‘Widow’s Bay’ Episode 9: Cloudy With a Chance Of …

20:03Joanna Robinson:Tasing Chris to the shotgun situation is this evolution for Patricia. And for Patricia, you know, what Nicole singles out another moment in that episode when, which I didn't really clock when Patricia is talking to Bashir about Shell being pregnant. And she says like, how old is she? I thought she was just sort of asking is like, it didn't even occur to me that Shell could be, and she kind of is. But also inside of this episode, when they're debating about what to do with Ruth and they're like, she's not married, she doesn't have kids. And Patricia's like, well, glad that, you know, I'm not in a war in the center.

20:39Joanna Robinson:You would already slit my throat. This idea of like, does a woman have less value if she's not married, if she doesn't have kids? You know, up against Tom Loftus, who's like, you don't understand. I have a child to protect. Or Bashir, theoretically, I have a child coming that I want to protect, you know? And so like the value of the unmarried, you know, doesn't have a child woman on side of this island. And so does Patricia have this moment inside of episode eight where she finds out that Chell is pregnant and she's like, like, is this still possible for me? I thought maybe I was like, pass my cell by date to a certain degree.

21:14Joanna Robinson:Like, which is a theme that has been running up, you know, for a lot of the women inside of the seasons. For sure. I mean, it's clearly part of the cortex of the show for many of the characters. And I also love that Patricia has all that going on where she is constantly being confronted with her age, with the fact that she is single, with her role in this community and how like ostracized she feels within it from the people she went to school with. But she's also the moral center of this episode. Like she's the one saying, hold the fuck on. Are we talking about shooting Ruth in the back of the head?

21:41This is ridiculous. Whereas people who do have kids or people who just feel like they have different motivations are very willing to at least consider this like really barbaric thing.

21:51Joanna Robinson:Do you view that scene with like Tom and the episode ends with, we don't know what Tom's gonna, I mean. We can suspect. We suspect what Tom is off to do, but he has not answered what he's going to do. So if Tom is the undecided and you have Wick being like, you gotta. I can make it peaceful. Right. And Patricia's saying, you simply can't. That's the sort of like angel. Are these like the angel devil ideas that are going to be in his head as he navigates whatever trolley problem, moral decision that he has to make in the finale? I'm glad you brought up the trolley problem because I feel like if you are on the side of Ruth needs to die to liberate the island, couldn't you just not go help her and hope let the storm let the storm kind of do its thing we know where rob stands rob would kill her hard disagree i would give my life for ruth personally okay but i'm saying if you are on that side of things there is a very dangerous component right here in the community that they're they are even laying out we need to go save ruth from this we need to bring her to the shelter well it was a nice a nice way to establish ruth is uh early in the episode, Ruth is not here.

22:58Joanna Robinson:Yes. So whatever's going on with Ruth is going to be a secondary location that Tom and then, you know, the mob that you're predicting will have to go to. Did you find it odd at all? I think especially in an episode that was this short and maybe even this thin from a certain point of view that we don't see Ruth whatsoever. We don't get any flash to like her at her house or anything like. What's she doing? Do you think? I mean. Napping. Trying to work some kind of technology and failing miserably. It's not going well, I'm sure. Yeah. But we're talking a lot about Ruth. And I feel like in a different kind of show, there would be like a cut to Ruth at her house doing whatever she's doing and cut back.

23:38Clearly, the show is withholding that. And I wonder, like, what is the dynamic that Tom is going to be walking into when he does get to her house? Presumably, that's where he's going.

23:46Joanna Robinson:Okay. So you're like, is Ruth filming her OnlyFans content? You know what? Live your life. Live your life, Ruth. if we've learned anything from euphoria live your life um a couple things before we circle back to this rosemary moment which is just so incredible um the pre-rosemary presentation is wick coming into our office we get this like really interesting whale blubber comment from wick where he talks about this was the dominant industry of the island up until his his father's time yeah so into the 20th century and the captains like ruled the island. And we've had some indications of that, of like, you know, captains doing certain things to have their way.

