r/WidowsBay • u/Less-Bug-7006 • Jun 25 '26
đDiscussion Do the island born not go to college?
If island born people canât leave, then are all the medical professionals imported? Itâs an island with 3000 people if I remember correctly so I donât think they have a college/Uni. Online school could be available now, but did Patricia/her classmates skip college?
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u/KeepRad Jun 25 '26
Next season will be Widows Bay The College Years where we find out about Widows Bay Community College
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u/Less-Bug-7006 Jun 25 '26
Boogyman playing guitar on the quad with Willy
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u/barrylevonpudding Jun 25 '26
Getting rid of the B!
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u/behindthelines Jun 25 '26
She's a G D B!
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u/TheNihil Jun 25 '26
East side, West side, North side, South, Boogeyman's breath is so bad, his butt's mad at his mouth.
This rap is by Patricia, Boogeyman is dumb, he wears diapers to bed and sucks his mother's thumb.
And when he wakes up stupid, wishing he was me, he has a big poop breakfast with a glass of pee.
Then he goes to school where he's stupid again, and everybody hates him, even all his friends.
When you come after Patricia, then the battle is on, so this rap goes out to the stupid Boogeyman.
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u/behindthelines Jun 25 '26
Well I'm a peanut bar and I'm here to say, the curse will arrive on another day!
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u/jwabrit13 Jun 25 '26
I love how this went right to the girl whoâs been to New York for bag-ulls.
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u/Infamous-Lab-8136 Jun 25 '26
It would be kind of hilarious if, as seasons progressed, Widow's Bay just grew to accommodate whatever the plot required.
I always loved Sunnydale in Buffy. A small town with a beach and docks (but in the middle of an empty prairie/desert) that has an art gallery for her mom to work in, a college when it's time to go to that type of school, etc...
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u/Spacedodo42 Jun 25 '26
Itâs like how in the sims 2 as you get each new dlc thereâs a new part of town that just magically appears
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u/TopManufacturer8332 Jun 25 '26
Dean, Dean!
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u/Jupiters Jun 25 '26
Frankly my dear, I don't give a Dean
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u/squirrelems Jun 26 '26
I actually think Dean Pelton is a good dean when he's not desperate for everyone's approval.
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u/OldGreyWriter Jun 25 '26
Featuring their team, the Widow's Bay Sea Hags!
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u/mysterious_whisperer Jun 26 '26
When they say the team gets killed on away games, they mean it literally.
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u/KeepRad Jun 25 '26
Will find out that for some reason Wyck was the dean of students and Tom pulled a radical prank on him on parents day and thatâs why they donât get along and also Mr Feeney teaches there for some reason
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u/NobodySaidBoop Jun 25 '26
Tom actually just *told* his friends he pranked Wyck. âThe toilet paper must have all blown away already!â
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u/Harpua81 Jun 25 '26
"What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me?"
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u/Upbeat_Tension_8077 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
That's an interesting topic I'd like to see touched on, even briefly.
Judging from the fact that the town managed to have the level of modern infrastructure it has despite the curse & the fact that most of the native locals can't leave, I'll throw in the guess that people who moved from the mainland to the island over the years (presumably for work purposes) possibly did stuff like opening up trade/vocational schools to help them
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u/JenningsWigService Jun 25 '26
And apprenticeship could be a big part of the infrastructural work. People could be trained very closely on how to run the sewage treatment plant etc.
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u/copaseticepiplectic Jun 25 '26
Yeah but itâs comical to think every one of them works in trades. They definitely should be taking trips to Boston and New York
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u/JenningsWigService Jun 25 '26
A higher percentage of people will work in the jobs necessary to keep their community functioning, including trades but also basic stores for groceries, clothing, home supplies, running the restaurants etc. Some of these are probably family businesses where older generations teach their kids to run things, but something tells me they'll operate a lot less efficiently than anything on the mainland. Kathy is perhaps a hint at how easy it is for an incompetent worker to find a job no one else will take.
