This article contains spoilers for Widow’s Bay episode 10, “We Hope You Enjoyed Your Time!”
Apple TV’s sleeper hit Widow’s Bay has now concluded its first season on the streamer, and everyone who has become obsessed with the show’s strange island and its eccentric townsfolk will be waiting with bated breath to find out if a second season is on the way.
In the final episode of Katie Dippold’s delightful horror-comedy series, the residents of Widow’s Bay and a gaggle of tourists—encouraged to visit the cursed island by Mayor Tom Loftis—hunker down in an emergency shelter as a violent storm hits. The island, which continues to suffer under a cursed pact made by its founder, has recently been struck by a fresh string of creepy and sometimes diabolically brutal incidents, so Tom has been working with allies Patricia and Wyck to lift the curse from the island forever.
Let’s look at how all that played out for Tom in the season finale of Widow’s Bay by examining the Warren bloodline, the island’s malevolent entity, and what that ominous church bell means for the future.
The Warren Bloodline
After Rosemary tells Tom that his elderly assistant, Ruth Livingston, is the last known living descendant of Widow’s Bay founder Richard Warren, Tom thinks he may be able to put a stop to the ongoing horrors on the island by killing her. After all, Warren told him that although he signed a pact with the island’s demonic entity to protect his colony during its first winter, we know that this curse may still be broken if the last surviving member of his bloodline dies.
Tom does not want to kill Ruth, but he does want to save the remaining residents of Widow’s Bay from further catastrophe. Spiking her tea with a cocktail of drugs he knows she mustn’t take together, Tom waits for the 84-year-old Ruth to slip peacefully into unconsciousness and death. He reveals that he understands his culpability in bringing tourists to Widow’s Bay because he knew his wife was telling the truth about the island’s natives being unable to leave without dire consequences.
Tom also notes that Ruth has a family heirloom: the brooch Sarah Westcott Warren gave little Frances. It’s clear that Rosemary got Frances’ genealogy right …until she didn’t. When Ruth was 40, she had an affair with a married man and got pregnant. She hid the pregnancy because she was “not in a good place”, then gave the baby to her lover and his wife, who raised Ruth’s daughter as their own.
That baby was Lauren, Tom’s dead wife, and Tom suddenly understands that this revelation makes his son Evan the last descendant in Richard Warren’s bloodline. Evan can never leave the island or terrible things will happen to him. And since Tom can’t kill his own son, even to save the others, he keeps this knowledge to himself, because only when Ruth and Evan are dead will the entity’s curse be lifted and the pact broken.
The Entity
Bored and reckless during the biblical storm hitting Widow’s Bay, Evan and his friends decide to go down into the creepy basement under the emergency shelter, where they discover a room with an electric chair and a rusted metal hatch. We’ve seen this room before in a tease at the end of episode one, but the room’s purpose wasn’t clear at the time.
Meanwhile, eccentric town hall employee Dale (Jeff Hiller) finds an archive containing reels showing what appears to be the last time the island’s residents fed its demonic entity. It seems that they were rather organized about the sacrifice. A first reel even details what to do if you’re one of the town’s “offerings”, having been selected by peers in a “rigorous” process. Reasons for being selected as an offering to the entity vary from a criminal past to just being found “wanting in some way”.
“The bad times will not end until the covenant is honored, and honored fully,” a cheery gentleman explains, as we see hooded human sacrifices chained up and ready. Dale realizes that the island’s latest deadly storm has been rounding people up for slaughter, forcing them inside the emergency shelter toward the hungry entity. As Evan and his buddies mess around with the electric chair, the shelter’s loudspeaker suddenly announces to the crowd that “it’s time” and that they shouldn’t beg; simply move forward.
Kenny the Custodian, dutifully checking that everyone is okay, finally finds Evan and his friends in the entity’s kill room before anything happens to them. He orders them out, but the door suddenly slams shut behind him, and the storm ceases. When the door unlocks itself, Kenny is gone, save for his flashlight, but the metal doors to the entity’s hiding place are ajar. It seems the entity waited until Evan left because it could not kill him, fearing it would sever its ties with Warren’s remaining bloodline for good.
The Church Bell
In the second episode of Widow’s Bay, Tom informs the late Reverend Bryce (Toby Huss) that the town’s church bell woke him up in the middle of the night, ringing nine times. The pastor of Widow’s Bay is confused and unsettled by Tom’s words because the church bell has been chained up for a long time. It couldn’t have possibly rung. But Bryce then finds an old letter that tells him what to do if the bell ever does ring.
Bryce never shares exactly what happens next, but he is extremely overwhelmed and distressed by his investigation. He leaves a chaotic voicemail for Tom and burns historical documents in his rectory. Tom, Wyck, and Patricia then discover that Bryce has hanged himself.
Later, during the storm, Dale watches an old reel that details exactly what needs to happen when the church bell rings. The man in the footage explains that “The bad times will not end until the covenant is honored, and honored fully,” adding, “The island will make its needs known. One soul for each bell toll.”
After Tom surveys the still water surrounding Widow’s Bay the morning after the storm, he once again hears the impossible church bell toll. On this occasion, it rings eight times. The entity has feasted on one soul, Kenny’s, but eight sacrifices still need to be made to honor the pact. More people must die to satisfy the entity’s hunger and guide it back into its slumber.
Of course, the island’s residents won’t know how long the entity will sleep for, but until it does, the horrors will continue.
All episodes of Widow’s Bay are now streaming on Apple TV.
The post Widow’s Bay Ending Explained: For Whom the Bell Tolls appeared first on Den of Geek.
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