, but we've seen him doctoring twice

[01:14:43] with Tom's wound and with, uh, obviously with Shell being pregnant. And he seems to throw things out there and then get very defensive when people question him. Do we think that he actually has a certifications that he pretends to have? Yeah. He strikes me as just that, you know, small, small Island doctor who's been doing this for years, has his medical degree. And yeah, I didn't think it weird at all that he was like, uh, excuse me.

[01:15:12] You know, he just seems like that cranky ish kind of character that we see on the Island. It's weird though. He's probably not from the Island, right? Because he has a medical degree. There's probably no medical school there, but he has that kind of almost immune to the insanity going on around him. That's some of the other old timers that are native seem to have. Like if we think of like Rosemary and Ruth kind of in that category, someone who's been there for

[01:15:39] years and kind of just isn't phased by how actual crazy this is that he would harp on like, I'm sorry, where did you get your medical license or whatever kinds of stuff he has? It feels like it's more of a Rosemary move, but he's obviously someone who probably didn't come there until he was, unless he grew up as a kid and then came back or whatever, but he didn't come there until he was a doctor. Probably he was hired like Bashir as an expert to come and work the Island. Well, unless, unless he got like a, you know, um, he got his degree online or something.

[01:16:09] He must not have been born there. He got his degree online back when he was, you know, in the 1980s or whatever. Right. True, true. Good point. By male. That used to be a thing, right? Or, or like you said, he just does not have any qualifications and he is a quack completely. Right. Um, I do appreciate he's a Phantom of the Opera fan. That was very weirdly atmospheric. I don't remember. What do you mean? He was singing Phantom of the Opera in sleep. He sang to me. Really? Oh my God. I forgot that.

[01:16:38] When, uh, when he was tending to show. That is so random. And they're like, what is this? Um, also the bunker just, you know, 10 out of 10 for production design and, and, you know, the graphic designers on their team too, with like the posters, the posters with the bites. And I don't think it's that weird to have human bites on a poster actually, because humans do bite each other a

[01:17:03] lot. Um, but the one that really caught my eye the first time was the how to subdue poster. Right. I was like, what? In a doctor's office. Oh no, that was in the shelter. Yeah. In the bunker of an emergency shelter. Wow. Yeah. How unfair is it that we had to listen to that same guy who complained that Kurt from the inn smells like cabbages, took a shit in a baby's diaper, complain about there not being enough

[01:17:33] moldy MREs and still water. And somehow he's not the one that was fed to the island entity. Right. That guy. Yeah. Yeah. I I'm also upset that, uh, PJ, um, Evan's shitty friend, he locked for Kenny, the custodian, which I have to give credit. Oh, who was it? I watched, um, was it heavy spoilers or something? And he pointed out that it was an, I killed Kenny. They killed Kenny joke. Oh, it sure was. Yeah. Oh, that's great.

[01:18:03] Good eye internet. Good eye. You bastards. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. PJ killed him. He did. That is crazy to prank him basically. And I wanted it to be PJ and like, why am I, I, I, why am I, uh, rooting for one of Evan's only friends as teenager to be the next one to go in the hatch? Cause he's that big of a jerk. Yeah. Cause he literally just killed a guy.

[01:18:28] He is a big, and I don't like Evan's off Island girlfriend, Kelly either. She sucks also. Well, yeah. The one who dug through, you know, Evan's father, Tom's, you know, bedroom and Ooh, let's go find juice about you. I'm like, honey, no. I was like, you're audacious. Yeah. Yeah. She's a problem. She's a problem.

[01:18:52] Oh, but I did love, um, Dale played by Jeff Hiller. Now I'm going to quote dopamine. He said, uh, I feel like Jeff Hiller is being tragically underused in this show. That's my only real gripe with it. He is gold. His performance in somebody somewhere, such a great show that way too many people slept on was so funny and sincere. I don't understand why they, they cast someone so excellent and to essentially not use him. And I'll say, I, I agree, love somebody somewhere and people should watch it if they haven't yet.