24:34Joanna Robinson:Does that, is that setting up anything for this season? Is it setting up something for a future season? What do you think? I was really thrown by this. It was an odd bit of like focus. Like we're going to kind of bringing it up a couple different times in the episode, kind of framing things in this way. Yeah. I mean, maybe there's a short term like, what's the expiration date on whale blubber? Like if there's some whale blubber down in the tunnels to work some torches, is that a thing that would still be functional after all these years? If you're a whaler. Are you not a whaler? Press ccv at spotify.com to let us know how one preserves.

25:10Joanna Robinson:Like, can you just seal it in a jar like jam? Is that what you're saying? I would presume it's kind of already preserved. Blubber? Yeah. No, all fats go rancid. You know this as a chef. Well, sure, but they have a much longer shelf life than expected. A stable shelf life. Yeah, okay. You can keep lard out on your counter for a long time. Okay. And then did you freeze frame Mahoney on Rosemary's desk drawer? I did. I was most intrigued by the three Diet Coke cans. I couldn't tell whether they were empties or fulls. I tried like going with a... No, they're fulls. You think they were fulls based on the way they rock?

25:44This is what I was looking at. I was like, they feel full to me based on someone who has an unfortunately very intimate understanding of the weight and density of a Diet Coke can. So we're glad to welcome Rosemary to the team.

25:55Joanna Robinson:When she pulled up in the drawer, I was like, Rob will probably freeze frame this, but I should do it just in case he doesn't. And then when I saw that the Diet Cokes were there, I was like, Rob certainly was all over this. Okay. My sister. You and Rosemary. She mentioned that it's a castle doctrine town. Do you know the difference between the castle doctrine and Stand Your Ground? They feel of a feather to me. One needs to touch ground. Castle doctrine only applies to your home, your vehicle, or sometimes your workplace. Okay. And then stand your ground is anywhere. Stand your ground is anywhere?

26:30Yeah.

26:30Joanna Robinson:Any public place where you have a legal right to be. So you can't break into someone's home and claim stand your ground, but you can in the Walmart, I guess. I really underestimated how medieval Florida is. You would think castle doctrine would be the more medieval than stand your ground, but stand your ground is... is uh holy shit yeah tough really fucking tough um all right let's get to rosemary's uh presentation uh she's she's smoking yep gotta take a break she's not she's doing she's smoking and present presenting but she's got a break to light up oh yeah hold for dramatic effect while i light my cigarette this is just so good like all of her muttered aside yes i just want to applaud dale dickie for this i just think she's absolutely incredible the first time i watched it i was like a little impatient because I like wanted I was eager to know the answer and I was like what are we doing come on as are Tom and Wake and Patricia but the second third fourth fifth however many times I've watched it since I'm just marinating in every single delivery that she gives is so good what are some of your highlights here?

27:32Well first of all I think the performance is great and not just hers but the reaction shot Olympics that are happening among the other three characters really delightful but structurally like from a writing standpoint turning a like Game of Thrones-y, Star Wars-y kind of like lineage reveal into like, you know what? We could just say this. We could make this dramatic. We could give you a flashback sequence. And we kind of did. But also what if we just do like a full family, multi-generational family tree for a third of the runtime of this episode? It's a very funny thing to do. And yes, there is an impatience to it, but it's also so deeply funny.

28:08It's so funny. In part because of the bits. I mean, dead baby, dead baby, dead baby lesbian.

28:14Joanna Robinson:Happy pride. Happy pride to everybody out there. The whole like, when he grows up, he won't be shooting blanks. He's a stud. These jack-a-rabbits. The jack-a-rabbits. The family that swims together drowns together. That actually does seem like it should be an expression. And that's the first inaugural swim. Apparently so. They kept going after an entire family drowned together. I've seen Clarabelle's portrait. She thinks she's something. The first time she went through it and she said the family that swims together drowns together, I thought that was like an incest comment. I thought so too. But then we got to the actual incest.

28:47Joanna Robinson:She's like, none of my business unless I have children. In this case, they did. I mean, just like everything was so funny. I want to, I wish I had been like a fly on the wall when Dale Dickey, breaking this down at home, figuring out how, where she could find, like milk the most comedy out of this, came up with jack-a-rabbits as a pronunciation for Jackrabbit. It's so funny. I thought this was like a masterpiece of comedy. A plus stuff. Yeah. I have a question for you. Yeah. I've written down a couple of my favorite names from the family tree. I would like for you to select your favorite of these.