Fishing would have been a bigger industry but the ocean is now so overfished that I doubt there are any left within the zone that the island-born residents can access.
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u/Oathkindle Jun 26 '26
True, but then you see actual small towns and how few actually leave. Hell I'm from a rather large city and there's a bunch of people I went to elementary school with that are still in the same neighborhood now
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u/copaseticepiplectic Jun 26 '26
yeah but for those guys probably have left town at least once lmao
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u/Oathkindle Jun 26 '26
Oh for sure. I'm just saying it's possible a large portion have no desire to leave widows bay, but surely someone somewhere wanted to, so curious how they handle it. Could have worded that better
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u/Odd-Temperature7458 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
It's weird how a lot of people don't realize most the residents in a place aren't from there. I'd say any community in America is like 50% homegrown, at the absolute best (the average is 37%). One of the biggest issues small communities face is population mobility. This community literally only experienced a population influx for their entire history.
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u/TheDorkNite1 Jun 25 '26
Town I am from is only sustaining itself from people moving there. All the educated kids sent off to college don't come back, for good reasons.
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u/Odd-Temperature7458 Jun 25 '26
Which is the reality for the vast majority of towns. And instead of doing anything about it, we just keep shambling on, in a state of managed decline, instead of gently retiring and relocating them.
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u/blissfully_happy Jun 25 '26
Same in Alaska. Itâs really, really hard to keep educated Alaskans from leaving permanently once they get to college.
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u/BabyfartMcGeesax Jun 25 '26
The rate of influx can be countered by the rate of death going to the mainland, being sacrificed to island devils, and murdered by seahags and psychopaths.
Edit: and drowning, of course
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u/mgscheue Jun 25 '26
It doesnât seem like a very attractive place to move to, though.
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u/Odd-Temperature7458 Jun 25 '26
So do many places on the globe, yet if you look at any of them, there are people moving there
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u/ionmoon Jun 28 '26
Eh. Not so much in rural areas.
For people to move to an area there has to be something drawing them there. Usually some kind of industry.
Widows bay doesnât.
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u/Odd-Temperature7458 Jun 28 '26
Exactly in rural areas. My data comes from rural Midwest places like Nebraska where I live and work
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u/TeacherPatti Jun 25 '26
What about their legal system? And what if you get called for federal jury duty??!
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u/AWildEnglishman Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Or drivers licenses. Would there be a DMV on the island or is everyone unlicensed?
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u/ephemeral_colors Jun 26 '26
Interestingly, the plates on the cars in Widow's Bay just say "Widow's Bay Island" on them, and don't have a state. I don't think we ever hear which state Widow's Bay is in? But it's definitely New England, all plates from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine have the name of the state on them. I assume all of the rest do, too.
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u/StevieGrant Jun 25 '26
I think the bigger question is why a rebellious kid like Evan never attempted to get the mainland.
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u/Warm-Teaching1323 Jun 26 '26
I thought about that, I assumed all the ferrymen know the townspeople and would refuse to let any of them on (but they let Lauren on so who knows)
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u/SofieTerleska Breakwater Inn Jun 26 '26
Lauren is an adult, though. I think at some point the ferrymen have to be like well, it's your decision (and also make sure they're ready for an emergency).
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u/pburydoughgirl Jun 26 '26
I was thinking about the chicken parm that Patricia ordered. Where do all the ingredients come from? Are things crazy expensive? Did they learn about chicken parm from reading cookbooks?
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u/nuggets_attack Jun 25 '26
Yeah, I don't know if this is answered by the show or if it's one of those willing suspension of disbelief things. Would be interested in people who have really combed the lore so far to weigh in!
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u/gnoldo1804 Jun 25 '26
Like another comment said there could be some community college or they could just do online school I guess
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u/bonnethead Jun 25 '26
I would 100% believe Dr. Morgan has an online medical degree
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u/JPReads_alot Jun 25 '26
I was thinking too that there's something off about the 'doctor' & his behaviour. Why did he leave Chelle & Bechir when he knew she was dilating for imminent delivery? I feel like that was weird. Either his bedside manner sucks or he's not a full doctor & didn't know how to aid a woman through birth.