[01:19:21] It was in my top 10 that year, but, um, also, yeah, I, I wanted more from Jeff Hiller and I hope there's more in new seasons, but I did really appreciate him in this final episode. Yeah. This place is a death trap. Yeah. Run, run for your lives. That's going to be a meme forever. What did you think Mark of the, um, Dharma initiative like videos that.

[01:19:48] Yeah. I mean, this is the scene. This is the sequence when the episode, the season got me like, I'm like, okay, bring it on next season. Here we come. Um, just the, the, the PA speaker giving instructions, the video with the guy nonchalantly talking about like, you know, don't consult. Like, but it's a video instructing. It starts like it's instructing the. Well, there's two videos. There's one that's up for them and one that's up for them and one for the prisoner guards or whatever they are.

[01:20:16] And the fact that Dale just doesn't respond really. And then just freaks out, um, in the most unhelpful way possible people, a hundred people could have died because he did that. Right. Everybody charges the door, that kind of thing. Never shout fire in a movie theater listeners. Um, and like I said, it's implies like a love craft Ian level to it. Very Stephen King in two.

[01:20:44] Um, yeah, this whole sequence is really excellent. And, uh, the chair, the, the way that it also weaves together so many different characters doing different things in what otherwise is a very small confined space. I think is pretty cool just from a sort of plot, not plotting, but, um, just structural. The seams of it all works really well. And, uh, Tom's not there at first, right. And not until the end. Right.

[01:21:14] And so it's kind of, I don't know. It's just, I'm, I'm gushing about it enough. I think it's good. I'm confused by some of what, what the implications on the like sacrifice, like what, what really is needed to make all the magic here work. I still am confused by, but I was, I'm here for the storytelling. That's for sure. Yeah. I mean, we, we learn, of course, they need one soul for, for bell toll. Uh, do not beg.

[01:21:40] They tell the people on the loudspeaker to console them. They say to the others in the video. Um, so it seems like they have to go to the basement. Okay. But we'll, we'll come back to that. I'm just wondering, what do you guys think? Uh, is Tom's relationship with Evan has been a real focus of this season and we've seen them like in a rough place for most of the season.

[01:22:02] And then kind of when Evan starts to find out truths about his mom, um, they seem to reconcile a bit more, but obviously now there's new secrets. It's like the fact that Evan is a descendant and then on Evan's side, the fact that he saw PJ shove this guy in there and he disappeared. And that's what made the storm stop. Do we think they're going to talk to each other? Like, I hope so, but I kind of don't think so. No, not for, uh, for a story or a narrative.

[01:22:32] They wouldn't. Uh, if I, my thinking of course with Tom is they really, uh, the writers made it quite clear that Tom is very rebellious and does not do what he is told. So if Tom, uh, gets real with Evan explains, Evan, yeah. Explains the curse and so forth. I mean, uh, if I were Tom, I'd be fearful. Of course he wouldn't believe it. And he would do everything he could to get off the island because clearly my dad is really kind of nuts.

[01:22:59] And, you know, so Tom keeping it a secret thinks he's protecting, you know, his son. And then, um, yeah, I don't, well, I don't know. You know, we've seen behavior where he's like, dad, what's in the box, you know, and pulls up. So maybe Evan will be eventually be the one to say, yeah, this weird thing happened in the shelter. I don't know. It'll be interesting. Yeah.

[01:23:23] I don't feel any great confidence that Tom is going to open up to his son, but I feel like Evan has seen some things that he can't. He's, I don't see any reason why he's just going to dismiss it all. Right. No. Whether he goes to his dad or not. Um, he saw one of the most horrific things anybody saw in this whole event. Right. He saw a guy disappear. Right. Basically.

[01:23:47] Um, so, and that guy, I mean, but this goes to that, uh, point I made earlier about nobody's talking about the boogeyman and who he is. Like, is anybody going to talk about Kenny? Kenny died. It seems. Is that going to come up? Is anybody concerned about that? Or is it like a dairy Stephen King thing where almost the brain lets it go and moves on because you have to. I mean, but it's easy enough to explain away. Kenny died in the storm.

