A bunch of revelations come to light in the dramatic season one finale of Widow’s Bay.
Created by Katie Dippold, the horror comedy follows small island town mayor Tom Loftis, who is forced to contend with a supernatural curse affecting the Widow’s Bay residents as he attempts to bring in more tourism.
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Matthew Rhys leads the show’s cast, alongside Kate O’Flynn, Kevin Carroll, Dale Dickey, Kingston Rumi Southwick and Stephen Root.
All ten episodes of Widow’s Bay are available to stream on Apple TV+.
Does Ruth die in the Widow’s Bay finale?
At the end of episode nine, mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) sets out to kill his elderly secretary Ruth (K Callan) in the hopes of lifting the curse from the island. Ruth is believed to be the last living descendant of the town’s founder, Richard Warren, who made a pact with the devil to protect the town. The only way to lift this curse, as Tom discovers earlier in the season, is to wipe out Warren’s bloodline.
Tom grapples with the decision, and despite some hesitation, he decides to go through with killing Ruth by poisoning her tea with a cocktail of meds. However, in her tired state, Ruth makes a startling confession. While it was believed Ruth never had a child, she reveals how she once had an affair with a married man, which led to her getting pregnant.
She kept the pregnancy secret and ended up giving the child to the married man, who along with his wife, raised her as their own. This child, it turns out, was Tom’s late wife Lauren (Meredith Casey). Following the confession, a horrified Tom realises their teenage son, Evan, is actually the last living descendant of Richard Warren, aka the person who needs to be killed to lift the town’s curse.
As Ruth goes to drink her tea, Tom slaps away the cup to protect her. However, Widow’s Bay sheriff Bechir Clemmons (Kevin Carroll), who was informed of Tom’s plan to kill Ruth by Patricia (Kate O’Flynn), storms in and shoots his gun at Ruth – noticing that Tom wasn’t going to go through with it. Bechir wanted to do anything to lift the curse as his pregnant wife Chelle (Sipiwe Moyo) was set to give birth on the island that night.
The bullet, however, only scrapes Ruth and she survives the encounter.
What do we learn about the curse?
As the town’s residents hide away from the storm in an underground shelter, town hall employee Dale (Jeff Hiller) discovers a room filled with secret tapes. These tapes reveal the town’s leadership has secretly been sacrificing residents for centuries to a mysterious entity in order to maintain Richard Warren’s covenant with the devil.
“The bad times will not end until the covenant is honoured, and honoured fully,” a voice in the tapes says. “Life for life, the island will make its needs known. One soul for each bell toll.”
Meanwhile, Evan and his friends, out of boredom in the shelter, find a passageway which leads to a labyrinth of tunnels. They end up in a room with a rusty electric chair, along with some sealed doors. Town hall custodian Kenneth (Michael Malvesti) finds the trio and tells them to return to the shelter, but on the way out, one of Evan’s friends locks Kenneth inside as a prank. Evan tries to open the door, but the lock won’t budge.
Evan hears a terrifying scream from the outside, and when he does manage to get inside the room again, Kenneth is nowhere to be found. Additionally, the previously locked doors have been opened.
While it’s unclear what the entity is, the finale reveals there is some kind of beast beneath the town of Widow’s Bay, which has been feasting on residents for decades.
What do the bells mean at the end?
As revealed in the secret tapes, the sounds of the church bells appear to be directly tied to the beast lurking beneath Widow’s Bay. After Tom Loftis throws Ruth’s pendant – an item connecting her to Warren – into the sea, we hear the bell toll eight times.
Based on the video tapes, this means the beast requires eight human sacrifices to keep the supernatural dangers at bay. As we head into season two, the big question is whether Tom will keep his son’s lineage hidden or, if he learns about the town’s dark sacrificial history, whether he’ll try and satiate the beast.