Never watched ‘Widow’s Bay’? How the creepy comedy became an Emmy favorite.

Widow’s Bay arrived on Apple TV in April with relatively little fanfare. A few months later, it’s one of the big early winners of this year’s Emmys.

The comedy-horror went into the Emmys with 19 nominations and has already won eight prizes — the most of any program across the first two ceremonies. Betty Gilpin won for her guest performance, while the series also picked up awards for casting, cinematography, production design, music and sound.

Some of its biggest categories are still to come. The show is nominated for outstanding comedy series, while its star, Matthew Rhys, is up for lead actor. 

So what exactly is Widow’s Bay — and how did it become so acclaimed?

It’s funny — until it gets creepy

Widow’s Bay is set on an isolated New England island, where the superstitious residents have long believed their home is cursed. Rhys plays Tom Loftis, the skeptical mayor who’s determined to turn the island into a tourist destination — even as its old legends start coming true.

Season 1 runs for 10 episodes and is streaming in full on Apple TV. Episodes are between 31 and 48 minutes, so you can binge the whole season in just over six hours.

The show’s blend of comedy and horror is a big part of its appeal. NPR compared it to “a Stranger Things intended for grown-ups,” while Variety praised its mix of deadpan humor and “authentically creepy” moments. The Guardian said it manages to be both “a beautifully sharp, zippy character-based comedy” and a “genuinely unsettling horror that leaves you holding your breath without realizing it.”

Yahoo’s Michel Ghanem praised Rhys’s performance, saying the actor “could not be better cast,” and called the show a “spooky but cozy horror.” He added, “If you’re in the mood for something that feels like it could live in Stephen King’s extended universe, consider making a trip to Widow’s Bay.”

Creator Katie Dippold has cited classic movies such as Jaws and Halloween as major influences. The show doesn’t stick to one kind of horror, moving from supernatural scares and folk horror to a slasher story.

Switching between laughs and genuine fear wasn’t easy. “I found Widow’s Bay so much harder than The Americans to do,” Rhys told the Television Academy, referencing the FX series in which he played a Soviet spy.

He said he “got genuinely freaked out” while filming Widow’s Bay in deep water and started asking the dive team whether great white sharks came into the area. He recalled, “They’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, but they won’t eat you — they probably won’t eat you — but they definitely come in.’ And that’s when I went, ‘Oh, f***.'”

Rhys’s American accent may sound effortless, but the Widow’s Bay star is actually Welsh. He told the Los Angeles Times that focusing on the accent can actually improve his performance because he’s “so busy working on something else” that he becomes less self-conscious about the acting.

It was nearly 20 years in the making

Dippold had been trying to make Widow’s Bay for nearly two decades by the time it reached Apple TV. The writer, whose credits include Parks and Recreation and 2016’s Ghostbusters reboot, first came up with the idea around 18 years earlier.

The show was partly inspired by Dippold’s childhood in New Jersey, where she and her friends would visit places they believed were haunted.

“I would be so giddy going out on a summer night because I knew I was going to be scared, but we would also laugh, and it was very communal,” she told TheWrap. “That’s been something I’ve wanted to capture my whole life.”

An early version of the pilot helped Dippold get hired on Parks and Recreation — although she later decided it leaned too heavily on jokes rather than horror. She said, “It felt like a parody, and I wanted Widow’s Bay to feel like a very real place in a real world. A place I would want to go to, even if I would die immediately. As a horror fan, I want the tension and the stakes to be taken seriously. I just kept digging away at it.”

Widow’s Bay isn’t real — but its backdrop is

Don’t try looking for Widow’s Bay on a map. The island is fictional, and Dippold has chosen not to reveal its exact location. “It’s a long ferry ride, you don’t know exactly if the ferry comes from Massachusetts or Maine, but I purposely wanted to keep that a little vague,” she told the Boston Globe, explaining that her goal was “more tapping into the New England vibe.”

Much of the series was filmed in Massachusetts, including Worcester, Gloucester and Rockport.

Rhys said, “You immediately have this kind of mythical mysticism surrounding it. That New England history so perfectly lent to this piece. Once we shot there, it just enriched it tenfold.”

The curse isn’t over yet

Apple TV renewed Widow’s Bay for a second season in June, shortly before the Season 1 finale was released. 

The streamer hasn’t announced a release date yet, and Dippold isn’t giving anything away about what happens next. “Season 2 is about how everything is great on the island, and there’s nothing to worry about,” she joked.