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Widow\u2019s Bay<\/a><\/p>\n Your Baggage<\/p>\n \n Season 1<\/p>\n Episode 8\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 5 stars<\/p>\n *****\n <\/p>\n \n We\u2019re going full John Carpenter this week, with Patricia running away from the slow-moving Boogeyman. In this week\u2019s episode of Widow\u2019s Bay, when Patricia runs screaming to Lenore\u2019s house in an attempt to escape a strikingly sluggish Boogeyman, she interrupts a book club meeting. The gaggle of former mean girls who have grown into mean women is in the midst of discussing Alice Sebold\u2019s The Lovely Bones, a choice that initially seems like a clever little Easter Egg. The 2002 novel, later adapted into a much less effective 2009 movie directed by Peter Jackson, is about a teenage girl who gets raped and murdered by a serial killer. Patricia is currently being chased by the Boogeyman, a serial killer who murdered multiple teenage girls in Widow\u2019s Bay when Patricia and the book club ladies were in high school. The meta-ness of mentioning Sebold\u2019s novel is amusing for those who recognize that connection.<\/p>\n But like so much in this stellar episode, called \u201cYour Baggage,\u201d there are layers of meaning beneath the surface of that reference.\u00a0 The Lovely Bones is narrated by Susie Salmon, the teenage murder victim who tells the story of her life and its aftermath from heaven. She knows exactly where her body is buried and what happened to her, but has no way to explain that to her loved ones. They can\u2019t hear her. The same thing can be said for Patricia, who has been telling the story of her own trauma for years without anyone truly listening to her. While she finally admits she made up the heavy-breathing phone calls, she insists the Boogeyman came to her house all those years ago and that she managed to survive. It\u2019s kinda hard to refute that when the dude is now back, in an extremely low-rent Michael Myers mask that he snagged from the historical society, apparently intent on finishing the job.<\/p>\n \u201cYour Baggage\u201d is, like \u201cBeach Reads<\/a>,\u201d an exploration of how society ignores women even when they\u2019re screaming, quite literally, for someone to protect them. What is a better visual metaphor for being a woman in America than the sight of Patricia (Kate O\u2019Flynn) tearing through the streets of Widow\u2019s Bay, shrieking for help and finding none, while an out-of-shape freak stalks her and somehow manages to catch up to her? (Not that it\u2019s a contest, but for the record, the Sea Hag was way faster on her feet than the Boogeyman.)<\/p>\n The reference to The Lovely Bones also highlights the theme that connects the three storylines in this episode: the loss of teenage innocence. We see that in the scene where Wyck tries to connect with Gerrie, his high school sweetheart, and finally confesses that he feels responsible for her brother\u2019s death back when they were teenagers. Unfortunately, Gerrie\u2019s doofy husband walks in, and he does not get the chance to explain all that.<\/p>\n We see it again when Tom finally explains to his son Evan that his mom didn\u2019t die in childbirth; she had a preeclampsia-induced stroke that permanently altered her behavior. Tom had to put her in a mental hospital, where she eventually had an aneurysm and died when Evan was still very young. Evan reads the letters she wrote him during that time \u2014 \u201cTo review, I\u2019m dead, I\u2019m dead, I\u2019m already dead. It\u2019s too late. Come soon.\u201d \u2014 and it\u2019s clear Tom is not lying. His mother was not well. Like Susie Salmon in The Lovely Bones, she is speaking to him, in a way, from beyond the grave. Learning the truth about his mom is a devastating, life-altering moment for Evan, who is roughly the same age that Gerrie was when she lost her brother, and that Patricia was when she was terrorized by the Boogeyman. Widow\u2019s Bay has a nasty habit of robbing its residents of the joy that should accompany their youth.<\/p>\n Patricia\u2019s fixation on the Boogeyman has plagued her ever since she was young. In some ways, it\u2019s as if she\u2019s been preparing for him to come back her entire life. It turns out she\u2019s built for it. Not only can she outrun the Boogeyman even in those awkward boots, but she can also outsmart him, too. Not that it\u2019s super-hard to outsmart this guy, given that his synapses don\u2019t seem to be firing at their highest potential and he also has no discernible personality traits other than \u201cexcessively stabby\u201d and \u201cseemingly unkillable.\u201d But seemingly unkillable is a pretty important and intimidating quality!<\/p>\n Of course all the business between Patricia and the Boogeyman is just an excuse for Widow\u2019s Bay to stage a corker of a send-up of 1978\u2019s Halloween and slasher movies of its ilk. Seriously, best of luck to Scary Movie 6, because I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ll pull off something as brilliant as this. Director Andrew DeYoung, who also handled \u201cWhat to Expect on Your Trip<\/a>,\u201d and writer Emma Ketchum take the occasional lack of logic in these movies and exaggerate it to delightfully absurd degrees. (In another fun bit of meta-ness, the Boogeyman is played by Airon Armstrong, who was a stunt coordinator on 2021\u2019s <\/a>Halloween Kills<\/a> and also did some stunts as Michael Myers.)<\/p>\n The visual contrast between Patricia\u2019s panicked, mad dashing and the Boogeyman\u2019s extreeeemely slow pace is consistently hilarious. There\u2019s a point a little more than 15 minutes into the episode where, just as Jamie Lee Curtis does in the original Halloween, Patricia starts banging on her neighbors\u2019 doors and can\u2019t get anyone to answer. She scurries off the porch and takes off again, while the camera stays fixed in place, waiting the necessary few seconds for the Boogeyman to finally wander by, getting way too close to the lens. This is very, very funny.<\/p>\n Just like Michael Myers, the Boogeyman is incapable of getting bumped off; he falls out of an upper-story window, is set on fire, hit by a car, shot, and still, he keeps pulling a Chumbawamba: he gets knocked down, but he gets up again<\/a>. This has happened over and over again in the Halloween movies, which is why there are 13 of them. And that\u2019s also why I was in absolute hysterics during the montage where, after Patricia finally seems to succeed at blowing away the Boogeyman, she continues to point a gun at his head until she\u2019s sure he has been cremated. She points the gun in the ambulance, during the autopsy, as his body is being pushed into a furnace, prompting her to ask the mortuary technician afterward: \u201cIs there another way out?