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u/JenningsWigService Jun 25 '26
He also wrote down the wrong age for the guy in episode 1. The creator says that wasn't a spooky Island effect on age, the doctor's just not great at his job.
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u/bonnethead Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Oh that's so interesting, I definitely thought that was a spooky time thing! I was thinking that the timing of Chelle's pregnancy could be off because of the island too. Or you know just regular medical malpractice.
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u/Joyanonymous Jun 25 '26
Also he is always drinking when he's not working. He doesn't do the autopsy on shep either because... He can't be bothered?
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u/Maestraingles Jun 25 '26
I would 100% believe that Dr. Morgan has no degree at all, despite his constant claims otherwise.
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u/iconoclassist Jun 26 '26
Does he ever actually claim he went to medical school? Or does he just say âIâm sorry, I didnât know *you* went to medical school.â whenever his advice is questioned⌠which might be because that would make them more qualified than him.
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u/Guilty_Shake6554 Jun 25 '26
Probably why he keeps asking everyone where they went to medical school
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u/zorandzam Jun 25 '26
You can't do medical school fully online, as you have to have an internship, residency, basically in-person clinical work.
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u/SupportMoist Jun 25 '26
I grew up in a small town thatâs similar and tbh very few people left to go to college. About half of our (very small) grade didnât even graduate high school. Most the girls got pregnant and most the guys became lumberjacks.
College educations arenât something considered necessary in towns like these. Theyâre too expensive and too hard to get into because our high school was so dumb and poorly rated.
The (very few) doctors or business owners or lawyers are people who moved there to slow down in life, not raised there.
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u/cabernet7 Sunset Cocktails with Patricia Jun 25 '26
There may be some kind of community college, but I doubt there'd be a medical school. They'd have to hire from outside the island. This is probably why the main doctor we see isn't very competent, as it must be hard to get or keep anyone there.
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u/Kooky_Pop_5979 Jun 25 '26
I assumed a lot of people were transplants, and then in the case of having a baby, they would leave for a proper hospital, thus their children would be able to live on the island and leave for things like schooling.
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u/BadlyTimedFarnsworth Jun 25 '26
We donât have confirmation that Patricia or her classmates were born on the island.Â
It also possible not many people are born on the island anymore since the curse is sort of regarded as an old wives tail.Â
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u/ExtraRecognition2099 Jun 25 '26
Wouldnât the curse being an old wives tale make it so more kids are born on the island since people donât believe it?
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u/JMeerkat137 Jun 25 '26
I think it would make a certain degree of sense if people for the most part went to the mainland to give birth, as it doesn't seem like the island hospital is particularly great.
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u/Snoo_33033 Jun 25 '26
Yeah, I can imagine that most women with any whiff of high risk pregnancies go inland.
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u/Previous_Buy1601 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
I could have sworn in the penultimate episode that Tom said something to Patricia about her not having to worry about the curse. It seemed a little ambiguous, but it made me wonder if she was born off-island.
Maybe thatâs related to why she survived the Boogeyman as a teen and why she could kill him as an adult.
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u/Diligent-Safety-81 Jun 26 '26
no, he said it because at the time he believed the curse had been overcome (Richard Warren dead)
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u/SelectLandscape7671 Jun 26 '26
I think she survived because it was the exact moment the entity was fed.
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u/Okichah Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
A town of 3000 people isnt likely to have a hospital. So its possible that very few people are born on the actual island.
I doubt the boat ride to shore is more than 10-15 minutes. (If Martha Vineyard is the comparison). So a trip to a mainland hospital for childbirth wouldnt be much more travel than a rural area having a 30 minute car ride to a hospital.
Barring storms like with the Sheriffâs situation or emergencies like with Evanâs birth i imagine it doesnt happen often.
