As an entertainment journalist, one of the most frequent questions I get asked when I meet someone new is, What should I be watching? For the past couple months, I’ve had a very easy answer, Widow’s Bay.
Widow’s Bay, from creator Katie Dippold (a former Parks and Rec writer best known for her viral Babadook tweet), feels like a monumental moment for Apple TV. The 10-episode first season is that rare horror comedy that manages to actually be both terrifying and hilarious in equal measure — sometimes in the same scene. And while much of the credit goes to Dippold and her amazing cast, it’s impossible to deny the influence of Hiro Murai, who directed episodes 1, 2, 3, 9, and 10 of the show’s critically acclaimed first season.
After breaking into the industry directing music videos for Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) and other musicians, he reteamed with Glover on Atlanta, ultimately directing 26 of the show’s 41 total episodes across four seasons. While the two shows feel very different in genre, tone, and structure, he does see some similarities that help explain what draws him to a project in the first place.
“I tend to gravitate towards stories about people who are sort of at odds with their environment, who are feeling kind of displaced or disconnected,” Murai tells Polygon, “and a lot of the surreal terror that comes out of that disconnection.”
For the season finale of Widow’s Bay (don’t worry, season 2 is already confirmed), Polygon caught up with Murai to discuss the show’s ending and what comes next. But we also had a ton of questions about the making of Widow’s Bay in general. Here are seven of them, along with Murai’s answers, which cover everything from his first impression reading the script to the surprising location where much of the show was filmed to the secret Jaws Easter egg you may have missed.
7
Why he chose Widow’s Bay as his next project
Murai still remembers reading Dippold’s script for the Widow’s Bay premiere. His first instinct was: This is awesome. His second: It might be impossible to make.
“There were a lot of questions about whether this could be pulled off, which was really exciting,” Murai says. “The tonal balance felt really difficult to execute. The ambition of trying to be both felt really exciting and sort of new. I tend to gravitate towards things that are trying to do something I can’t pull references for.”
He took those notes to Katie Dippold and realized they were on the exact same page when it came to balancing humor and genuine scares.
“When I talked to Katie, it turned out that that was her exact ambition,” Murai says. “She was like, I just want this thing to be both really funny and actually scary. A lot of times, horror comedy tends to wear horror as like a cosplay; it’s a comedy, but it’s not actually scary.”
6
On Widow’s Bay’s incredible attention to detail
Fans of Widow’s Bay have been quick to point out that the show is full of tiny details and clever sight gags you might miss if you’re scrolling on your phone while watching. From made-up board games like Daddy’s Home to the carefully selected clutter in each character’s home, the town of Widow’s Bay feels lived in in a way many TV shows don’t.
“From the very beginning, Katie was really adamant that we build a real place,” Murai says. “Even though the show has farcical elements, it needs to have an internal logic and history that fully works. The best TV shows do that.
“This is a weird reference, but I kept thinking about how The Simpsons always felt like you could drop into any part of that city and it’ll tell its own story. It just holistically works as a world. It has its own sort of logic and understanding of itself. And so we really wanted that same sort of feeling where you could drop into one location and feel like you understand how far it is from the town hall, or how big this place is and who would occupy it.”
Dale Dickey’s desk drawer was full of Diet Cokes. Someone really spent a lot of time thinking about what would be in each of these drawers and each of these cabinets.
Of course, a lot of that credit goes to the art department.
“We had an incredible art department and costume department that were in it with us building the whole world,” Murai says. “There’s a lot of sort of written sight gags, like the board games in the inn or what’s on the notepad. That stuff is all sort of baked into the scripts, but also on top of that, the art department was so detailed. They would fill the drawers of every character at the office with custom things. Dale Dickey’s desk drawer was full of Diet Cokes. Someone really spent a lot of time thinking about what would be in each of these drawers and each of these cabinets. That is really unusual. It’s very unique for a TV show. Usually you don’t have that kind of time or even like the desire to do that.”
5
Where was Widow’s Bay filmed?
Widow’s Bay may feel like a real town, but it’s not (and that’s probably for the best). Instead, Murai explains that most of the main locations were built on massive sets, while some exterior shots were filmed around New England to capture the feeling of a true fishing town.
