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Matthew Rhys Set to Star/EP Upcoming Apple TV+ Series Widow's Bay

Matthew Rhys is set to star as a single father and disbelieving mayor in Apple TV's upcoming ten-episode mystery thriller Widow's Bay.

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 07:37:06 -0600

by Adi Tantimedh

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Article Summary

Matthew Rhys stars and produces Apple TV+'s mystery thriller series Widow's Bay.
The show, helmed by Katie Dippold, centers on a possibly cursed New England island.
Rhys plays Mayor Tom Loftis, a single dad skeptical of the town's superstitions.
Directed by Atlanta's Hiro Murai, Widow's Bay promises mystery and intrigue.

Matthew Rhys (The Americans, Perry Mason) will be playing the lead and executive producing Widow's Bay, a new Apple TV+ 10-episode series from creator Katie Dippold, with Hiro Murai, who is best known for directing nearly all the episodes of Donald Glover's acclaimed series Atlanta and the Childish Gambino music videos, set to direct the pilot.

Once Again, Matthew Rhys is the Main Attraction

Widow's Bay is about a mysteriously cursed New England island and its superstitious citizens, led by a mayor who refuses to believe their warnings. Rhys' Mayor Tom Loftis is a no-nonsense single dad forced to deal with his town's superstitious citizens who believe it's cursed as he is desperately trying to put the area on the map as the next Nantucket. This feels a bit "TV Plot Toolkit 101" – the mysterious town with a deadly mystery (probably influenced by Twin Peaks); of course, the town is in New England because of a Stephen King influence: a middle-aged hero who's a single dad because of course his wife has to be dead so he can be all angst-ridden and guilty.

Of course, the main character doesn't believe what's going on, so the plot can be dragged out over multiple episodes to fill out episodes rather than have him see evidence, believe it, and spend the series trying to do something about it because that requires thinking about new ideas for the story. Even the title Widow's Bay sounds like a genre "mysterious town" title. It's as "television" as television is going to get because heaven forbid that TV writers try to come up with something that reflects life rather than recycles the usual mix-and-match of TV tropes in the writer's toolkit. If there was actually more worth knowing about the plot, surely they'd provide a fuller synopsis than one sentence. But hey, it's got Matthew Rhys in it, and he's always good. This will be his first TV series after HBO's reboot of Perry Mason.

From Apple Studios, Widow's Bay will be showrun and executive produced by Dippold. In addition to directing, Murai will also produce alongside Claudia Shin and Carver Karaszewski as well as Matthew Rhys. Joanne Toll will co-executive produce.

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