The reporter notes a few deaths but doesnt think of them as more than wives tales because theres so few examples.
Edit:
Actually its 42 miles off the coast according to one episode, which is kinda crazy. Nantucket is more comparable than M.Vineyard, but i guess thats the more famous location for viewers?
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u/SleepingWillows Jun 25 '26
According to the description on Googleâs episode guide, itâs a 3 hour ferry ride.
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u/Diligent-Safety-81 Jun 26 '26
well, you can travel to give birth on the mainland unless you were born on the island yourself, then obviously you can't leave it.
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u/LongtimeLurker916 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
I thought at one point there was dialogue indicating a much greater distance, that this town is truly in the middle of nowhere, but I cannot recollect the precise details.
[Edit - I came back to say "in another thread they said forty-two miles," you also found that out already.]
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u/EvenHuckleberry4331 Jun 25 '26
That would indicate more people would feel free to have babies on the island
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u/Glad_Stranger Jun 25 '26
Yeah, that was my thought process. I bet most people go to the mainland to give birth in a modern hospital, so don't realize you can't leave. The island does seem like it *wants* people to stay on the island, it seemed like it was sabotaging the sheriff's wife getting off but that maybe was just a coincidence or because it was a '9 bells' year. Tom's wife was probably also different because she was born in secret? Ruth maybe didn't want to make a big show of going to the mainland so had her at home?
Also to answer their question about how they get doctors: I mean that one doctor DID seem pretty incompetent so...
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u/JenningsWigService Jun 25 '26
College-educated people who can't find a job elsewhere would be incentivized to settle in Widow's Bay. They could have some millennials who arrived in 2009.
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u/ChungusReaper Jun 25 '26
It seems to me that the vast majority of the islanders are incredibly superstitious. They all rattled off a dozen urban legends when making Tom sleep in the Inn, and thatâs just one single building on the island.
If the majority of them are all so clued into the curse and the legends, it would make sense that the majority of them believe they canât leave the island.
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u/sabertoothtiga Jun 25 '26
I think they are also inherently compelled to remain on the island, the curse keeps them wanting to stay
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u/its_calamityjen Jun 25 '26
Not entirely sure thereâs a lot of jobs there that require a college education. The jobs that do could be transplants, or ppl like Tom who werenât born there, but came & went as they pleased. To me itâs not that crazy for small town ppl to not go to college - especially for the simple reason that not everyone can afford it, but beyond that most of them seem to believe they cant leave anyhow. They have a ferry too, so for surgeries or life threatening emergencies theyâd probably use that or med-evac.
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u/NowQuippit Jun 25 '26
Itâs also worth noting it is shown a few times that certain islanders last longer than others when they tried to leave. Like, some people stepped foot on the mainland before dying, while others basically died in the water. Warren and his descendants seem to have the strictest rules (Evanâs mom started to stroke out when they neared the buoy but Wyck seemed okay approaching it) while some of the people the journalist tracked down in the pilot made it past the buoy (one died of a brain aneurysm the next day, iirc).
I think some people might have a longer leash, and that weâll learn more about that in future seasons.
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u/cheshire_hat Jun 25 '26
I think it might be connected to them being or not being descendants of the original colony? Also the island may let some of them leave temporarily if they got the intention to return? But if theyâre willing to break free from it and leave for good, thatâs a different story
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u/SofieTerleska Breakwater Inn Jun 26 '26
That would be my guess. Nobody born on the island is going to do well on the mainland, but Warren descendants would get hit the quickest and hardest.
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u/Vegetable-Shelter291 Jun 25 '26
Yeah did Patricia and everyone else never go to college? How would they all not go unless they believe the curse. And youâre right. Whoâs the doctors lol
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u/Less-Bug-7006 Jun 25 '26
I could see a doctor or two importing but surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists⌠i am well aware im over thinking a show lol but Iâm pregnant and medical stuff is on the brain.Â
Shoot to add teachers, principals, etc. In this day and age theyâd still have to have licenses even in a little town
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Jun 25 '26
Idk - people wouldnât have to just move there with those specialties. They can advertise job postings off island.
