Katie Dippold can’t help but lurk online to see what people are saying about her hit TV show Widow’s Bay. When it premiered in April, the answer was: not much. Though the show earned five-star reviews from critics, it was a slow burn with audiences.“For a long time, I would look on the internet to see if there was any talk of it at all,” Dippold says. “I would see one comment on a good week.” But in the lead-up to this week’s finale, she keeps thinking: “Did I die in a car accident?”The 10-part horror-comedy series about a cursed island and the challenges faced by its reluctant and unprepared mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) has picked up incredible word-of-mouth buzz in its last half, and Academy Award-winning director Guillermo del Toro is among its most vocal fans. “Widow’s Bay may very well be the best streaming series in a long time,” he wrote on X. “And hands down one of the most mesmerising acts of narrative prestidigitation in horror”.“That was crazy,” Dippold, a long-time comedy writer, recalls over Zoom. She’s sitting in front of a bookshelf with titles that could have been pulled straight from the set of the show’s Breakwater Inn –50 Great Ghost Stories, Hide and Seek and Cats for Dummies – but, laughing, she insists they’re not Easter eggs for me. “I was out to dinner, and when I walked out, my phone had so many messages,” she says. “It was like, ‘What terrible emergency has happened?’ And then I saw what it was, and I’m like, ‘Oh, it did warrant that excitement.’“[All this response] is much more positive than what I’ve seen before.” Originally conceived by Dippold as a spec script to get a writing job on Parks and Recreation, the kooky story had been rattling around her head for the better part of two decades.She initially tried to get the show made in the early 2010s, after finishing up on that beloved sitcom and penning the hugely successful Sandra Bullock/Melissa McCarthy film The Heat, but ultimately decided against it because it felt too comedic.“It was more of a joke factory,” she says. “There was no tension. There were no stakes. It wasn’t very grounded. And as a horror fan, I wanted to feel like I could be immersed in this island … There was a long time when [the script] was neither here nor there – it wasn’t funny or scary – and that was a really dark time. But I just could not stop working on it.”Widow’s Bay star Matthew Rhys with creator Katie Dippold.Apple TV“I would go to museums and imagine what the Widow’s Bay version would be in the display cases, and then I started thinking about the mythology and the history of the island. Once I started doing that, and it started feeling like a real place, it just opened things up for me.”That depth of thought shows in the series’ texture and originality. Widow’s Bay is a hugely inventive show that swings from monster-of-the-week horror to workplace sitcom to period piece to absurd mystery to genuine drama with alarming ease. The jokes are laugh-out-loud funny, always grounded by genuine characters you want to spend time with (a lesson from Parks and Rec, Dippold notes), and the scares are genuinely frightening, too. The show wears its references on its sleeve – Stephen King, Jaws and John Carpenter among them – but it’s not a spoof or a remake.‘Hollywood has become a very fear-based economy … I feel like people want to see original shows.’Katie Dippold, creator of Widow’s Bay“I had been spending so much time thinking of what the [comparison] was,” Dippold says, reflecting on her experience pitching the series. “Because in Hollywood, they just want to know what’s it like: ‘Tell me the successful thing this thing is like’ … But I couldn’t think of one – which I think is a good thing.“I just doubled down. I said: ‘It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.’ I tried to really sell that. Fortunately, [Apple] just got it. It was a very rare experience for me … Hollywood has become a very fear-based economy. It’s so much easier to say no and not put yourself at risk. But I think that’s not paying off, and [studios] are starting to see that. I feel like people want to see original shows. I really do.”Kate O’Flynn behind the scenes on Widow’s Bay.Apple TVAt the series premiere in April, the show’s star Rhys (who is also an executive producer) was a little more blunt, calling Apple “the only streaming platform in Hollywood seemingly willing to take a f---ing risk these days” to rapturous applause.So how does he feel now that risk has paid off?“Relief,” he says. “When I read it initially, I was like, ‘Oh, OK, this isn’t the norm. This is going to be something different.’ I love the fact they went for it – that she went for it.”He has joined the Zoom call from what looks like a pitch-black cupboard in his home. It’s a suitably spooky spot for the project we’re discussing, but equally comical too. It’s possibly more a result of staying clear of his kids, who he lovingly says are not watching Widow’s Bay and have “zero interest in looking at anything I’ll ever do”.The charming Welshman is full of praise for all his collaborators during our conversation. He calls Dippold a genius multiple times; Hiro Murai, the show’s director and fellow executive producer is a “true savant”; Apple is “the new HBO”; and his co-stars Stephen Root and Kate O’Flynn are natural masters of comedy, a fact that always made him “slightly envious”.But he’s much less confident talking about himself.“Selfishly, egotistically, I was [nervous] because I’ve never done a comedy before,” Rhys says. “It’s a strange beast that I’m a real newbie at. It’s not something tangible to me … I’ve kind of done drama my entire life.”Matthew Rhys stars as mayor Tom Loftis in Widow’s Bay.Apple TVFor Dippold, that was very much the point. “I felt like there’s so many comedians and comedic actors that are actually great dramatic actors, too,” she says. “But if that was presented to me as a horror fan, I would think, ‘Oh, this is going to be a spoof.’ I don’t know that I’d watch it.”Rhys, on the other hand, is a man we’re accustomed to seeing in serious situations. He won an Emmy (and was nominated twice more) for his turn as KGB spy Philip Jennings in The Americans. And his more recent characters have included a crumpled criminal defence attorney (Perry Mason) and a man suspected of murdering his wife (The Beast in Me). When we see Rhys wrestling with something, we’re inclined to take it seriously. Each lingering look or hangdog expression is a carefully painted tableaux. And that makes it even funnier when the thing he’s wrestling with is a 400-year-old man or a sea hag who’s threatening to sit on his face.Hamish Linklater and Matthew Rhys in Widow’s Bay.Apple TV“It was a very tough casting process,” Dippold says. “Because nothing made sense until we found the [right] person.”After meeting Rhys via Zoom to discuss the show, however, she and Murai knew they had the right guy. “He was just so funny. And he got what was funny about the show.