“We had huge sets on stages in the middle of Massachusetts at an old military base,” he says. “Our incredible production designer, Steve Arnold, built the town hall and the Salty Whale and Patricia’s house and Loftis’ house. But then we combined it with a bunch of seaside small towns all over Massachusetts for certain exteriors. And on top of that, we went to Maine for two days to shoot remote fishing villages and islands and any sort of aerial ocean shots. So it’s a weird hodgepodge of things.”
4
How Hiro Murai set the tone for Widow’s Bay
As the director of the show’s first three episodes, Murai played a crucial role in establishing the style and vibe of Widow’s Bay, which mixes classic horror tropes with slapstick comedy, while never pushing anything too far beyond the realm of believability. The scenarios may be supernatural and absurd, but the characters and their decisions always feel real and relatable.
“There is a visual style to this show that ultimately feels pretty cohesive,” he says, “but we didn’t have time to write a show bible. I was chasing feelings a lot of times.”
That said, Murai did establish some rules for the series in those opening episodes.
“Never overplay a joke,” he says. “The joke should come naturally by playing these characters authentically in these ridiculous scenarios. The whole premise of the show is extraordinary things happening to mundane people. So even though the genre was very loud, we never wanted to do a stylistic homage or anything. We just wanted to play it kind of matter of fact and real.
“And then the rest, like with all TV shows, is ultimately the characters and character dynamics. So it was about working with the actors to establish the right sort of tone and banter between people and the show becomes itself as you make it.”
3
How influential were Stephen King and Jaws?
Widow’s Bay is basically Jaws from the perspective of the mayor, with a hefty dose of Stephen King horror thrown in. Of course, the show also has its own distinct feeling, but Murai admits that there was no getting around the comparisons, and that sometimes infiltrated Widow’s Bay in surprising ways.
“The whole show kind of felt like all of us tapping into our childhood of what it felt like to watch those movies,” he says. “It’s not that we were like studying Halloween or studying Stephen King, so much as we just remember this kind of giddy, anxious feeling we used to feel watching those movies. There’s a rollercoaster effect to those movies where, even when you’re scared, you’re excited to be scared. We try to harness that as much as possible.
Oh, we found this clock that was in the police station in Jaws.
“Jaws was something that we talked about a lot in the beginning because it’d sort of been baked into the premise. We’re kind of subverting the mayor of Jaws in this show. So by talking about Jaws so much, the art department sometimes would be like, ‘Oh, we found this clock that was in the police station in Jaws.” Little things like that would kind of end up seeping into the show.”
2
Did he always know Katie O’Flynn would be a breakout star?
The Widow’s Bay cast features TV icons like Matthew Rhys (The Americans) and Stephen Root (Barry), but the breakout star of the series is undeniably Katie O’Flynn as the mayor’s secretary, Patricia. O’Flynn, best known for her work in Mike Leigh’s British dramas, brings an incredible physical comedy to her otherwise grounded performance as the no-nonsense government lackey who keeps getting into supernatural trouble.
Murai always knew Patricia would be a crucial member of the ensemble, but he never imagined the character in the way O’Flynn performs it.
“Even in the script, Patricia was like secretly the soul of the show,” he says. “She’s the only character that gets her own bottle episode — two of them — in a season. There’s something about that character where, even in her bottle episodes, the other characters don’t know that it happened. Only the audience sees these experiences that she has. So it always felt like we were rooting for Patricia as an audience, even though in the first few episodes she gets introduced as more of a comedic sidekick. You almost don’t expect her to become as central to the story as she does, but we always knew that character was gonna be really important to cast.
We were like, ‘Well, this is lightning in a bottle. It has to be her.’
“What Katie O’Flynn did with the character was something that we couldn’t predict. When she auditioned and put herself on tape for us, her tape was so singular and strange and interesting. Katie [Dippold] told me later that it was not how she saw Patricia at all. It was not what she expected out of that character, but it was so obvious that it was special. We were like, ‘Well, this is lightning in a bottle. It has to be her.’ I couldn’t exactly tell you what it was, other than that when you watch the tape, you’re like, ‘Oh, this person definitely grew up on a haunted island.'”
1
What minor Widow’s Bay character deserves an episode in season 2?
“I’m sort of obsessed with Garrett, the lighthouse keeper,” Murai says. “I don’t know if he can sustain an episode or what I want out of an episode with Garrett, but I am very curious to learn more about him.”
Widow’s Bay is streaming on Apple TV.