29:19Joanna Robinson:Thank you. Hezekiah Collington. Really good. Hollyoak Warren. Hollyoak Warren. Hard to beat. Yeah. And then the last is a two for Sophia the Heretic who married Byron Fairclaw. Yeah. Which of those would you say is your favorite? Well, listen, Sophia the Heretic really made the best of it. It really did. Hollyo Warren really stood out to me. We did get an email about when we and all the other listeners were predicting that it was going to be Evan. So the Warren family line passing down through Lauren. Right. One of our listeners was like, does that make her Lauren Warren? And like, as we know, the Warren name is not involved in all this, but Lauren Warren is very funny.

30:01Joanna Robinson:So, yeah. This whole sequence. I mean, again, it's just like punchline after punchline after punchline after punchline. And there was something about the specific delivery of next thing you know, your dad's dead and your stepmom is taking you on an adventure destination hell that was very Chris Farley and Tommy Boy to me. When he's like giving his like over the top, like running off the rails speeches trying to sell these brake pads. There's like, I don't know of a higher compliment in comedy than I can give them that. I think also, you know, all of her very passive aggressive like stuff about Tom.

30:36Joanna Robinson:I can't hear. I can't hear when the fan is on. This is usually when we just repeat Patricia jokes, but it's Rosemary's time to shine this time. It's Rosemary's week. And then I think, oh, when she was like, she's like, all the kids died, a fascinating murder mystery. And then we don't have time. It was the dad. It was the husband. I hope we get that story in season two. I would love it. I hope we get some of these stories. Give us that full flashback. The full murder mystery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you connect at all with the person who has put a lot of work into a presentation and just wants everyone to know how much work you did?

31:10Joanna Robinson:Rob, I think you know I did. I say this because I personally also have a little, we all have that in us. But Rosemary's cooler than I am because at the end I would have been like, did you like it? Was it good? You want the pat on the head in addition to the focus and patience. I really need, I really need that. If I could be paid in affirmations, I would be. Guess what? You can. Leave your comments below. Hit Joe on social media. That's not how the internet works, Rob. I tried. It's deformations from the internet every single time. One thing that we haven't really noted, but our listeners have been writing in for a couple weeks about, is that after the drug trip episode, with the hand turkey sort of thing, a lot of people have, if you rotate the hand turkey and sort of flip it, that's the shape of the Widow's Bay Island.

31:59Oh, okay.

31:59Joanna Robinson:No, it like really is. I mean. No, it like really is. And they keep showing that map. This was a little bit of a bridge too far for me. No, you're wrong. It's true. I think you've been on the Lost Island too long. Absolutely not. I don't know about this one. On the sort of Jurassic Park Isla Nublar comp that we were bringing up last week, when they look at like the sort of, is it a Doppler map? Is that what it is? I think it's a Doppler map. Yeah, the weather map. The overwhelming storm. With the hand island. But that was very Jurassic Park, a storm's a coming sort of moment. The shape of those hand turkeys is so loose.

32:34You could turn it and Rorschach it into literally anything. Google image search Widow's Bay Island map. I've seen the side-by-sides. And it's true. I am not so compelled to think that that is it.

32:45Joanna Robinson:Emma Ketchum or any other writer on Widow's Bay? I'm happy to be wrong. I just personally do not see it. Please prove wrong. With a one-to-one synchronicity. Snoring? Gasping during sleep? Feeling fatigued? Ask your doctor about ZepBound, Terzepatite, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. ZepBound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. ZepBound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection.

33:28Joanna Robinson:ZetBound contains terzepatide and should not be used with other terzepatide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if ZetBound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pins or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop ZetBound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems.

34:00Joanna Robinson:Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking ZipBound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zipbound.lily.com. All right. Can I talk a bit more about Storm of the Century? I would love it if you did. Stephen King miniseries. Okay, written for TV, so it's not based on a book. Stephen King wrote this for television.

