Matthew Rhys Is (Still) The Most Miserable Man On TV

What I like about Widow’s Bay is that it manages to be a bunch of things all at once. It’s a comedy that can be deliciously silly and stupid at times while also rewarding a close watch with genius-level visual gags. It’s a spooky show with genuine tension and gasp-inducing jump scares that still manages to be tolerable for the horror-averse fraidy cats out there like me. It’s a showcase for a slew of talented performers to shine like diamonds in limited screentime, with Kate O’Flynn and Stephen Root stealing scenes so frequently I can’t decide if they should be nominated for Emmys or charged with grand larceny. Mostly, though, it’s another excuse to make Matthew Rhys look miserable on television. 

I say “another” here because there is history to discuss. Specifically, there is The Americans, the FX series where Rhys and his real-life wife, Keri Russell, played married KGB spies living undercover in the United States. It was a great show, full of drama and action and conflict, all set against the global political fiasco of the Cold War. As the series progressed, Rhys’s character, Philip Jennings, became more and more conflicted, to the degree he wore his weariness on his face pretty much all the time. I started making screencaps of his face at various points to use in weekly recaps I was doing at the time, and I still have so, so many of them. Look at this guy.

My favorite was when he’d get sad during an undercover mission because then he’d look miserable in disguise, too. 

All of which brings us back to Widow’s Bay, where he plays the mayor of a haunted town that appears to be tormenting him personally at times. The residents are annoyed with him, either for taking the spookiness too seriously or not seriously enough. His teenage son hates him and is acting out. Ghouls are trying to seduce and/or murder him and he’s accidentally dosing himself with nightmare-inducing mushrooms and… yeah, my guy is not having a great time. Which means, unfortunately for him, that I am having a great time. It’s kind of like what I said after watching Nicholas Braun — Cousin Greg from Succession — play another bumbling goof in The Sheep Detectives. I can understand how odd it is to have carved out a niche for yourself as an actor that requires you to be hapless and/or in emotional distress at all times, but it really is quite enjoyable to watch. 

I mean, look at this guy. 

Yes, I have some more. 

That last one is notable for two reasons:

• It was nice of the show to make him wear the life jacket on the boat because it somehow made him look even more squeamish
• At one point in that episode, the boat lurched and he got flung right outta the screen and it made me laugh very hard

I really don’t know how I can make this point any more clearly: we are witnessing greatness here. No actor on television depicts sheer misery through facial expressions quite like Matthew Rhys. He’s so good at it that he’s now deployed it in both an occasionally depressing drama about spies and an occasionally terrifying comedy about a haunted island. The man’s misery has range. He has frowns that can make you laugh and frowns that can make you cry. Sometimes, when his character on Widow’s Bay gets scared, he shrieks a little, too. That’s a fun new tool he’s added to his already impressive collection. It’s kind of like how Michael Jordan showed up one season and had perfected the turnaround jumper, but with televised depictions of misery. 

What I like most about it all is that Matthew Rhys, who spends most of his working hours making faces that look like his cheeks might slide right down off of his jaw, seems to be a lovely and often goofy man. Like, do you remember The Wine Show? God, what a delightful little television program that was. He and Matthew Goode basically just bounced around Europe for a bunch of episodes learning about and tasting wines and being silly little rascals. He had a big bushy beard and often laughed so hard his entire face turned red.  

I feel like you don’t believe me. Fine. I will prove it to you.

All of this brings me to the following conclusions:

• Having a beard makes Matthew Rhys happy
• Matthew Rhys should make a new show every 7-10 years where he gets to play the most beleaguered man who has ever lived 
• If there is a second season of Widow’s Bay, they should consider casting Nicholas Braun as the next mayor and let him bumble around with some demons for a while 

I challenge you to find a single flaw with any of these. 

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STUFF I CLICKED ON

— Popstar is one of the funniest movies ever made and we were blessed with an oral history for the 10-year anniversary

— I will always read a profile of Paul Rudd

— I am so proud of whoever wrote this headline: "Ball strike system: Why MLB catchers are getting hit in the groin more often"

— incredible story about a streamer named Doctor Spaghetti going down the rabbit hole to see if Guy Fieri actually eats the food he’s biting into

— pretty much everything about Rich Eisen’s new This Was Sportscenter” project is aimed directly at me

— two good Defector blogs on extremely cool athletes: one about Cristopher Sanchez and one about Olivia Miles

— John Oliver won another defamation suit

— Mister Rogers on YouTube 

— Hercule Poirot is young and hot now, apparently

— John C. Reilly is a good man who gave Leonardo DiCaprio some terrible career advice lol

— lord knows I love a caper and here’s a great one about Taiwan secretly flying its president to Africa 

— stop reading this sentence and go look at the photos from Lucho Libro, the event that combines support for libraries with amateur wrestling

— bourbon heist

— cockroach heist 

— I am very happy for the grizzly bear that removed its own tracking collar 

— "Bumblebees have tiny brains but they can solve problems like chimps and elephants"

— I mentioned Popstar earlier so I have to post a Popstar song and I’m gonna go with… oh, let’s go with Mona Lisa

Okay, that's it for this week. Please subscribe and share and shriek a little if you get scared.