[01:24:17] The end, you know, nobody saw it. Whatever. Whatever. It happened. Obviously, it must have. Like, um, like the shaman disappeared also. Just swept up in the storm. It's easy to dismiss that if you are compelled to go in the direction of dismissing something. It's also easy to not dismiss it and say we need to investigate what happened to Kenny. But they probably won't, right? They'll probably do exactly what you said. I mean, if they were to investigate what happened to Todd the shaman, where would you even begin?

[01:24:46] He was swept up into a storm and let until unless his body lands, but presumably it could easily be swept out to sea. So you might never see it. Yeah. Um, so, okay, let's, let's, let's talk about the dead and these bells. So we got at the start of episode two, we got nine bells. So that means that the island wants nine souls. And I have to point out that this is after Shep Clark, the first person we saw died this season had already died.

[01:25:14] And by the way, Shep has another weird age thing going on where his chart said that he was 37 despite looking 70. And he, I paused in his chart and looked up his cholesterol levels and his cholesterol and triglycerides are extraordinarily low. So there's something else weird going on. But anyway, Shep definitely not counted in the bell toll. The people who died since Reverend Bryce took his own life, obviously.

[01:25:41] I, I thought at first maybe he wanted to be one of the nine, but he's the only one who seems to have read the complete instructions that I presume others will find. And it said something about a chamber on the north side of the rectory. So we still didn't find out what the chamber on the north side of the rectory is. This is where I'm confused. I don't know all this, what this means, but my sense about the priest, the reverend, which I still am also confused about.

[01:26:09] It feels a little more like killing yourself to avoid having to do the thing that you're supposed to do. Maybe. Right. It doesn't feel like, oh, I'm going to count for one of the nine. What is that? What good is that to do? There's still eight more. It's more like. He probably knows best. Oh my gosh. These instructions say I have to sacrifice these, these townspeople. I do not have the, either the evil to do that or the fortitude to do that. I'm going to take my life as a way to end that. That's the best I got. Yeah.

[01:26:35] Um, I, I, I don't, um, I don't know at all how this works in the sense of, is it, or should we be counting the number of people who died? And does that add up to, or is it, is it totally irrelevant to that? Yeah. Let me run through. So then it means after we heard the bell toll, Reverend Bryce died. Some people brought up the sea hag died, but I don't think an island would count its own entity. So that, I don't think that counts. Um, Richard died. I don't think the island would be happy about that either.

[01:27:03] So I can't imagine that he counts either because he left. Um, then the other ones who died, the boogeyman killed the EMT, the, uh, also the gas station attendant. Um, and then the boogeyman was killed by Patricia, but again, its own entity, um, Todd, the shaman and Kenny, the custodian. And I think even, you know, adding those all up, it's not nine. And I think honestly, the only one who, of those who counts is Kenny, the custodian. So that's why we end with eight bells.

[01:27:33] I don't feel like they're sacrifices. The other ones. No, no, because also like, um, in the past, uh, in 1702, when we got that flashback, we hear five bells after Sarah arrives, arrives. And at that time, I mean, we saw, we saw Richard start to feed the entity through the basement, um, didn't finish. So they're leaving that story open. They could go back to it if they wanted to.

[01:27:57] But what we also saw was many people were dying at that time because of the, there was a plague going around and that didn't appease. Didn't count. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't think it counts unless you do it the ritualized way through the door. And the bells are happening. The bells are tied up, right? Right. Yeah. The bells are supernaturally ringing. It's a supernatural thing. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:28:23] So, I mean, I'm wondering if like, we're going to see an arc toward villainry of Tom, who will he become willing to like feed Island Taurus or how will they get away with it? Is this going to be like a Sweeney Todd situation? Yeah. Dexter, you know, let me just, yeah. Yeah. It'll be interesting. We got an email from Ken W. He said, so much great TV so far in 2026. And this did not disappoint. Seasickness had me nonstop laughing throughout the whole episode. Quality. The season finale didn't really land for me.