34:35Joanna Robinson:Stephen King miniseries, like, you know, there's the It miniseries, which is quite famous. Salem's Lot, which is quite famous. I really remember, I think it was like the year or two before this, they did a Shining miniseries because Stephen King famously hates the Kubrick movie. They did it with Stephen Webber from Wings in the Jack Torrance role. Not what I would have picked. here we've got Tim Daly from Wings is the lead of this particular endeavor a very young Julian Nicholson like one of her very first roles is as one of the townspeople basically what happens is in classic Stephen King fashion a mysterious man comes to town this happens in Needful Things this happens in The Stand etc oh The Stand miniseries also very good comes to town he knows all of the dark secrets of everyone on this island and he will just like say it to them he'll be like hey remember when you gay bashed a man he lost his eye you should go see his paisley eye patch happy pride like that's like literally that's one of the secrets that he unhearsed he just like walks around and tells people the first thing he does is he just kills the shit out of an old lady I believe he beats her with his cane okay and so I was thinking a lot about Ruth when I was thinking about this old lady who dies right at the beginning of this but what happens is he's old ladies are not a monolith you're right How dare you, frankly.

35:55Joanna Robinson:How do you go from patriarchy good, actually, to this? The world may never know. But after he's, like, terrorized the town, and then Tim Daly's character, as is often the case in these Stephen King stories, is the sheriff. And he is, like, the beacon of good and truth on this island. And he refuses to, like, get rid of this guy right away. He's, like, due process. I believe in due process. But eventually there's this huge town meeting where this guy is played by a Canadian actor, Comfior, like comes in and just like tells everyone in the town their various secrets. And then he's like, I have but one wish and then I will go away and the storm will go away.

36:35Joanna Robinson:I would like one of your children. Give me one of your children. I need to like, I need to train up an apprentice. I need an heir to my demon ways. Okay. and give me one of your children or else you'll go the way of Roanoke, the famed colony that disappeared. He's claiming that he's the one who made Roanoke disappear. He's like, so either give me one of your children or I will take all of your children anyway and you will all walk two by two into the sea. And Tim Daly, hero of the hour, is like, we can't do this. For our souls, we cannot do this. And it's basically him against the entire town.

37:11Joanna Robinson:And he's like, we don't know that he has these powers to do this. we don't know that he is like a supernatural evil and if we make this decision to um give up one of our children like how do we live with ourselves after which is the question that patricia asks inside this episode what does this say about us um his wife however is like we got to do it we got to give up a child the twist is sorry spoilers for this thing it's tim daly and his wife's child is the one that gets taken because the whole town uh votes and they decide to give up a child and then they draw lots. It's very much like Shirley Jackson's lottery and it's his child.

37:47Joanna Robinson:And then his child is taken. And then the epilogue is about how he moves to San Francisco and like yada, yada, yada. And then like a bunch of people who survived this incident on the island wind up killing themselves anyway because how do you live with yourself after you've done this thing? Completely. And I imagine in very Stephen King fashion, you never quite know if that mysterious man had the demonic power to do what he said. You do because he's got fangs. But it's one thing to have fangs and another thing to be like, the cane that comes to life. But I'm going to make you all march two by two into the sea?

38:16I don't know if he could have done that. He could be overstating it.

38:18Joanna Robinson:Yeah, he could have been like actors do on their CV when they're like, yeah, I can ride a horse. Absolutely, I can speak French. I'll just have to learn how to do it by shoot time. I could do that. That's fine. So yeah, Patricia kind of standing in for this sort of like Tim Daly voice of like, we cannot do this for our souls sort of role. The accent work inside of this particular 1999 ABC miniseries is outstanding and fantastic. Like, this is the same island that Dolores Claiborne takes place on, just as a fun fact. Anyway, we've had a lot of listeners write in about it. I thought it was, like, worth, you know, as every— because I couldn't think of another sort of, like, horror movie comp for this— a storm has come to the island, and we have to make a choice to sacrifice one people for the greater good of the island, the greater good.

39:05Joanna Robinson:Like, I couldn't think of a better comp than this. Did anything come to mind for you? I was in the same kind of quack quack. Because, yeah, most horror, I mean, to the extent you would even call it horror. There's the mist, which we've been talking about since the beginning. But even the mist is something like a little more monstrous. You know, there is something within it that is very similar to Widow's Bay. Yeah. But is not strictly there is a storm that could kill us, right? It's not like in this case, even the mystical black tornado or cyclone feels like a demonic but weather event. Should we just call it a nor 'easter?