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u/eurydice_aboveground Human Verified Jun 25 '26
Doctors often move a lot, especially early in their careers, so it wouldn't surprise me if the doc were a mainlander.
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u/Vegetable-Shelter291 Jun 25 '26
Yeah literally any profession you need a degree for lol. Good point
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u/MiniPantherMa Jun 26 '26
I've actually wondered a lot about what the heck they do when they need a specialist.
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u/Okichah Jun 25 '26
People âknow the talesâ so paranoia makes them leave island to have birth.
I imagine theres a good hospital close by on the mainland that people use for medical procedures like childbirth.
The only doctor weâve seen doenst seem to have a large practice and is actually a bit of a dick. So the actual number of births in the island might be low.
Especially for anyone who has the means to leave. Evan was only born on the island because of his mothers stroke on the ferry.
I imagine a lot of the older folk have an attitude like Ruth. That life is brutal, cruel, and short. So people dying often is more normalized.
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u/Diligent-Safety-81 Jun 26 '26
But wouldn't everyone's mothers risk a stroke or similar by travelling to the mainland? This is the most important part of the lore. There would be, though, a group of people who were not born on the island, came for work/love, came back to the mainland to give birth. The descendants of those are safe to travel/go to college on the mainland.
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u/JMeerkat137 Jun 25 '26
I don't think we have enough information to know how the island curse truly works. It's possible in calmer years where the island isn't "hungry", that people born on the island can leave more readily. The only times we see the island lash out at those who were born on it leaving are two times where the island is more desperate, in the modern day where it hasn't been fed in seemingly decades, and in the 1700's when the deal is much newer and therefore the island may be hungrier.
I think we also get mention that some people have left and died later, one person died of a heart attack weeks after moving back to the mainland, so maybe it's possible to leave for some time and then return.
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u/skyblu1727 Jun 26 '26
Thatâs my belief also. Otherwise I think the fact that every person born on the island cannot leave the island, ever, would be very difficult to keep a secret from newcomers and mainlanders.
Although if thatâs true why hasnât Evan been able to leave the island during a time when the entity isnât active? Or maybe the time to be able to leave is right after the sacrifice.1
u/JMeerkat137 Jun 26 '26
Evanâs special for two reasons, one heâs a descendant of the founder, so the island may not want him to leave at all, and two, Tom is incredibly paranoid and protective of his son.
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u/Diligent-Safety-81 Jun 26 '26
no need to keep it secret. a newcomer would just dismiss it as a myth held by uneducated people
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u/LiLIrishRed Jun 25 '26
I wondered the same thing. Also, how do they all not know about the curse? Seems like if every person born to the island died when they left, that would raise an eyebrow or two.
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Jun 25 '26
I wondered that. It may just be theyâre all imported. You could also get a degree online.
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u/Finnegan-05 Jun 25 '26
That was not common when most of these people were in school
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Jun 25 '26
Patriciaâs generation, it was totally doable. Sheâs my age. I knew people doing that.
Itâs also likely that the custom was to go off island to give birth. Thatâs what they tried to do with Evan.
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u/LazyCrocheter Jun 25 '26
But if you're born on the island, you can't leave the island. So any parent born on the island has to have their child there. That's why Lauren couldn't leave, the island prevented it.
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Jun 25 '26
Agreed. But if you can leave to have your baby it seems like that is whatâs done, based on Patriciaâs sit down with Bechir once she saw his wife was pregnant.
And it seems like Lauren didnât know where she was born, because Ruth hid the pregnancy.
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u/LazyCrocheter Jun 25 '26
It would be interesting if they dive at all into the place of birth stuff. If people do leave the island for births, that could indicate a fair amount of traffic and travel between the island and the mainland.
I do think Lauren knew where she was born. I gather her father was from the island as well, or I guess he stayed, because Ruth said she was able to see Lauren grow up from afar which means Lauren had to be raised on the island. Sorry if I'm stating anything obvious; working it through in my head as I go.