[01:28:52] A rewatch might change that. But overall, an excellent season. Keep up the amazing work. So many pods, not enough ears. Two plus speed getting me there. And I'm also a two plus speed listener. I absolutely recommend listening to me on two plus speed. Duly noted. Okay. I mean, I thought we could check in on a couple of the mysteries that are still outstanding. So we have all the in stuff. We've gone through it in depth before.

[01:29:21] We won't now, but just to rattle them off. There's references to more provocative paintings that I would love to see. Obviously, those welcome to Widows Bay videos that look like they were made at the same time as the bunker videos. So like the 60s. And there's also at one point a flash of a dark presence lurking in the background. Tom saw the whole captain suite situation where somebody lost his mind and killed his family with an axe.

[01:29:45] I wonder if that's related to when we hear at the at the historical society of this thing in 1873 where the SS Mary crew had been missing for 62 years. And then the mayor calls it to crash into the rocks because he coveted the captain's bride. Like, I don't know if there's anyway. The whole ungrateful Hortons Fitzgerald thing, who we found out she's a descendant of Richard. So I think we're definitely getting that story in season two. That would be my prediction.

[01:30:16] The New Year's Eve 1962 disaster. No, nothing about that. But it does seem that it was linked to the creation of the orientation videos, at least by timing. That could be. Yeah. I could see them bringing Tim Balls back to give us an episode with Willie the Clown. Okay.

[01:30:43] Here's a question, though, about when I noticed on rewatch about Willie the Clown. When Tom was seeing William, we don't know if it was a ghost or a hallucination. But, you know, and one thing that makes me think it was a hallucination or projection of Tom is he brings up the new cappuccino machine. It's like, why would he know that? Mm-hmm. I agree. But then William also said, you got to be careful. They'll drag you down with them if you let them. Fucking useless ass backwards, small brain, townie hicks.

[01:31:12] Let them all rot in hell and watch them all fucking burn. I'm like, whoa, is that Tom's thoughts? No. Well, you know, was Will ever in a role of island protector or right around? You know, maybe he was a wrangler and things like that. I mean, he definitely seems to be, yeah, that's a good question. There's got to be something in Tom's subconscious that is like, hmm, there's probably a role for me to play here.

[01:31:41] I'm just not quite comfortable thinking about that and I'm going to ignore it. Yeah. Hmm. We also don't know what the dead man's closet is. Are any of these mysteries from the inn or the historical society or something, anything else most intriguing to either of you?

[01:32:01] I think enough of these, especially ungrateful Hortons Fitzgerald kind of things are exist as setups to jokes that I want them to feel free to keep doing that and to set up jokes or to have someone improvise a list of ghosts, hauntings that happen or whatever is happening in the production process. And it not have to be flushed out later.

[01:32:26] That's going to feel I don't I don't want to be the Debbie Downer here, which is also it's probably a misogynist thing, right? I don't want to be the negative Nancy here. Oh, no, that's also weird. God, that is so strange. Why is it always female? Yeah, that's right. I don't want to be negative. Mopey Mark. Nicholas here, but but. I do hope they ride the line, you know, say what you will.

[01:32:54] The millennials in the audience, the peak millennials like John, who love the prequels or whatever, there is something to be said for the mistake of flushing out every little detail can be a mistake in your backstory. Right. So, yeah. Stephen King would never flush out every little reference. I honestly think that's to his detriment, personally. And you think it's to his detriment, but I don't know that we want a different novella of every single cycle of Pennywise. Right.

[01:33:20] And I'm not and I'm not saying everything needs to be shown, but the writers should know everything. And I do. I think that they do. I think that. Yeah. They are throwing some things out there that they can flesh out later. But I do think that they have a timeline of things like we also hear from the Historical Society. I think we'll definitely also find out more about this whole thing. Forty-two passengers embarked by sea to find a settlement they could call their own. Forty. Yeah. Forty-three. It was an empty island except the teeth.