39:39Joanna Robinson:because that's what they call it. Apparently this is what a Nor 'easter is. The blanket Nor 'easter, yeah. I was kind of caught between like, this isn't a pure weather disaster kind of story. Right. And we have all these horror elements. Like what is the midpoint of all of that? And I found myself in a similar space. I couldn't quite find that exact property, but you stumbled upon it and a lot of our listeners did. Our listeners are the ones that flagged it for me. I completely missed this in 1999 when I was a senior in high school. Shout out the 90s when like Stephen King could write an original story for ABC that would air on Valentine's Day and two other nights.

40:10Joanna Robinson:So fun fact. Where did that go for us? What do we have now that we traded that off for? Nothing. No? Despair. TikTok. We just gave away our child and got nothing in return? Exactly. Brutal. Anything else we want to talk about? On that idea, before we move on, the inversion of that concept of we're not trading a child, but we're trading this elderly woman potentially in her life and we're doing it for the sake of our children, I think is a nice moral quandary to kind of riff on that idea. And this is another area where I'm just kind of waiting for that other shoe to drop. The kind of almost throwaway line from Bashir that he hasn't really told Shell about anything that's at stake yet.

40:50I mean, for one, she's definitely like starting to go into labor.

40:56Joanna Robinson:It's Braxton Hicks. Don't worry about her. I mean, we have penultimate contractions. This woman is going into labor in the finale. Finale, baby. She does not yet know that her unborn child would be like locked to this island for life. Yeah. I would think that information has to come out and I would think that other people who are not quite aware of it would be upset by that information as well. Okay. About their own kids, to clarify. So for the finale, we have everyone's in the shelter except for Ruth and Tom. Yes. PJ Glanville's there. The off-island girls are there. Evan's there, etc. Do you believe Evan when he said, I won't go anywhere to Tom?

41:31He did seem oddly agreeable, but...

41:33Joanna Robinson:Seemed very earnest. It is. But they've had a real sort of connection. They really have. You know, there are Sox games left in the season. It's an emergency. And it feels like maybe this teenager under these circumstances is actually willing to listen to his dad. Okay. You think Bashir is going to, at least Bashir is going to find out about the stakes of what's going on. I think he already has an inclination, but he hasn't really shared with Shell anything that Patricia has told him. No, but he doesn't know about the Warren descended question. I think clearly more people are going to have to be aware of the potential trait in play here.

42:07That someone, they may not know it's Ruth, but like someone will have to die or someones will have to die. And we'll see how they all deal with it.

42:14Joanna Robinson:We meet a couple different employees of the island. There's Kenny, who Rosemary will not let help pull the portrait off of Tom. No. A really funny. Okay. Emmy winner Jeff Hiller has not had a ton to do. but his delivery of like poor Rosemary her sciatica is acting up we relate to her sciatica really really do that whole thing she's like Tom don't move your lung may be collapsed don't speak really funny but we've got Kenny who shows up and does a couple things we already met Garrett at the lighthouse I'm sure we've met Kenny before perhaps he's the one who talked to the trash can I don't know the extent of Kenny's role and then there's the guy on the radio yeah Mitch I believe Mitch who says it's all crumbling It's all going?

43:00It's all going? Something to that effect.

43:02Joanna Robinson:So what's going? The island? Buildings? In Storm of the Century, the lighthouse collapses into the ocean. Is Garrett's lighthouse going? I hope not, because I am not ashamed to admit the Garrett bit works on me every time. It's so funny. It's very funny. When he showed up in the window at town. It's really funny. It's very one note, but it's like you could play that note over and over and I will laugh at it. I was thinking about the, you know, when Patricia's like people have died, Tom. I was thinking about who's died, right? So Todd, we presume Todd got sucked up into the Nor 'easter. I don't see how he survives that.

43:38Him and his tube socks.

43:40Joanna Robinson:But great wire work, I thought. I thought it was really good. I also thought it was really good. Do you regret now, you know, you were sort of knocking Todd a little bit? I wasn't a knock. It was like the one part of the show that didn't feel as part of the show. And now it's been sucked up into a storm. Problem solved. You're welcome, huh? You believe our gas station attendant is dead. Certainly an EMT is dead. At least one EMT. How many EMTs can this island have? What do you think the losing the one gas station attendant, an EMT, and our drug dealer, is the infrastructure of the island undercut in any kind of way?