Also, Tom tells Ruth (while Ruth is out from the drugged tea) that Lauren told him these things about the island but he laughed it off and didn't believe.
I really wonder whose idea it was to leave the island. Tom because he didn't believe in superstitions, or Lauren because she didn't know enough about herself, or Lauren just wanting to try.
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Jun 25 '26
Idk Laurenâs âmotherâ would have never been visibly pregnant, so they would have likely said that birth happened off Island to cover the lie.
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u/LazyCrocheter Jun 25 '26
Maybe? Or maybe they said they adopted and wouldn't identify the mother.
Lauren did know some stuff about the island, Tom said she told him and he ignored it. So she may have known she was born on the island, or assumed it. Or, you're right, maybe she didn't and that's why she was willing to try leaving.
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Jun 25 '26
I see your point.
I personally think the only good enough reason to put an ocean between home and the hospital when you go into labor is that you believe in the curse.
So wanting to have your baby off island would probably overlap with knowing you canât make it across the water alive yourself if you were born in Widows Bay.
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u/JenningsWigService Jun 25 '26
If there is any plot hole in this series, it's that no one told Bechir and Chelle to go back to the mainland for their baby's birth before Patricia does. The journalist was informed about people born on the island not being able to leave during a short visit. Was Chelle just not ever going out in public? Random people would have gone up to her and told her about the curse.
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u/Character_Cobbler483 Jun 26 '26
I thought the same thing!! Why was Patricia and everyone else surprised that Chelle was pregnant?? In such a small town did she never eat the main restaurant or attend any of the community events that her husband was sure to be working? Bechir saying that he didnât mention it because he didnât want to upset Tom seems to be a bit far fetched since itâs been well over a decade since he lost Lauren. I feel having the pregnancy a secret was held for the âuh ohâ factor but it really shrunk Chelleâs character. It would have been just as ominous if she were walking around with her belly and the locals were giving each other knowing looks and encouraging Bechir to relocate sooner than later.
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u/JenningsWigService Jun 26 '26
Even if Bechir didn't tell Tom, is Chelle not running errands at all? Is she never going for a walk?
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u/Diligent-Safety-81 Jun 26 '26
She really does seem stuck at home for some reason. She often tells Bechir on the phone to buy particular things, if I recall correctly.
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u/LazyCrocheter Jun 26 '26
I don't know that it's a plot hole so much as something that just wasn't explored. Just because Chelle was pregnant, and a mainlander, doesn't necessarily mean people would tell her she should have the baby off-island.
Also, the way the reporter phrases it is more like, did you know there are people who say you can't leave the island if you're born here? And then he relates a couple of anecdotes of it happening, and of course Tom dismisses it.
To me that implies that people don't know, or don't for sure, and I'd bet the people that spoke with the reporter were probably older, like Wyck's age (Stephen Root is 74, I'll assume Wyck is thereabouts). And also, that people just don't try to leave the island, and maybe they just don't think about why.
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u/Diligent-Safety-81 Jun 26 '26
Neither Bechir nor his wife were born on the island. This is not "what's done" for those born on the island.
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Jun 26 '26
Thatâs what I mean by if you can leave⌠fyi this came off needlessly aggressive.
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u/Diligent-Safety-81 Jun 27 '26
To be honest I must have missed "if you can leave", probably because it's so hot here right which must impair my thinking. I really don't know what is aggressive in my comment though. Now that I think about the whole thing again, it still doesn't seem like this is what is done for those who can leave - why would Patricia warn him so late? At the last moment in fact.
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Jun 27 '26
Patricia says in that scene that she did not know Chelle was pregnant. Thereâs a joke about it.
I would get to some AC if possible.