[01:33:50] Like the teeth, that's a thing. That's come up several times. Like maybe we don't need to know about the man found dead by horse, but it's there if they want to use it. Like stuff like the 1846 fog or the 1786 deadly storm that led to cannibalism. Like we don't necessarily need to see those play out because we can imagine, you know, it's quite clear what they would look like. And we've already seen versions of the storm and the fog.

[01:34:16] Like so, but some of these are more intriguing to me than others. Yeah. I think the writing is just so good because, you know, there is a deep backstory. And even if it's just for the benefit of the writer's room or the actors or something, you know, there's awful. These aren't throwaway, you know, scenarios for sure. But whether or not we'll see them on screen, I sense not so much.

[01:34:43] But to your point, it was very careful, deliberate, intentional stories. And that's what gives the show this really lived in feeling, you know, so. I want there to be a show Bible that explains all this. And I want there to be a writer's room, the writer's room wall that has post-it notes explaining all of it. I'm positive that exists, yeah. And I want most of that to be hidden from us, I guess. Like the Lorehound in me wants every single detail in my brain.

[01:35:10] But I also know that the show will probably be better if they hold back. So there are some of these that are more interesting than others for sure. But it's good enough if they know it without having to share it with us, I think. If they keep making the show the way they are, right? Like we've enjoyed the show without all the information. Are we going to keep enjoying the show if they keep not giving us all the information? Probably. I trust them, you know? Well, no, I won't.

[01:35:39] I mean, I definitely am someone who got very frustrated at Lost and jumped ship. But I don't think that's what's happening here. I don't think that's the reason why, not to tell you how you feel, the reason that people struggle with Lost. It is the reason why I struggle with Lost. But I think for a lot of people, the missing information was maybe a symptom of a larger problem with how Lost wrapped. It wasn't planned. It wasn't like they hadn't thought things through. They just threw things out there. And I don't think that's what this show is doing. Agreed.

[01:36:09] I think there's stuff like there's a priest eaten by a whale that quote unquote came from nowhere. I'm like, yeah, that just feeds into the whole island, makes entities like the tentacle monster that attacked Wick and his friends. But I do want to know things like, so, okay, there's several witch references. Most intriguingly, this book from Lucy 4, I want to know, is that a separate entity from the island entity?

[01:36:38] And are there competing entities trying to take souls? Like when they were trying to send people into that cove, lake, or whatever to drown themselves. Is that something? And if there are witches, is it because they worship the demonic entity? Yeah. Lots of questions. I think a lot of the most intriguing things come from the bloodline stuff. Like, yeah, we got the Hortons teas.

[01:37:09] We found out. And, okay, one reason why I think they really have thought about how it all ties together is we found out just a throwaway. There's someone called Sophia the heretic who married Byron Fairclough. And they lost six kids because the family that swims together drowns together. And that's how the inaugural swim was born. Okay. And so, okay, that's a whole story that they obviously know and could tell or, you know, flesh out.

[01:38:04] Yeah. it was what animal do you hope it was uh don't know don't care maybe it's a goat yeah there we go like a like a wolf or something like that or something like i mean if it's a if she's using it almost like an expression like what's a guy a negative a pejorative sort of

[01:38:28] animal you would say your your snake the the lover yes exactly yes great thank you got bit by a snake or or a mutt or something like that or bit by alcoholism or something right um i did have to look up so she was miss widow's bay 1959 and we see her with someone she talks about being excited about meeting a keith martin and there's a lot of celebrities with that name because it's super

[01:38:56] common but i think she was talking about the surrealist artist based on the years just fyi and i looked up his his face um obviously we're gonna have to learn more about her former boss mayor howard the coward who left surprisingly do we think he actually left or do we think he was killed or disappeared or whatever no i think he was like the pastor you know who's like oh no no no no you know i'm not doing this or you know so that he was in on it and he's like no i'm not

[01:39:24] going to do it or he's like how bashir was this island is nuts i'm getting out of here hmm i don't know but then he probably became a sacrifice right she and several of the other residents of this uh and characters in this show are very old enough to have been adults when the last sacrifices were happening so it's grainy video but that that video was a color you know the dharma