44:15Drug dealer. I think drug dealer is undercutting his spiritualism personally.

44:20Joanna Robinson:Is that cocaine? Okay. Maybe it's not all spiritual. Well, plus we got at least one of the sailors at the beginning that you alluded to in the cold open to the show, Shep. Yeah. So maybe a couple people around the edges too who have kind of disappeared into these various storms. That's half the commerce of the island? Yeah. I'm just like worried about the, I mean, it's no longer a whale blubber centric economy. They're trying to thrive on tourism and putting all these people's lives at risk in the process because they didn't deal with their deep-seated hauntings. So let that be a lesson to all of us.

44:51Joanna Robinson:I did love this rosemary sequence. Obviously, in this episode, it's one of my favorite things that's happened this season. I did feel like it kind of, like, should not not have been Jerry's time to shine also. Jerry, historical society, would she not be the genealogy expert? But I guess that's Rosemary's job. I did think it was notable. The time for the white gloves is clearly over. We are just handling Sarah Warren's diary with all kinds of hands. Honestly, one of my favorite gags in this episode is when Patricia is explaining to Tom the connection between the finger and the diary. while the portrait is still on him.

45:23While the portrait is on him and like is one foot away from him and throws it at him in a way that he just like cannot even move, bounces off his chest onto the floor. Yeah. The jokes are still flying, but yeah, no one seems to have much regard for conservatorship anymore.

45:37Joanna Robinson:Anything else you want to predict for the finale or feel like, well, here's the question. Well, we had been asking a question. Do we think someone's going to be sacrificed? And if Ruth dies, or does it need to be someone in that chair for you to feel like, you know, we got the sacrifice you were looking for. Well, let me ask you this before we even get there. I mean, I talked about how I felt about Ruth being the secret warrant in general. I would say you're even more theory inclined than I am. Did this feel both in who it was and how it was revealed, like a satisfying conclusion to that mystery for you?

46:09Joanna Robinson:Yeah, I think especially wondering how it's all going to play out in the finale is interesting to me. Like Tom having to confront Ruth and we've seen sort of their relationship all season. As Patricia says, like, you know, you often entrust your son to her. She might not be a great caretaker. But she says yes. So like, yeah. And I really love that actress who's playing Ruth. So I think I'm really excited to see how this is all going to play out. You know, so that is interesting to me. The Evan stuff was still like incredibly compelling and interesting to me. Yeah. And I'll be interested to see like if she does die in the finale by Tom's hand or anything else.

46:53Joanna Robinson:Is that it? Is it over? Or is there more to come because we want a season two, three, four, five, six of this show? I think you're starting to feel it with Widow's Bay. Like the Homeland style temptation of we have something, it works. I wouldn't say Ruth is like as much of a dramatic lead, but the idea of putting the curse to rest would be putting to rest this version of the show. I don't know what you would do after that. I don't think they can do. I don't think they can wrap it. I don't think, I don't think they can wrap it all up in the finale because I think they want more seasons of this show, as do we.

47:24As do we. Yeah. So either Ruth does not die or that the genealogy chart is not quite complete.

47:31Joanna Robinson:You're besmirching Rosemary's work on the transparency on the overhead projector. She had 30 minutes and a lot of that was just marker on transparency. Well, I will say Patricia said she might already have that genealogy. So she might have had a lot of that already written out. Written out though? Maybe. On transparency. She's just waiting for her moment. Her penmanship is excellent. If she had to, if I had to like rush that present, though she was in no rush, but if I had to like whip together that presentation, my penmanship would not have been as good. I don't think any of ours would have been.

48:02Okay. It was sterling all around. The pacing, the thunder crashes, dramatically speaking, she had it all worked out.

48:08Joanna Robinson:Also the score this season. Yeah. Also like, I guess because she would have had to photocopy Ruth's like city hall badge onto a transparency. Also her like... While the power is a precious resource. Yeah. Also her like... What was it like? Miss Widow's Bay 1959 or whatever. Yeah. Shout out to Ruth. Yeah, shout out to Rosemary. She's lived a life. She's doing her thing. I will say this was a... Would you kill an old woman to save your island home? I already said no. I'd be out there trying to save I thought I would hit you again and see if your answer had changed now that we've talked about it.