“I think this man can do anything. I think he’s like Charlie Chaplin, but also like any perfect actor from the ’70s. He can really do it all.”She’s not the first to compare Rhys to Chaplin. A few days before we speak, a popular post on X also compared the actor to the physical comedy great, showcasing a GIF of Rhys suddenly falling off a seat in the season’s seventh episode – improbably horizontal, eyes bulging wide.Critics also made the point after his character’s broad moments in episode three. High on hallucinogenic mushrooms, harried mayor Loftis demonically lunges for his lost loafer in a trashed petrol station; he absentmindedly claps along with angry townspeople as they berate him; and slowly drags his face along the side of a car looking for his wayward son.Though Rhys says he actively avoids drawing inspiration from other actors or characters before roles like this, the comparison tickles the star when I bring it up.“I’ll take Chaplin!” he says. “My God. I love Chaplin … You were very aware of what he’s doing, but you’re still transported with him … He still makes you cry. For as technical as he was, he was a master of emotion too.”That duality is apparent in Rhys’ work right until the end. For as much as Tom is outwardly presented as a buffoon or a coward, there’s something much darker and deeper going on inside him that’s fuelling it all. And much of this guilt and panic, rooted in his past and his concerns for his family’s wellbeing, comes to a head in one pivotal scene in this week’s finale.“Jesus Christ,” Rhys says, thinking back to his experience filming. “It took three days to shoot, and it was one of the most emotional things I’ve ever shot in my life. I came out the end of it, I was like, ‘I am f---ing exhausted.’”K. Callan and Matthew Rhys in the season one finale of Widow’s Bay. Apple TVIt’s a testament to Dippold’s writing, and Murai’s direction, that the set-up for that hugely consequential scene is also routinely hilarious, including multiple visual gags and absurd dialogue such as “he got bit by an animal and then became that animal”.This is proof of why the show is emerging as a late contender for this year’s Emmys. Voting for nominations closes on June 22 in the US, and the noms are announced in early July. And, between this and his much-celebrated turn in The Beast in Me, there’s a real chance Rhys emerges with nominations in two lead categories – a feat only accomplished by a handful of people in Emmys history.“Look, if it happened it would be great,” he says. “I’ve been on this circuit long enough to know when you get your hopes up, that’s when it never works. I feel like an old dog now, who’s slightly been around the block.”“I’m always glad to be at the table. That’s how I feel these days.”It’s strange to hear Rhys talking about himself this way. It even has a touch of Betty Gilpin’s incredible line in episode six: “I am but four and 10 years almost, allow me to wither in my father’s attic as my womanly destiny.” But this is a 51-year-old man at the top of his game.Widow’s Bay star Matthew Rhys with director/executive producer Hiro Murai.Apple TVIn addition to these two potentially award-winning turns, Rhys has also just finished filming Apple TV’s Presumed Innocent. He is set to play a major role in the second season of this critically acclaimed remake-turned-legal-anthology series. And he says, a little facetiously, he’s also hustling for a role in The Koreans, the upcoming remake of The Americans.“It was the first thing I spoke to FX about!” he says, eyes wide and bright. “I was like, ‘Great, who do we play?’ They weren’t sure if I was joking or not. I was like, ‘I sort of am, and I’m sort of not.’” Rhys doesn’t know too much about the project, but says he’s “gonna keep pushing” for crossover cameos for him and partner Keri Russell (who played his wife on the original show).“[As you get older] you truly do appreciate the cyclical elements of this profession,” he says. “This is a perverse name-drop, but it resonated and stuck with me so long: Tom Hanks’ advice was, ‘This too shall pass.’“He [told me] about winning a second Oscar, and he was like, ‘I thought I was f---ing bulletproof, and that passed’ ... Oh, you think you’re hot shit now? Just wait. Oh, you think things are terrible now? Just wait. It’s the same thing. You’re on the rollercoaster. It’s going to be a series of ups and downs. Just enjoy the ride.”That’s true of his approach to the show from this point on, too. Though the just-released season finale ends on an ominous note and there’s clearly more story to unspool, Rhys doesn’t know what comes next.“To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure Katie does at this time.” he says. “I think she’s left herself open to a number of elements [to play with in the writers’ room].”The show has – unsurprisingly – been picked up for a second season, with Apple TV also sealing a multi-year overall deal with Dippold. In a typically clever quote for the press release, the showrunner says that “season two [will be] about how everything is great on the island and there’s nothing to worry about”.But Rhys would happily extend his stay in Widow’s Bay even further. In a dream world, he says, they would get the green light to make seasons two and three back-to-back, avoiding the “gargantuan” gaps audiences often face while waiting for their favourite shows to return.And how long could this story run for?“You never want to wring a towel dry,” Rhys says. “This should be finite. It can’t [run forever] because people would go, ‘How stupid are they not to figure out what the island is doing?’ … But it definitely has a serious amount of real estate to stretch its legs … I would run and run on this.”Widow’s Bay is streaming on Apple TV now. Want more TV? We’ve got you.Newsletter: Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.Best TV of the year (so far): From The Pitt to Widow’s Bay, and ABC comedy Dog Park, these are the shows that have caught our critics’ attention.Adults only: Sex work is all over TV right now. 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