Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay has nabbed its spot on the 2026 podium of spectacular shows. The June 17 finale of Katie Dippold’s horror comedy puts a capper on this brief sweet taste of monocultural appointment-streaming, with the full 10-episode season becoming available to breathlessly inhale and/or pore over at scholarly length.
There’s a world of relevant storytelling to check out when you’ve got Widow’s Bay on the brain, first and foremost coming from the work of Stephen King. Breakout MVP Kate O’Flynn talked to Decider about Patricia mirroring Carrie, and creator Dippold, a Parks and Recreation veteran, told the Boston Globe:
“I really wanted to tap into that Stephen King atmosphere. And then also, a couple years ago, I went to this diner in Marblehead, Mass. It’s called the Driftwood, and it was just everything you could possibly want. It was off the sea. There’s just big coffee mugs with old stains and locals in flannel shirts talking about the day. It was very cozy and very lived in, and I just never wanted to leave. It was out of a Stephen King book.”
The 78-year-old Maine maestro of horror has been publishing for more than half a century and seeing his novels and short stories adapted since 1979’s Salem’s Lot miniseries. Strong, varyingly popular shows like Stranger Things, Midnight Mass, and From have worn their Kingfluences on their sleeves, but none have done it in the comedic register of Widow’s Bay, one-of-a-kind in its brilliant execution.
In his Stream It or Skip It, John Serba pointed out, “Around every corner – narrative or street, doesn’t matter – is another bizarre tale comprising the Stephen King short-story collection that is the town’s history.” Sean T. Collins’ Episode 1 recap nailed the context, saying, “Dippold’s expertly targeted script draws on many of the same reference points as the Netflix blockbuster [Stranger Things], though it’s more Stephen King than Steven Spielberg. But it proceeds from the idea that unless you’re a fake 1980s D&D kid, statements like ‘the fog took him’ don’t really pass muster as an explanation for why one of your neighbors has disappeared, no matter how many horror paperbacks you’ve read.”
Here are 13 King series and movies worth streaming after you’ve stepped off the Widow’s Bay ferry and gotten your feet back on land.
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Widow’s Bay structurally shares more DNA with this King-penned ABC miniseries than anything else in Uncle Stevie’s catalog. Like the sealocked community of our new favorite show, Little Tall Island centers around a tight-knit population facing a vicious weather event threatening their whole community. Both feature municipal trappings bouncing off paranormal/demonic interlopers, although Storm’s Andre Linoge and his whole deal are different than the Widow’s Bay combo of monster of the week/ancient town curse.
A huge Storm of the Century overlap comes in the penultimate episode of Season 1, “Emergency Shelter,” where an impossible, irreparable choice must be made or refused. “You’re actually considering this?” sputters one of our leads. “What would that make you? What’s that say about us, about this place? You want [your child] to grow up in a place that does something like that?”
Stream ‘STORM OF THE CENTURY’ on hulu
(Coincidentally, Dolores Claiborne, a great Kathy Bates–starring, Tony Gilroy–penned adaptation that’s neither supernatural nor available on streaming, is also set on Little Tall Island.)
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Photos: Apple TV, United Artists Patricia Moyer, meet Carietta White. The standout Episode 4, “Beach Reads,” shows us how Kate O’Flynn’s Patricia is a pariah and star of the local mean girls’ burn book. Seeing Patricia eventually beaming in a tiara and dress — being accepted (?) and even celebrated (??) by bullies and “I Don’t Know Her”s alike — really primes you to wonder if that bowl of Chekov’s red punch is about to get some type of pig’s blood-bucket treatment.
“When I read the script, I was like, ‘OK, so there’s Carrie in there, totally,’” O’Flynn told Decider’s Nicole Gallucci. “And I remember that feeling of watching Carrie, and the pain of that, and the pig’s blood, and the social anxiety. And when I read the reveal of [Patricia’s] tiara, I thought it was the funniest thing. I was crying laughing because I didn’t see it coming. And then watching it back it’s sort of heartbreaking in a way.”
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Photo: Apple TV Widow’s Bay Episode 4 really shines. The colors and vibes of Patricia’s early fits and, later, blue bathrobe cleverly mirror Shelley Duvall’s Wendy Torrance. The whole losing-her-mind thing, meanwhile, is Jack Torrance at his most tragic. A copy of the novel — with the rad 2013 Vintage Books cover — sits in the Pattiwagon bookmobile’s cardboard donations box, right next to the hexed self-help grimoire that takes her on the most fucked-up and gripping ride of the show so far.
There’s also a haunted inn (not an Overlook-sized behemoth) we’ll circle back to in a minute via 1408. And don’t forget the revolting sea hag bathtub scene in Episode 3—very Room 237.
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Weinstein Company We’re introduced to the island of Widow’s Bay shrouded in a fog threatening the community in more ways than visibility-reduction. “There’s something in the fog!” cries Stephen Root’s Wyck Crawford. Sound familiar? It should—Kingverse mainstay Jeffrey DeMunn’s character in Darabont’s flick is introduced with cries of, “Something in the mist! Something in the mist took John Lee!” Wyck says of a character named Shep, “Fog took him.”
Apple TV This is also a quotable from John Carpenter’s 1980 smash The Fog. King’s novella was published later that same year, then popularized as the opener to 1985’s Skeleton Crew collection.
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Episode 2, “Lodging,” features Matthew Rhys’ Mayor Tom Loftis spending a night in a reputedly haunted inn to prove that it’s fine for tourists. Tom endures a wild night, and the innkeeper Kurt later experiences the kind of mind-bending time dilation that room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel is known for.
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Sadly the superior 1979 miniseries isn’t readily available on streaming. Gary Dauberman’s straight-to-streamer went through development hell for years, and it shows in many ways. But hey, the story is one of King’s all-time greats, and interesting to reconsider in the afterglow of Widow’s Bay. (Ed. note: Lewis Pullman’s Ben Mears and Tom Loftis share a similar sense of style.)
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Yes, Widow’s Bay has killer clown lore, and it blessedly involves Righteous Gemstones star Tim Baltz.
But IT is never just a clownshow. It’s the saga of the rot at the heart of Derry, Maine—ancient and current, supernatural and all-too-natural. And when it comes to Welcome to Derry, you’ve got yet another mysterious fog-slash-mist engulfing and threatening a township.
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Photo: EPIX This loose adaptation of King’s 1978 ’Salem’s Lot prequel story “Jerusalem’s Lot” has more than a little in common with Widow’s Bay Episode 6, “Our History.” It’s the mid-1800s rather than early 1700s, but we’re talking about a sea captain widower dad, twisted family histories, and a spooky village with a possessive name, Preacher’s Corners.
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Photo: Apple TV Being such a malleable concept, the boogeyman of King’s 1973 short story/50-years-later adaptation doesn’t share much in common with the spooky killer in Widow’s Bay — centered in a Michael Myers–ian way in Episode 8, “Your Baggage” — but a boogeyman is a boogeyman.
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If Widow’s Bay ambiently wafts its King influences and twinners in through a window, Castle Rock aggressively firehosed Kingology into its two seasons of original storytelling. Largely set in modern times, it anchors fans with assorted side characters from the books. Widow’s Bay is superior, but Castle Rock Season 1, in particular, is a spooky banger that’s worth revisiting.
Zach Dionne writes Decider’s Streamin’ King column and makes things on Patreon.