48:44It has not changed. I know how you feel about killing old women, but not all of us feel that way.

48:50Joanna Robinson:I don't know for the whole island. Wow. Actually, no. Here's what I would have done. Yeah. I would tell Ruth. And I would say. You want to guilt trip Ruth? No, I would just give her an option. You don't have to do it. No worries if not. The whole island. But you could commit suicide. You could save the whole island. It's your choice. Would you save the whole island if it was you? Yes. If I had lived as long as Ruth had lived, that's easy, I think. I mean, she might have a lot left to do. I'm sure she does. You know, I just feel like we're being very presumptuous about Ruth's life. This is the trolley problem.

49:24Joanna Robinson:It is the trolley problem. For ctv at Spotify.com, if you have a strong opinion one way or another about what you would do if you were Ruth or if you were off to murder Ruth. Yeah. Anything else you want to say? Here's one thing I do feel strongly about. This was the end, at least as far as I could see of it, of Broach Watch, no? Oh, because Ruth... I mean, what else is it going to tell us that we don't already know unless there is a second Warren out there who has this brooch? But we even get a close-up on it. Are you putting Evan back on the table? I'm not putting anything back on the table.

49:54Okay. To me, it's just like we've had so many indications, including within this episode, in the flashback of like, let's zoom in on this brooch. And then the reveal, we're just going to tell you over a transparency slide, which may just be kind of like a misdirect and ha-ha, this is funny. Fair enough. but we were just kind of waiting to see that brooch on somebody or in somebody's desk drawer or like dresser or whatever. I don't know what it would do for us at this point that we don't already know.

50:18Joanna Robinson:So if it's just at Ruth's house, you're like, what's the point? Yeah, I don't know that we needed all that. Okay. And now our brooch wash has ended? I guess. A real misdirect? We have to keep the lighthouse on just in case. What if it's crumbled to the sea already? Well, then we're officially fucked. Because of a cyclone and or a tornado. Too many disasters at play. I feel like we did it. I mean, this is already longer than the episode. We'll be back for Cape Fear. I'm really excited for the finale. I'll be really sad when this is over. Very much so. I don't know if you've experienced this, but I just like, we already mentioned earlier in the season, but I just have really been feeling like every week the noise around this show has been growing and growing and growing and growing.

50:56Joanna Robinson:And people are just like completely obsessed about it. And are you watching it? Et cetera, et cetera. So I don't exactly know what the numbers are, but this feels like, and you know, on the heels of Pluribus, which was a great hit for Apple. Obviously, the Severance phenomenon. Like, I've sometimes made fun of, like, the Apple TV programming in the past because, like, sometimes it can be spotty. But, like, if they're finding their lanes, if they're, like, we're doing, they're finding their brand. Like, and originally they were just sort of like, we've got Oprah and Steven Spielberg and Reese Witherspoon, and, like, that's who we have, right?

51:30Joanna Robinson:And now if they're like, we do weird little sci-fi things. You know, and they try to do big sci-fi IP. right like foundation and stuff like that but like if they're like we've got severance and pluribus and widow's bay these incredibly original like fun quirky theory shows etc etc we've got your summertime trash for peace theater we found an uh we found a paperback in an airport certainly did that was once made into a great movie and now we're gonna make it into a weird tv show and we got some actors you wouldn't believe to be in it there are bodily fluids on these pages you don't even want to ask questions about.

52:06Joanna Robinson:So, you know, and then whatever else may come. So, like, I think those two things have been quite successful for them. And we'll see what else. There's a bunch of shows on Apple that don't feel like they exist, but there are some that are really breaking through in a more consistent way. I wonder in the former category, as we're kind of lumping this with a severance or a pluribus or shows like that, how this particular episode will land with the people who have been loving Widow's Bay. Because for me, I'm going to be honest, like this show does not hang on its mysteries for me. They're a fun seasoning, little side project.

52:39But like, I'm here for the horror. I'm here for the goofs. I'm here for the character work. All that stuff is kind of front and center. And then I'm just kind of intrigued by what's around the corner. But if you have been living and dying with the background of every frame, and I think the show has largely rewarded that. And Ruth is the secret warrant and you feel underwhelmed by that revelation. I'm just I'm eager to see how people take this episode.

