‘One-of-a-kind’ new thriller show with 100% Rotten Tomatoes score streaming now

We need a second season of this ASAP.

Accessible through the service Apple TV, the show is titled Widow's Bay. It is set entirely in and around the titular island, a quaint and isolated place located 40 miles off the coast of New England.

The story mostly follows the island's new mayor, Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys, The Beast in Me), an outsider who's desperate to turn the wifi-less patch of land into a tourist hub à la Martha's Vineyard.

He faces strong opposition from the locals, led by veteran fisherman Wyck (Stephen Root, Barry), who believe that Widow's Bay's picturesque beauty masks something sinister.

Just as Tom's plan seems to be succeeding and tourists begin flocking to the island, the area is shaken by a series of bizarre occurrences.

This leads the mayor to rapidly rethink his scepticism of the superstitious locals.

WATCH: JOE's spoiler-free interview with Widow's Bay creator Katie Dippold and director Hiro Murai

Widow's Bay Review

Widow's Bay currently holds a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with much of this praise going to the show's impressive blend of comic and horror/thriller elements.

We'd echo this sentiment. It's incredible how frequently funny the series manages to be while still delivering genuinely tense set-pieces and maintaining a constantly eerie mood.

Part of this is down to the exceptional and well-chosen cast. Prestige TV veterans Rhys and Root do typically brilliant work in the lead roles, finding humour, as well as humanity, in their warring characters' extreme clash in viewpoints.

The real standout, though, is British actress and Mike Leigh regular Kate O'Flynn, making her US debut. She plays Patricia, a Widow's Bay native traumatised by the island's dark past but determined to make the best of the situation by allying with Mayor Tom.

Her admirable but misguided attempts to improve the island and her life, and the way the actress portrays that inner clash between light and darkness, is hysterical and heartbreaking in equal measure. Indeed, the two episodes that centre on Patricia are Widow's Bay's best.

Kate O'Flynn in Widow's Bay

Also helping with the blend of comedy and spooky thrills is director Hiro Murai (Atlanta), who helmed five of the 10 episodes. His clever camerawork locates the creepiness of the titular island's uncanilly beautiful exteriors and interiors.

Creator Katie Dippold (Parks and Recreation) and her team of writers, meanwhile, often use humour, not to undercut the horrors, but rather make the people at the centre of them feel more believable and recognisable.

Widow's Bay is ingeniously constructed, with every episode introducing a new supernatural element. Each one of these builds and builds to a properly apocalyptic feeling finale.

Yet, for all the show's impressive juggling of tones, narrative rug-pulls, and homages to classic horrors such as Halloween and Jaws, viewers will be surprised by how much they care about the island's residents by the time the credits roll on its final episode.

Though Widow's Bay does eventually provide answers to its main season-long mystery, it also leaves several plot threads unresolved. This may frustrate less patient viewers.

That said, this is one of those cases where the journey is as important as the destination. Plus, we'd definitely tune into season two for more.

Widow's Bay Interview

Ahead of Widow's Bay's release, JOE spoke to its creator, Katie Dippold, and lead director, Hiro Murai.

Dippold told us about the show's nearly 20-year-long road to the screen. A first draft was written all the way back in 2008 and helped the creator land a job as a staff writer on the hit sitcom Parks and Recreation.

On how the series changed throughout the years, Katie said: "This script has had such a journey. It's kind of crazy.

"It started really joke-focused, and I think it gave a good sense of my humour. I think that's what got me the job at Parks and Rec.

"At that time… I don't know that I would have watched it. I think it could have felt like a parody. What I want most of all for this is to feel like a real world with real characters, so you can really get lost in it."

Katie continued: "So I just kept coming back to it. Most screenwriters have a novel they keep going [back] to. This was my version of that.

"Anytime I would travel to the East Coast, I would just brainstorm with a notebook, and so I just kept doing that for years and years."

Dippold also credited her director, Hiro Murai, and his work on Atlanta, as influencing how Widow's Bay developed over time.

"Storytelling on TV just kind of changed," she explained.

"I remember watching Atlanta and seeing what they were doing on that show.

"It just got me thinking more about what you could do... so it was just very creatively freeing."

Murai also explained to JOE his reasons for joining Widow's Bay as a director and helming so many of its episodes.

"I remember telling Katie I just hadn't read anything like it before," he said.

"There's something about the way she calibrated all the tones... where it felt like it was harkening back to a cosy, nostalgic era of TV, but also touching something that felt really modern and urgent.

"There's kind of a tension between the cosiness and the discomfort and the anxiety underneath it.

"There's something about it that felt very evocative. It's something I hadn't seen before, and I just wanted to be part of constructing that."

Dippold then joked to Murai: "I also feel like doing this many tones is a challenge, and I think you are a lunatic who likes a challenge."

Laughing, Murai replied: "I think I just like to be like: 'I don't know what this is and I want to see it real.'

"This is one of those cases."

How to watch Widow's Bay

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Widow's Bay's first two episodes are streaming on Apple TV now.

They will be followed by new episodes every Wednesday on the streaming service through 17 June, with a special two-episode release on Wednesday, 27 May.