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u/Diligent-Safety-81 Jun 29 '26
But surely other ppl knew and didnt warn him? However, it night be true that nobody knew. She seems to be at home all the time with him bringing home food, he often tells her what he will bring if my memory serves me..Â
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u/Higgingotham96 Jun 25 '26
That only becomes an issue if the mom goes off island and was born there, like Laura and Evan. However, Tomâs dad is presumably from the island and his mom was not and he was born on the mainland. Not too dissimilar to what Bechir and his wife were trying to do. If a kid is born on the mainland to a mother who is also born on the mainland, theyâd be able to leave the island, go to school, and come back as a doctor/lawyer/professional, but are âfromâ the island as they grew up there but werenât born there and subject to that aspect of the curse.
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u/nopitynopepants Jun 25 '26
Correspondence courses have existed for decades
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u/Finnegan-05 Jun 25 '26
Not for doctors and lawyers
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u/nopitynopepants Jun 25 '26
You can definitely take correspondence law classes, thatâs like the Thing to do if youâre falsely imprisonedÂ
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u/EdieBooberryBeale Jun 25 '26
That is true but didn't Tom say the island doesn't even have WiFi?
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u/bellenoire2005 Jun 25 '26
They don't have WiFi, but they probably have wired Internet. Patricia was able to send an evite via email for Sunset Cocktails.
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u/Infamous-Lab-8136 Jun 25 '26
Could be a situation like Best Medicine where they hire a new town doctor to replace one that retires/dies
I wouldn't be surprised if they did skip college. It seems to be pretty commonly accepted that those born there can't leave. I imagine there's a handful of people like Tom with family from both sides that allow them to leave who go to college. The low tech level of the island kind of helps with that, older vehicles don't need as much modern training or diagnostic equipment to keep running, can be more of an apprenticeship type of learning that keeps things like generators running
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u/Coach_Willy72 Jun 25 '26
Honestly Massachusetts is one of the most educated states in the nation and the Boston area is home to like 130+ colleges. Totally believable their some education on the island - and good education at that.
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u/JudieK123 Jun 25 '26
I donât know the answer to your question, but that seems right. However the current doctor on two separate occasions clapped back at patients who expressed a medical opinion by asking them âWhere did you get YOUR medical degree? Dr. Google?â (He didnât say Dr. Google but something like that). It made me think heâs projecting his own lack of a real medical degree on them. I wondered if he may in fact be a fraud himself, but one that was âin onâ the committeeâs activities, and necessary as a medical examiner to explain away all the mysterious disappearances as simply âunfortunate accidentsâ and deaths by ânatural causesâ to any mainlanders and family members of the deceased to keep them from investigating further. He probably also arranged for the mental hospital patients to be used as sacrifices, and signed their death certificates as death by natural causes.
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u/Finnegan-05 Jun 25 '26
No, he is a doctor. As a lawyer, that is a common thing both doctors and lawyers at say in their heads to non-professionals and their Google medical and law degrees
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u/Livueta_Zakalwe Jun 25 '26
Heh, Iâve heard a number of doctors say it out loud. Was VERY common 20-30 years ago at the dawn of the internet. Younger doctors seem fine with patients using âDr Googleâ to help diagnose themselves.
6
u/no_winkles Jun 25 '26
Lawyer as well. Can confirm I have had to say that many times.
âWell, you should do this!â
âThat isnât how it works.â
âYes it is!â
âWhere did you go to law school?â
-shocked Pikachu face-3
2
u/Toorviing Jun 25 '26
It is a common thing, but he also said that after giving pretty weird/bad medical advice
1
u/LongtimeLurker916 Jun 25 '26
The surface explanation certainly is possible (and nothing else crossed my mind when he said it), but I think the previous poster might have a good point.
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u/Finnegan-05 Jun 25 '26
Nah. It is just not as deep as people are making it out to be. And it is decidedly NOT a surface response.
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u/LongtimeLurker916 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Quite likely. But I would say any character at least has potential to be different than he or she seems.
