Widow’s Bay is an island about 40 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. It’s cursed. Not just a little curse. Not just one curse. No, this island has malevolent storms, boogeymen, killer clowns, evil self help books, a haunted inn, and church bells that ring while chained down. Worst of all, if you were born there you can never leave because if you do you will die!

Widow’s Bay mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) doesn’t believe in that nonsense about curses. He intends to make Widow’s Bay a tourist destination like Martha’s Vineyard and modernize his town. He manages to get a travel writer to feature the place as a quaint vacation destination. The island doesn’t like the arrival of tourists. All hell breaks loose at once.

If Widow’s Bay sounds like a horror series, it is. It’s also very funny. It dances on the edge between horror and comedy in every episode and manages to do both very well.

The town hall is full of colorful characters. Tom works with his assistant Patricia (Kate O’Flynn) who is somehow always available day or night. Rosemary (Dale Dickey) knows all the island’s history and can’t be stopped from telling stories about it. Ruth (K Callan) is supposed to be full time help but she’s 84 and goes home whenever she feels like it.

I want everyone to know I love having Dale Dickey and K Callan in important roles in this series. #EldersRock

Ruth helps out with Tom’s teenage son Evan (Kingston Rumi Southwick). Tom raised Evan pretty much alone because his wife died in childbirth (at least that’s the story Tom tells).

The town hall is also home to Dale (Jeff Hiller). Dale and Rosemary are a comedy team on their own and deserve more to do in this series. Maybe in season 2.

Every time something goes wrong, Tom calls Sheriff Bechir (Kevin Carroll). The Sheriff is helpless to solve most of the problems. You can’t arrest a curse. But he does his best to protect people’s lives.

Wyck (Stephen Root) is the town’s early warning system. He’s after Tom all the time to stop what he’s doing and let the curse die down. He warns of all the horrible things that could happen before they do. It takes Wyck a long time to convince Tom to believe his own eyes and accept that things are bad and getting worse.

In episode 6 of this 10 episode series, we flashback to 1702 where we learn the curse origin story. Once we know the background, there’s a potential solution in sight. Tom and Wyck undertake the solution in a tiny boat during a raging storm. When it’s done, they think they fixed it.

They didn’t fix it.

Back to square one. Hey, we can use the island’s ancestry.com (AKA Rosemary) to trace through 300+ years of history to a backup solution.

The backup solution fails as well. By now we are in episode 10. Whether Tom and Wyck and the gang in the town hall can end the curse in season 2 remains to be seen.

This masterpiece of comedy/horror was created by Katie Dippold. It’s streaming on Apple TV+. Absolutely recommended.