53:00Joanna Robinson:Well, but I feel like people will be underwhelmed no matter what. That's just the nature of the— Of the human existence. Yes, and of the Reddit detectives. Because if it had been Evan, and they would have been like, yeah, we figured that out weeks ago. So the most underwhelming thing is being right. Can be. Yeah. Or there's some satisfaction. I figured it out and I was right. There's that. If it's like a completely—the thing that's great about Ruth is sometimes in a theory show, the answer is not what the breadcrumbs have been laid towards. Right? So it's not that but it's so far afield thinking like some of the later Westworld seasons that it's just like very clear that the showrunner was so intent on outsmarting the people watching the show that they came up with an answer that like does not really make logical sense.

53:47Joanna Robinson:But Ruth makes like this is a character who has been here. Yep. Right under our noses. Right under our noses and I think it's an interesting question of like what would you do if an elderly unmarried, doesn't have children woman, you know, versus the island. That's a real spinster. Yeah, a true old maid. A true old maid. But so really, I think what you're articulating is like you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you still might find you get what you need. Get what you need. What did you hear on the spooky radio sounds that were playing when Tom was going out to the lighthouse?

54:16Mostly that he couldn't turn his volume down, which sounds like my personal nightmare. Like no volume control. Like I don't even know what's going to come out of this thing, but I have no control over it. Horrifying.

54:25Joanna Robinson:I don't know what the second song was, but I'm pretty sure I think the first song was Bohemian Rhapsody because I heard Anyway the Wind Blows. But I don't know that if I were Apple, I would pay for Bohemian Rhapsody just for a garbled radio sort of sound. How much do you have to pay for rights if it is a sliver of a snippet that has been manipulated? I wonder if you could find a cover of Bohemian Rhapsody and just garble that into the radio or just have someone pop into a studio. The series tribute band covering Bohemian Rhapsody. Yeah, exactly. Good is the real thing. The Vampire Lestat does Bohemian Rhapsody.

55:02Joanna Robinson:Incredible. Anyway, if you heard what those songs were or Emma Ketchum if you want to let us know, PrestigeTV at Spotify.com. Let's wrap it up. We did it. We're back with Cape Fear. We're back with the finale. We, okay, should we, let's announce it. Okay. Why not? We do want to say for the Widows of May finale, we're not sure yet if we're going to do it live. If we do wind up doing it live like we did for the Euphoria finale, watch our socials. We will announce it. We will definitely let you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we're not sure yet. It depends on the NBA playoffs. Oh, finals. Sorry, unfortunately.

55:30As does literally everything in my life. Okay. Just like, will this series go to six games? Determines my entire schedule and existence.

55:37Joanna Robinson:Here are things I know. Okay. The Knicks. Yep. The Spurs. Yep. Wemby. Sure. The Spurs won, so the Knicks will not get it in four. That's true. But they could get it in five. They could. And Timothee Chalamet, among many others, would be very excited if they did. As would at least one Safdie brother. Okay. As would Spike Lee. Okay. Ben Stiller Ben Stiller Sarah Michelle Gellar Is she a Knicks fan? She posted a photo of her and Freddie Prinze Jr. in like the 90s at a Knicks game and she's like Knicks fan day one they're my hometown team I was like alright it's a little bandwagon of SMG but okay Anne Hathaway legit Okay You know it's it's a star-studded row over there Which stars are rooting for the Spurs?

56:13You know it's not a deep list

56:14Joanna Robinson:They don't have anyone Shea Serrano San Antonio It's a different caliber of thing out there but you know what that's why I don't have Donald Trump showing up to their game so So you win some, you lose some. I think that's a real win. I'll trade all the Chalamets in the sea for no Donald Trump in my game. Okay. Thank you to Whale Blubber. Yeah, always. Preserved or not. Thank you to three very full cans of Diet Coke in the back of a drawer. Thank you to Rob Mahoney. Thank you, Joe. Thanks to Debra Rinaldo. Thanks to Kai Grady. Thanks to Jacob Cornett. And we'll see you soon for Cape Fear. Bye.

56:54magn Oregon