Note: This article contains spoilers from “Widow’s Bay” Episode 8.
When “Widow’s Bay” creator Katie Dippold started casting the Apple TV series, she thought she knew how she wanted Patricia, the socially anxious, neurotic assistant of Mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys), to come across. And then she saw Kate O’Flynn’s audition tape.
“The great [casting director] Allison Jones sent us her tape, and honestly, she wasn’t exactly what I’d imagined. But at the same time, I watched her and was just like, ‘Oh, that’s Patricia,’” Dippold told TheWrap about casting the scene-stealing star, adding, “She’s an amazing actress. She’s so funny, and I just buy completely that she lives on this island when I watch her.”
Patricia has won over viewers’ hearts and garnered more than a few of their laughs over the course of “Widow’s Bay” Season 1, including in the memorable early season chapter “Beach Reads.” That episode put Patricia front and center, giving viewers a striking look at the pain, social invisibility and desperation that drives so much of her character. In the series’ eighth installment, this week’s “Your Baggage,” Patricia gets another go in the spotlight.
After luring viewers into a lull of peace and accomplishment, the episode abruptly shifts into an atmosphere of sudden, bone-chilling horror when the Boogeyman (Airon Armstrong), the masked serial killer who almost murdered Patricia when she was a teenager, comes back to try to finish the job. The Boogeyman’s return sends “Widow’s Bay” hurtling into full-blown slasher territory. Its final 20 minutes follow Patricia as she is relentlessly pursued by the Boogeyman down the lonely streets of Widow’s Bay, ignored and turned away by Kris (Lauren Bittner) and some of her other, longtime high school tormentor-friends and nearly killed.
Along the way, Patricia reveals that Kris was right that the Boogeyman never harassed her with calls like he did his other victims. She, however, insists the serial killer did try to murder her, a fact that is confirmed by his targeting of her in “Your Baggage.” In one of the show’s most cathartic and unexpected moments, though, it is Patricia who emerges victorious at the end of “Widow’s Bay’s” unforgettable eighth episode.
After gunning down the Boogeyman with two vicious shotgun blasts, she does not leave the Michael Myers-esque murderer’s side until his body has been cremated and reduced to ash. Speaking with TheWrap, O’Flynn called shooting the pivotal slasher chase in “Your Baggage” a “bucket list moment, for sure.”
“I felt like my four-year-old self in the mirror [with that shotgun],” the actress said with a laugh. “It really was a dream project for me, this whole show, and the style of the piece, the writing of it, as well as getting to work on it with actors like Matthew and Stephen [Root]. It was just amazing.”
Below, O’Flynn dives further into Patricia’s journey in “Widow’s Bay” Episode 8, what the installment’s biggest revelations reveal about her character’s darkest fears and what it feels like to become the show’s resident Final Girl.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
TheWrap: What was your reaction when you read the script for this episode for the first time?
Kate O’Flynn: I didn’t know I was getting another episode, so it was wild to me. It was sort of a fantasy, you know? I never really imagined myself in something where I’d get to be a, like, Scream Queen. So to get to do it? I just felt like a kid in a sweet shop. It was so fun to me. It wasn’t work really, despite the amount of running I had to do. [Laughs]
In the episode, we learn Patricia lied about getting calls from the Boogeyman as a teenager, but not about the attack on her. What do you think that says about her as a character?
O’Flynn: She has this fear of not being believed, which then causes her to lie, which then causes her to not be believed. She just has that knee-jerk response, which is totally recognizable. You go, “I’ve not had the same experience as everyone else, but I need people to believe me, so I’ll just get on board with that.” That form of tying herself into knots is very Patricia.
She seems to completely give up on trying to win over her old high school crowd when she tases Kris in this episode. What do you think inspires her to do that?
O’Flynn: The stakes are so high. There’s a Boogeyman that’s trying to kill her, probably kill all these women, and they’re still bitching about something that’s happened way back! She’s just over it. I think that’s what it is. There’s something bigger going on, so she’s finally able to stop this polite act, which isn’t really Patricia. She struggles with pitching herself right, I think, with people, and I think you see that entirely in that moment.
Katie has talked a lot about making sure the humor of the show never undercuts the horror. What was your collaboration with [episode director] Andrew [DeYoung] like? How did you two find the right line between physical comedy and genuine, infectious terror?
O’Flynn: The direction on set was just to perform the situation as real as possible, which is what we’d done the whole time. The notes were, “Maybe trip up on this bit. Maybe get your legs tangled up in the taser cord here. Try that.” I just concentrated on those notes because they were very simple things to concentrate on. I didn’t have to worry about the tone. I just tried to worry about getting the taser cable tied up right in my legs. [Laughs]
Sometimes, to keep the energy up and to make sure you got her fear, he’d say just before a take started, “Scream and run now,” and then it would be, “Action!” I’d just scream and run and that was it. And, in the end, I really loved watching the final sequence back with all the sound design on it. Because it’s deadly silent sometimes, which is terrifying, and then Enya comes on! It’s just brilliant.
Patricia gets an unexpected, very real victory at the end of this episode when she kills the Boogeyman. What was it like for you to get to perform and see her have that moment?
O’Flynn: It was really satisfying. I think there is a danger of viewers pitying Patricia, of feeling too sorry for her. I hate that. I hate it when that happens, when characters are pitied. She’s not to be pitied. You really see the guts of her and her come-through in Episode 8. You get to see her not [conform to her] archetype, or even just as a “normal” sort of Final Girl. I find that very pleasing, because I would find it pleasing as a viewer myself. It’s nice to see something different.
How does it feel to be a member of the horror genre’s Final Girl Club?
O’Flynn: I had no idea what Final Girl meant until I started doing press for this! I’ve only just started to understand what it means, but it feels great!
Well, you are one now. So congratulations!
O’Flynn: I’ll take it! [Laughs]
It really feels like Patricia is getting stronger, more assertive this season, whereas Wyck and Tom are being broken down a bit more. What do you think about her journey so far ?
O’Flynn: I was just talking about that actually because, you know, she is sad at the beginning of Episode 8. Obviously, they’re all relieved that [the curse] seems to be over, but there is a sadness that Patricia feels because it means this little community of hers is gone. It’s like the moment she finally got a kind of social life is gone, and she does find strength in this bigger cause. It enables her to find community and back herself. When the chips are down, Patricia has a bravery to her.
At the same time, I do love Patricia’s neuroses as well, so I don’t want them to go away entirely. You do see her get stronger in this season, but I don’t think she could ever become a completely different person. I just find it too funny, her victim [complex] and her bickering with Tom.
New episodes of “Widow’s Bay” premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV.