\u201d In an act of weirdo genius, this entire sequence is set to Enya\u2019s \u201cCaribbean Blue,\u201d which makes the whole thing even more sublimely ridiculous. Do you ever pause Widow\u2019s Bay sometimes and wonder what we all did to deserve such an absolutely perfect show? I do.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s hugely significant, obviously, that Patricia finally kills the Boogeyman, her confrontation with Kris and the book club meanies is just as important to her personal growth. Kris, a woman whose big observation about The Lovely Bones is that Susie\u2019s charm bracelet is cute, once again lays into Patricia when she bursts into Lenore\u2019s house and starts shouting about the Boogeyman, which, admittedly, is a bit off-putting.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but I am not the reason you don\u2019t have any friends,\u201d Kris tells Patricia. \u201cIt\u2019s because you\u2019re fucking insane. Okay? Your little party? It almost killed everyone. And now you\u2019ve ruined book club.\u201d Then Kris very obnoxiously keeps repeating \u201cbye-bye\u201d in her face until Patricia does the only sensible thing she can in this situation. She zaps Kris with her taser. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, she\u2019s the worst,\u201d Patricia shouts at the other ladies. \u201cShe\u2019s the fucking worst!\u201d I wish I could have watched this scene in a packed movie theater. I am positive there would have been raucous applause.<\/p>\n In this episode, Patricia finally stands up for herself, confronting not just the Boogeyman but also the women who have spent decades alienating her. O\u2019Flynn telegraphs Patricia\u2019s underlying determination and grit\u2014 man, the look on her face when she\u2019s holding that gas pump \u2014 with as much clarity as she projects her panic. Patricia also has the presence of mind to advise Bechir that he and his wife, Chelle, who we now know is pregnant, get the hell off the island before she delivers the child.<\/p>\n As hard as she fought, and despite the elimination of Richard Warren in the last episode, the curse on Widow\u2019s Bay is clearly not broken, as Wyck informs Tom at the end of this episode. Also, a major storm is blowing into town, and the wind is already starting to howl.<\/p>\n \u2022 It\u2019s weird that the Boogeyman does not seem to have an actual name, isn\u2019t it? He seems to have been a real person who committed multiple murders, yet no one ever calls him anything but the Boogeyman. But he must have had another identity at some point, right? Also, it\u2019s interesting that, like Richard Warren, the Boogeyman also kills people and is seemingly immortal. Perhaps the island\u2019s founder was not the only one who made some type of deal with the devil.<\/p>\n \u2022 When Tom explains that his wife stayed in The Home, the Widow\u2019s Bay mental hospital, he uses the past tense to describe it, implying that the place no longer exists. Which is kind of odd considering that the people of Widow\u2019s Bay don\u2019t seem particularly stable. There must be more to that story.<\/p>\n \u2022 Lost Callbacks: There are two moments in this episode that feel connected to the OG show about an island where a bunch of weird stuff happens. One is Kris\u2019s assertion that Patricia has ruined the book club, which reminded me of the line that Ben Linus says in the first episode of season three, \u201cA Tale of Two Cities<\/a>\u201d: \u201cSo I guess I\u2019m out of the book club.\u201d He says this after not being invited to a discussion of Stephen King\u2019s \u201cCarrie,\u201d but, more importantly, right after Oceanic Flight 815 soars over the island and breaks in two. Perhaps whatever happens in the last two episodes of this season will be just as significant to the future of the Widow\u2019s Bay island.<\/p>\n \u2022 The second nod to Lost involves the Boston Red Sox. When Tom thinks the curse has been broken and it\u2019s safe to go to the mainland again, he gets tickets for him and Evan to go to a Red Sox game. They\u2019ve only ever watched games on TV, so the idea that they can finally see one in person together gives them some hope for the first time in a long while. The Red Sox also get a shout-out in the third season of Lost, in its second episode, when Ben proves to Jack that the island is not completely cut off from the outside world by showing him footage from the World Series where the Red Sox beat the Yankees. In both scenarios, these men are missing the chance to see their beloved team because they are stuck on an island. Does this mean we have a flash-forward in our futures?<\/p>\n \u2022 Funniest Line of the Week: Obviously, everything in the Halloween parody is a riot, but I want to make sure we don\u2019t forget the absolutely ridiculous take-out order from the Driftwood Diner that Patricia tries to tuck into early in the episode, only to find the saddest meal in culinary history. \u201cHello, this is Patricia,\u201d she says while leaving a message on the restaurant\u2019s answering machine. \u201cI ordered a chicken parm and a slice of coconut cream pie, and I\u2019ve got a turkey patty with no bun and a single sausage link.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Okay, that makes no sense, which means there can only be one person responsible: Kathy, winner of the Waitress Who Gives the Least Amount of Fucks Award for the past six years running.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cI don\u2019t want a refund, I just want the person who did this to find out,\u201d Patricia continues. (The person was obviously Kathy.)<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cI don\u2019t want this person to get into trouble,\u201d she adds. \u201cI just want them to learn from it.\u201d Again, Patricia: it was Kathy. And I promise you, there is absolutely no way she will learn from it.<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Vulture Newsletter<\/p>\n Entertainment news, for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
\n Photo: Apple TV\n <\/p>\n