[01:39:54] initiative one was like a color vhs tape kind of style like it couldn't have been older than maybe the 70s right in terms of the way it looked so that means so what ruth is yeah young adult at that point so was she working for the mayor like how many of our characters were actually potentially present for

[01:40:19] some of these actions in the past she's seen some things for sure and everyone made a pass at her including the past that is so funny oh my god yeah and she forgot until he mentioned it oh yeah i guess he did and so did the nun yeah yeah her too um and also yeah i i we have to learn about ruth's parents that her dad built this house or her parent her dad and her aunt something got daddy in the lake and

[01:40:46] then that's the summer that aunt patty stopped speaking like okay yeah um and i also i do hope we learn more about these true sight mushrooms like there must be some supernatural source and and like we didn't one thing i would have liked to have known more about uh the season is what tom was supposed

[01:41:08] to see while tripping other than oh yeah abby pointed out the okay so there's the thing where you know they keep drawing the hand um the todd said that someone else was doing that too and we saw tom drawing tracing his hand um abby pointed out that when we saw a shot of the island and i'll put a link to the map in the show notes as well of the island that was shared on uh threads but it's kind

[01:41:35] of shaped like a hand like a misshapen hand with short fingers and like a big thumb so i yeah the the whole drawing the hand thing probably something like it's the island it's the island um i hope we also see mitch next season with the mysterious power grid who's he said in the first episode we hear he owes money to his father-in-law he has syphilis and is old apparently he lies about

[01:42:04] his cherokee genealogy that he apparently doesn't have according to rosemary uh but then he is in charge of the power grid heesh are we gonna see garrett again i think so yeah the lighthouse that is so goofy that guy yeah i think so they keep like the game of uh got not telephone like i don't know there's something about just like the the miscommunications of them is so funny

[01:42:32] and i i think there's like clusters of stuff in the past like uh these 1960s orientation videos probably have are related to some events the fact the siren comes from the 40s probably has something to do with that and it's interesting this setting that it's being put in we already talked about how there's no mobile network there so you can't really call for help on the go but we also learned from rosemary that it's a castle doctrine town so to quote wikipedia on this a castle doctrine also known as a

[01:43:00] castle law or a defense of habitation law is a legal doctrine that designates a person's abode or any legally occupied place for example an automobile or a home as a place in which that person has protections and immunities permitting one in certain circumstances to use force up to and including deadly force to defend oneself against an intruder free from legal persecution for the consequences

[01:43:24] of force used so do we think they might use that to explain some deaths that are gonna have to happen to feed the island hmm didn't think i'm wondering if tom's gonna become full villain all right just one last thing i wanted to talk about was it was evan's mom lauren um

[01:43:51] there's watching back there was some things brought up about is tom really evan's dad some people point out that the actor who plays evan is uh partially persian and obviously we see him with two white parents i'm not so concerned with that because i think he looks enough like matthew reese that whatever but i did notice tom said he pursued lauren married her four months later and it was known that she

[01:44:17] was pregnant when they married so is it actually is evan actually tom's son maybe maybe maybe not when does that change anything if he isn't interestingly no what would change it would change if he was not lauren's son right that's what or right right i mean about tom's feelings

[01:44:43] but i don't think so because i don't think he would care yeah no i i just think there's still mystery mystery about lauren for sure i would like to know a little bit more you know uh you know what it was like for her uh having the stroke and coming back and did she get visits in the hospital etc but yeah no i don't i'm not concerned about who evan's mom is uh that i think it is lauren

[01:45:09] um it's interesting i had never heard of preeclampsia before which i guess is er one of the most powerful episodes of 16 years of er okay i never watched er yeah um but it came up twice this year because it was also on paradise so basically yeah the defining feature of preeclampsia is high blood pressure pro uh protein urina or other signs of damage to the kidneys or other organs

