Review: Widow's Bay, "Lodging" | Season 1, Episode 2

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So: we have a murderous clown. To its credit, Widow’s Bay at least avoids making that clown an obvious copy of Pennywise, the king of all murderous clowns; the make-up is distinct, and Loftis gets to chat with some version of the man under said make-up for a bit. But it’s still an odd choice for the second episode of a new show that’s already clearly indebted to King’s work. It’s possible I’m a biased observer (I literally own a baseball cap with “Based on the novel by Stephen King” written on it), but if the show is trying to strike out and form its own identity, this is not the ideal way to start.

“Lodging” isn’t a bad forty minutes of television by any stretch. Like “Welcome To Widow’s Bay!”, it has a clear single episode story (for “Bay,” it was “will Loftis get the good review he craves?”; for this, it’s “will Loftis last a night in a cursed hotel?”), it moves at a good clip, and its climactic setpiece is legitimately unsettling in a fun, freaky way. There’s a decent twist, one that most viewers will see coming but which works regardless. It adds some nuance to Tom’s relationship with the town. But for all that, it still feels like a series that doesn’t quite know what it is yet.

In “Bay,” Wyck accuses Loftis of being a coward; he tells a story about Loftis as a little boy, lying about a dare because he was too frightened to go through with it. This accusation comes to a head in “Lodging,” when Loftis, in a moment of heightened tension, calls Wyck a “hick,” which doesn’t go over well with the citizens in earshot. Word spreads quickly, and Loftis soon finds himself peer pressured into spending a night at a local inn, in said inn’s most haunted room, the “Captain’s Suite.”