Aaron Ploof
The following recap contains spoilers for Widow’s Bay S1E8, “Your Baggage” (written by Emma Ketchum and directed by Andrew DeYoung)
And as we thought, the curse is not yet over. Just as our heroes have been settling in and making plans to move on with their lives, the curse once again rears its ugly head, this time through Patricia’s personal past tormentor, the Boogeyman. She must face its evil straight on, as Widow’s Bay turns once again to explore another avenue of horror: the slasher.
Wyck, Tom, and Patricia sit down for a congratulatory breakfast at the Salty Whale, celebrating a job well done in ridding the island of its curse. Smiles and good cheer are all around. Tom heads off to the office, where he prints off tickets to a Red Sox game he plans to take Evan to. Ruth (K Callan) expresses concern, telling him that everyone’s been looking for him for two days. “Ruth,” he says reassuringly, “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”
But that evening, there are portents of dreadful things to come. Patricia sits down at home for a lovely chicken parmesan meal with wine and coconut cream pie, only to find out she’s been served a turkey patty with no bun and a single unappetizing sausage link. On the other side of town, Tom arrives home, only to find Evan waiting for him, in full confrontation mode, ready to finally get to the truth of the matter about his mother.
Patricia calls a complaint into the restaurant, while Tom and Evan sit down for a serious talk. Tom tells Evan that after he was born, Lauren was never the same. “She had a preeclampsia-induced stroke,” he says, “and after that, she wasn’t right.” This corresponds to the time when Lauren and Tom attempted to leave the island. He committed her to an institution. The letters that Evan reads to Tom, written by his mother to him, are tragically sad, highly delusional, and disturbing in their content.
We see Wyck return to the historical society to check up on his past love, Gerrie Doyle (Nancy Lenehan). He brings an old photo of them together with Mark, Gerrie’s brother. There’s no doubt that Wyck is trying to reignite the flame between them, but his efforts are halted when her husband shows up. This is a sad turn of events for Wyck; it seems he’s been a loner for most of his life and has been holding out hope that he could resume where he left off. On Wyck’s way out, he notices that the Boogeyman’s mask has been stolen from its case.
This turns out to be major bad news for Patricia. She winds down the night, turning off the lights to get ready for bed, until she notices a door that has been open in the hallway. One she did not open herself. She grabs a taser from the side drawer: it’s only at 2%. She has had enough of tiptoeing around in the dark, and leaves the front door, turns back, and sees the Boogeyman blocking her entry back into the house.
And now we’re in full slasher, Friday the 13th, Jason Voorhees territory. Patricia bolts for any door she can find along the street, but no one answers. That is, until she finds Lenore’s house. She busts in screaming about the Boogeyman and demands that they shut off the lights and call 911. Kris (Lauren Bittner) confronts her, refusing to play what, in her mind, is a “game.” When Kris demands that she admit that she’s been lying, Patricia openly confesses to making the calls up, but insists that he really did come for her that night, and he’s on her tail again.
She’s kicked out, but as she looks up at the side window of the house, she sees the Boogeyman in the window. She attempts to warn them by screaming, only to see her tormentor fall through the glass of the window, to being flat on the lawn. He stands back up and holds his knife at the ready only to be slammed by an incoming car. A policeman wakes Patricia up, and she frantically begs him to give her his keys so she can run over the monster and finish the job. The other policeman is attempting to resuscitate the Boogeyman and sounds genuinely happy that he’s still alive. I don’t know; if I ran over a man with a knife assaulting someone, I’d be more defensive. Too late for him, though, when he welcomes the Boogeyman back to the living, he gets his throat cut wide open.
Patricia is back on the run again and finds a gas station. Popping her head in the entrance, she calls for $20 on pump 3. Sheriff Bechir just happens to be at the checkout. Patricia sprays fuel all over the ground, and when the Boogeyman gets close, she pops the fuel with her taser. An explosion of flame engulfs the monster, but the employee from the station puts out the flame with an extinguisher. He’s grabbed by the throat and is just about dead, till Clemmons points a shotgun at him. With the man released, the Boogeyman yanks the gun out of the sheriff’s hands and throws it to the side. He has Clemmons cornered until Patricia takes him down with the shotgun.
Patricia keeps the shotgun leveled at the Boogeyman from scene to scene, all the way until his body is cremated, ensuring that he does not resurrect. Something I’m a bit confused by is the nature of the Boogeyman. He apparently has a house, so that must mean he’s a person behind the mask, right? Did the island imbue him with supernatural powers? Is he ageless? The Boogeyman must have been much younger when he first killed those women and searched for Patricia decades ago.
The show doesn’t take these questions into account. We are to assume that the Boogeyman is part of the curse. When Patricia goes to visit Bechir in the hospital, she sees that his wife, Chelle (Sipiwe Moyo) is pregnant. Knowing full well what impact this will have on the Clemmons family, Patricia urgently tells Bechir that she cannot have the baby while on the island.
Meanwhile, Evan and Tom reconcile. Tom shows Evan pictures he had hidden, ones that show Lauren in the brightest years of her life. Finding understanding, the two embrace, and Tom presents Evan with the Red Sox tickets. Father and son are filled with joy; that is, until Wyck comes knocking. The curse is not over. Tom stands there horrified, with a mixed expression of terror and disbelief.
The only conclusion I can come to is that there must be another descendant left, living on the island. If there wasn’t, killing Richard would have worked. My best guess is that the descendant will be one of our main characters. Maybe Patricia, with her ability to use a grimoire?
Although this episode didn’t make full sense in regard to the curse and how it relates to the Boogeyman, I still found it entertaining. There were enough jokes sprinkled in, with the “Welcome back, Buddy” followed by a slice to the throat moment standing out. This episode was a thrilling and fantastic homage to the slashers of yesteryear.
