<\/p>\n
Last week, in my recap of Widow\u2019s Bay<\/em> episode 9<\/a>, I said I was surprised that the last descendant of Richard Warren was ole Ruth Livingston, played by Katherine Callan. I was anticipating it would be Evan, Tom\u2019s son, with his late mother as a distant descendant of the Warren clan.<\/p>\n The show has more or less telegraphed a twist of that kind of caliber all season long<\/a>; it\u2019s just been a matter of how the show gets there. So I was quite shocked how Widow\u2019s Bay <\/em>took a quick left turn to put the spotlight on Ruth, who up to this point has been a pretty minor character to the point some of us (me, shamefully) might have forgotten who she was if Tom didn\u2019t remind us she\u2019s Evan\u2019s occasional babysitter. But one week later and on the eve of the show\u2019s finale, I might not be wrong at all.<\/p>\n Since \u201cEmergency Shelter\u201d premiered on Apple TV last weekend, a single fan theory has popped up across YouTube<\/a>, TikTok<\/a>, Reddit<\/a>, and outlets like ScreenRant<\/em><\/a>. Even Dustin Rowles over at Pajiba<\/em><\/a> endorses it. The theory goes like this: Ruth Livingston is still not<\/em> the last descendant of Richard Warren\u2014only the last one that Rosemary was able to trace.<\/p>\n Instead, Ruth may have birthed a child out of wedlock. (How no one noticed her baby bump, or how she safely went into labor, isn\u2019t really an important question here.) That child would be Lauren, Tom\u2019s late wife who was born on Widow\u2019s Bay, thus making the last living descendant Evan. That brings us neatly back to where I thought we would be all along: Tom must now face the possibility of killing his own son to not fulfill his dreams but to save the people of Widow\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n There\u2019s evidence to support this theory. Rewinding back to episode 8, \u201cYour Baggage,\u201d Lauren\u2019s handwritten letters to Evan allude to more than one maternal figure in Evan\u2019s life. \u201cEveryone has two mothers. A mother and a secret mother,\u201d she wrote (and which Evan read aloud in the episode). Of course, the letter directly referred to Lauren\u2019s illness, in which she wrote that she is \u201cyour secret mom, and I live in a secret house,\u201d meaning the psychiatric hospital. (They might have still called it asylums in Lauren\u2019s lifetime.) But it\u2019s easy to see Lauren\u2019s letter as a bit of foreshadowing to Ruth being Evan\u2019s grandmother, or the \u201csecret mother\u201d in his life. After all, why was Tom so comfortable with making Ruth watch him all the time?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a less likely, far wackier theory that feels eerily right for Widow\u2019s Bay<\/em>: What if Ruth<\/em> is Evan\u2019s mother? I know, I know\u2014gross. And I hear you, episode 5, \u201cWhat to Expect on Your Trip\u201d flashes back to Lauren\u2019s delivery of Evan. Or did it? There\u2019s been enough supernatural illusions and misdirections on the island to obscure even objective reality. (The episode \u201cBeach Reads\u201d comes to mind.) Could the island have somehow tricked Tom into thinking Evan was his and Lauren\u2019s son, when in fact he\u2019s Ruth\u2019s son? That would be a shocking enough twist few of us could have seen coming, even if it barely makes any logical sense. Then again, what does in Widow\u2019s Bay?<\/p>\n Ultimately, I\u2019m choosing to go with Ruth as Evan\u2019s grandmother. It\u2019s tight, neat, and the show doesn\u2019t have to bend so far backwards to explain any obvious holes. And it gets right to heart of the matter quicker. The point isn\u2019t<\/em> who has Warren blood in them. It\u2019s about what Tom, our main character, is willing to pay for his dreams. If Tom is willing to kill Ruth, but not<\/em> his own son, then what does that say about Tom? What does it say about Tom that he\u2019s willing to cross the point of no return for someone that doesn\u2019t \u201cmatter\u201d to him, but he\u2019s not willing to do the same when it\u2019s his own kin?<\/p>\n You simply can\u2019t choose like that. The trolley problem does not care about blood. You either kill for a supposed greater good or you do not. There is no picking and hem-hawwing based on who is rope-tied to the tracks. For Tom, he\u2019ll have to decide exactly how much Widow\u2019s Bay\u2019s survival\u2014and to a larger degree, his own personal ambitions\u2014really mean to him if he\u2019s willing to kill for it.<\/p>\n The show is still a comedy, by the way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n