[01:45:34] left untreated it can be serious even fatal um for the mother and the baby so but i do wonder do we do we think for sure she's dead maybe i'm just like i guess she's not immortal because she wasn't the oldest if these arbitrary rules that i just made up in my head are real right but i just some nagging feeling that like she's maybe not really dead she's just still in this catatonic state

[01:46:00] although i guess ruth would have known if so yeah yeah no i think it's just weird also she's in some facility and then she's not like has she been moved off the island or something is she actually able to leave like i don't think she can be yeah so it's just weird if she is alive if she is alive there's some something almost supernatural to it i don't think it's just oh secretly it was we faked

[01:46:26] her death like that doesn't seem to be the story they're telling it's it is so strange though that we've seen so little about that and we've heard so little about what you know yeah okay so if she had a brain aneurysm but that we already know that tom was cagey when talking to when talking to evan i think about like visiting her and like these letters are coming and then they they presumably abruptly

[01:46:54] stop but we're light on details um yeah gosh yeah and yeah these letters okay so one we know is about ruth the one where she said dear evan everyone has two mothers a mother and a secret mother which one am i i'm your secret mom and i live in a secret house they won't let me out when you're little older you can come here and pretend to be that awful mailman okay to review i'm dead i'm dead i'm already dead it's

[01:47:21] too late come soon mother so okay that's about ruth obviously the secret mother thing we learned that ruth took when and told her she's her secret mother um i don't know i don't know why it leaves me at this nagging feeling it's not over with her and then the other one even creepier i need your baby hands to get the keys and your little fingers to reach up my nose to pull the scorpion out of my brain love your

[01:47:46] mother which could be like a representation of mental illness yeah for sure that's how i read it could be just that right but the fact that tom was worried that evan went in the basement and evan's like what what's in the basement yeah we do not know what's in the basement yes like there's more to know there's more to know i agree but it's perfectly safe to drive by the old hospital you just can't

[01:48:14] stop why can't you stop is it because there are still patients there who are like loose or something or i don't know so weird yeah all right any final thoughts on the season the first season of at least two of widow's bay yay wonderful surprise you know i anticipated remaining on my top 10 for the year

[01:48:37] uh just a fantastic show and it's really joyful to to see something so original again i like good surprises like this highly recommend sam thanks for letting me know a few episodes in that this show was happening do we have any sense of the production timeline is this a show that takes three years to make or will we see it in a year and a half i mean i think it just depends how whether they were

[01:49:02] already in pre-production when the renewal was announced something tells me they probably were uh so hopefully i mean i'm going to guess late next year at the earliest that would be my guess keeping my fingers crossed hmm but in the meantime we've got lots going on on the horror hounds feed there was just uh an episode released about the new film backrooms but we're also doing weekly

[01:49:29] the vampire listat uh coverage so if listeners are looking for their next horror comedy obsession why should they choose the vampire listat whoo vampires you know and it's so funny you yeah you mentioned the horror comedy and i just finally convinced my wife to start watching the series but she's we've seen episode one and two of interview the vampire the first season yeah that's right yes and

[01:49:58] having watched the first two episodes at this point of the vampire listat the tone oh my gosh like if you if you tried to use the word horror comedy for the first episode of the interview with the vampire you could be you could not be more wrong it is so not comedic but the first one totally because listat always has that kind of like snarkiness to him but there's a like it's on it's in full glory in

[01:50:26] the uh and the framing device in the new season yeah if you like this catch up yeah yeah i mean widow's bay for me at this point is number two of my shows of the year and my number one is the vampire listat despite the fact i've only seen three of the episodes so far um it's but it's also like i is so vampire listat is technically season three of interview with the

[01:50:50] vampire but it's a quasi spinoff because now they've switched the perspective of who is the character narrating and so the entire tone has changed and everything but it's still got that richness and and yeah wildness um just taking a lot of swings and like jumping all through history and uh just about it's really more of a character study than this one i would say like this one has lovable characters

