Emmy-winner Matthew Rhys may be the marquee star of Apple TV’s new horror comedy Widow’s Bay. But it’s Kate O’Flynn as his disturbingly hilarious right-hand woman, Patricia, who is exploding off the screen.
If you knew anything about Widow’s Bay before it premiered two weeks ago, it was probably that it was something rare on TV: a chance for Rhys to be funny.
Since he played Kevin, one of the many brothers and sisters of Brothers & Sisters, Rhys fans have been more accustomed to seeing him in some of TV’s grimmest shows: in The Americans as Philip Jennings, the most heartsick covert operative ever to complete communist Russian spy training; in HBO’s Perry Mason as the titular character, despondent enough to bum out other characters also living through The Great Depression; in The Beast In Me as a Robert Durst-ish real estate scion widely suspected of murder.
Even though Rhys, as the titular town’s embattled mayor Tom Loftis, is Widow’s Bay’s marquee star, you may find your attention pulled away from him in any scene that also features Tom’s fellow town administrator Patricia, played by the British character actress.
In a career built on quirkily memorable supporting roles, O’Flynn may have finally found the vehicle that gives her true breakout potential.
O’Flynn’s first film, 2008’s Happy-Go-Lucky, is a character study about Poppy (Sally Hawkins), an unflappably cheerful primary school teacher whose joy in life is challenged by her driving instructor Scott (Eddie Marsan), a misanthropic incel before the term was in common use; O’Flynn plays Suzy, Poppy’s younger sister.
Late in the film, their married sister Helen (Caroline Martin) invites the two of them and Poppy’s housemate Zoe (Alexis Zegerman) for an apparently overdue visit to her suburban house in the final weeks of Helen’s first pregnancy. Failing to elicit, from her singleton visitors, the jealousy of her settled married life she’s clearly been craving for months, Helen lashes out. Her temper tantrum is bookended by Suzy—who spends most of her scenes reclined at a 45-degree angle, too bored or drunk to participate in the conversations happening around her—engaging Helen’s husband Jamie (Oliver Maltman) by trying to fire up his PlayStation against Helen’s wishes.
Writer-director Mike Leigh must have loved what O’Flynn did with Suzy and her low-key rebellion: Happy-Go-Lucky was just the first of Leigh and O’Flynn’s collaborations, followed by Mr. Turner, Peterloo, and an as-yet untitled project still to come.
A few years later, O’Flynn joined one of the century’s most beloved rom-com franchises with her role in Bridget Jones’s Baby. In keeping with her usual chaos, Bridget (Renée Zellweger) has one of the least convenient pregnancies in film history.
That her hook-ups with Jack (Patrick Dempsey) and Mark (Colin Firth) happen too close together to determine which of them might be the father is enough of a problem. On top of that, Bridget has a new management team at work—led by O’Flynn’s Alice—that she’s trying to impress. Proving her facility with TV journalism’s newest trends, even at the advanced age of 43, is a challenge for Bridget. Unfortunately, it becomes a very public challenge when her presentation at a media conference is derailed by technical issues.
Alice’s behind turns out to be as tight as her topknot, and she never quite gets over seeing “How can i get my boss fired?” in Bridget’s search history. Though Alice ends up firing Bridget, keeping her out of last year’s Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, we’ll always remember her emergency backup programming: A video package of cats who look like Hitler.
When the opportunity came for O’Flynn to star in a family sitcom, it was about as far from The Goldbergs or Everybody Loves Raymond as you can get. Sure, the Lewises of Manchester are typical on paper—father, mother, one daughter, one son—but the reason the show that features them is titled Everyone Else Burns is that they belong to The Order Of The Divine Rod, an evangelical Christian sect whose adherents believe the end of the world is imminent.
The series opens with the father, David (Simon Bird), evacuating the household ahead of the apocalypse, only to reveal it was just a readiness drill. O’Flynn plays Fiona, the family matriarch, whose religious devotion starts to waver when Melissa (Morgana Robinson) moves in next door, exposing Fiona to such secular temptations as entrepreneurship and smutty streaming dramas.
Though The CW briefly aired the season in 2023, the second never found a home in the U.S.—a true shame for discerning viewers who had grown fond of Fiona’s adventurous ramen eating and patience for David’s crush on the maiden in the Sun-Maid Raisins box art.
Widow’s Bay’s Patricia is, of the roles listed above, probably closest to Fiona: seemingly a meek wallflower until you get close enough to understand how very tightly wound she is. Being born and raised on a cursed island will do that to you—that is, if it doesn’t turn you into a nihilistic borderline alcoholic like Patricia’s colleague Rosemary (Dale Dickey).
In the series premiere, Patricia reminds Tom about her defining encounter with one of Widow’s Bay’s evils: When she was in high school, a serial murderer known as The Boogeyman came to her house, and she still sleeps with a dresser in front of her bedroom door.
This week’s fourth episode, “Beach Reads,” fills out the story. The reason why, when Patricia stops in to a wine night hosted by one of her classmates, everyone except the new arrival from Portsmouth acts like Patricia is invisible (or worse) is that they think she made up her story to borrow some of the dark glamor of the classmates The Boogeyman did murder back then.
That this comes out at the Sunset Cocktails Patricia has organized as her redemption from social oblivion—assisted by Your Turn: Out With The Old And In With The New, a self-help book by Lucy Fours recently donated to her bookmobile, The Pattiwagon—is a shame, but surely Patricia has the determination to rescue the night! She just has to do as the book advises and SERVE THE PUNCH NOW.
The episode clocks in under 36 minutes, but each scene sketches in a new shade of Patricia’s loneliness and desperation to fit in before she finds community somewhere very unexpected. Patricia’s night hostessing can be tough to watch; her manic “This Is How We Do It” dance break certainly isn’t.
Of the many storylines that thread through the season of Widow’s Bay, Patricia’s evolution from disappointed, disregarded local government drone to warrior battling supernatural forces is one of the most exciting.
If you’re new to the Kate O’Flynn fandom, welcome: many more are probably about to crowd into the party soon.