[01:51:15] um whereas yeah the vampire listat is about everybody's hurting and hurting each other but in a darkly funny way but also just dark at times too yeah yeah um the lorehounds main feed you will find all of the above uh plus also weekly coverage of house of the dragon which i'll be leading the first

[01:51:42] two episodes and then it will be david and sean after that uh we just put out a disclosure day episode supergirls coming up uh john just put out a silmarillion stories for the doria chapter episode um and he's starting i'll let him talk about it end of july a new cosmere corner podcast so keep out an ear out for that if you are a brandon sanderson fan um and if you want to add free access to

[01:52:12] all of this then uh we have supercast and patreon feeds with all of these episodes plus extras like in june there was a sake and uh a hard-boiled movie dive uh july is wine month so voting for the movies open soon and we also have extra what you watch ins all the time like there's just a the sheep detectives one that went out um and then please do check in the link tree in the show notes

[01:52:38] you'll find links to that you'll find links to our discord we keep referring to where you can email us but also our affiliates including never mind the music mark what is going on on never mind the music yeah so this week's episode i don't know when this is coming out but i think it should still be this week's episode was no doubt as i alluded to earlier with my stupid joke at the beginning

[01:53:00] we did don't speak by no doubt and talked about key changes and also the chameleon effect which is what uh is there's some discord conversation on our channel disputing nicole's connection to her to gwen stefani's partners and her visual aesthetic at the time of her partners but um next week's episode we're also really excited about we have a guest uh rob harvilla if any of you know him from

[01:53:27] the 60 songs that explain the 90s podcast which is an amazing podcast he's a pretty well-known rock critic um which is still a thing in 2026 and we are talking about those times that you are embarrassingly wrong when you're hating on a music a musical artist or album and then you find out years later it is a classic so that's next week's episode so check us out there excellent um we also have dungeons and do rags just joined the network and they are also going to be covering house of

[01:53:57] the dragon uh check out their youtube channel uh while the audio is getting uploaded uh they just also had recently had an episode about a spider noir which um we we had the i love spider noir episode they had the i'm skeptical about spider noir episode um rings and rituals will be starting back up soon too with a rewatch of season two rings of power in advance of season three um and i think yeah

[01:54:25] properly howard and radioactive ramblings are on break the star wars canon timeline podcast has been uh subscriber focused for the moment but i will get back to the public feed but i am quite busy at the moment with wool shift dust silo season three starting july 3rd luke and i are already recording episodes so they will be coming out as the episodes drop publicly and abby and i will be doing our extras on uh my private book club extra feed so check out the wool shift dust feed if you are interested in silo

[01:54:54] we've already put out some um breakdowns of the teasers for season three out so far okay excellent time for the thank yous thank you to our community volunteers the dunadane dunadine i'm always saying it wrong hand of the pod nancy aka two kids two dogs captain of the pole here room peter oh h um keeper of the

[01:55:17] so tracker sub zero editor of the blog brian 8063 and moderators brian and aaron k discord server boosters aaron k tiller the thriller doof 71 athena ajalea listoo nancy m ghost partition radio actor richard and adrian thank you to all of our subscribers but most especially the highest of the lore masters some martian michael jean michelle e sc peter oh h nancy m doof 71 brian 8063

[01:55:43] frederick h sarah l gareth c andrew b kong yu nathan t sub zero erin k delhi v narles kathy w listoo jeffrey b elisa u ben b scott f steven n julia f collie s ilmariel rocky zim jessica a red zippy the tcs dopamini eleanor mrs tennant ac wilson eli w cassie k chumberuni katia josh lu paint and pdx

[01:56:08] corey g quinch jenny l slavinator and always last audrian well thank you any final words all in one breath you said that too good job hearing that on two speed might be a bit much yeah that's why it's fun in two speed true i get to be the chipmunks thanks that was fun can't wait for the next show yeah it was great thanks everyone

[01:56:37] all right let the bell toll the lorehounds podcast is produced and published by the lorehounds you can send questions and feedback and voicemails at the lorehounds.com slash contact get early and add free access to all lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash the lorehounds any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities thanks for listening