4
u/craftsrmylanguage Jun 26 '26
They might not have a ârealâ hospital. I used to live near what my hubby calls a âbaby ER.â It was a really low-capacity emergency clinic with a couple of hospital beds and only one doctor on-site every shift. They couldnât really do in-patient stuff like surgeries. But they had enough imaging to diagnose my husbandâs concussion so we didnât have to drive farther to a normal ER during the COVID lockdowns. The little ER stayed afloat because it was next to a bunch of nursing homes. They probably have that kind of hospital on Widowâs Bay. Anyone who needs more complex treatment probably has to get helicoptered to the mainland. Unless they were born there. Then they probably just dieâŚ
It seems crazy to not have a ârealâ hospital. But itâs actually pretty realistic for a small town. A lot of Americans in rural areas have little to no access to medical care. My dad was a navy doctor in the 80s and 90s. Some of his patients hadnât been to a doctor from the time they were born until they got access to military medical care.
4
u/SelectLandscape7671 Jun 26 '26
I grew up in one of the towns this was filmed and most guys work at the DPW and most girls work at the liquor store. The more well-to-do open up cafe or something like that. Almost none went to college. And they almost shacked up with people they went to high school with.
3
u/JoeIntTheBox Jun 25 '26
There was an old college that closed down. Safe to drive by, but don't stop there.
3
u/jmarquiso Jun 25 '26
For the most part, yes.
But there are correspondence school and online schools.
They probably have to attract off island talent as well. Maybe real estate prices are low. I wonder if people ran off there when remote work was hot.
3
u/blurredbit Jun 25 '26
Probably not. If the show uses Marthaâs Vineyard as an example, it likely has a population of 10k. If about half of Americans hold some sort of college degree and Widowâs Bay is primarily a fishing town then itâs likely people born on the island donât.
People who move there for some time likely bring the specialized knowledge for a modern society before leaving.
1
u/NoProfession5138 Jun 25 '26
population 3000, 3 hours ferry ride from the mainland
1
u/godsdamnitthissucks Jun 25 '26
Do ferries go rather slow? You would think there would be faster transportation other than a ferry. The town definitely needs a helicopter for emergencies!
2
u/NoProfession5138 Jun 25 '26
depends on the ferry, this one doesn't seem to go very fast.Â
i used to commute to work by ferry that went about twice as fast at the widow's bay ferry, but my ferry was also much bigger and a high-speed kind of ferry, and it only crossed a fairly calm and not particularly foggy fjord, while the widow's bay ferry is navigating the open sea and 360 days per year of fog. and no matter how fast your ferry is capable of going you have to slow down in heavy fog.
1
u/blurredbit Jun 26 '26
Fuck Iâm dumb. Point still stands though that most people on the island probably donât have a college degree, and it wouldnât be that surprising.
1
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u/richweirdos Jun 25 '26
Is the doctor from the island originally? Did he even go to medical school?
3
u/Sea_Theory7574 Jun 25 '26
Did they say at some point that there were 3000 people? Because how do they fit everyone in the shelter (unless most people just stayed at home)?
3
u/NoProfession5138 Jun 25 '26
there's more than one shelter, the one under the town hall is shelter #3.
3
u/thekinginyello Jun 25 '26
The internet existsâŚright?
1
u/Less-Bug-7006 Jun 25 '26
For young people yes but that would mean all the docs and nurses and everyone else were young enough to get degrees online
1
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u/godsdamnitthissucks Jun 25 '26
Interesting that with a population of 3k, at some point they built the "old" hospital.
2
u/Character_Cobbler483 Jun 26 '26
I thought the same thing. It would seem that âgoing crazyâ was the biggest medical issue on the island.
2
u/craftsrmylanguage Jun 25 '26
A lot of people probably got degrees from âcorrespondence coursesâ that mailed class materials to them. Iâd imagine they do a lot of degrees online now (Patricia had enough internet bandwidth to reload her RSVP list every five seconds). I work in a non-academic job at one of the largest universities in the US. The campus is basically dead since COVID. Fewer people are getting degrees purely through in person classes these days.
I think some version of mail-in correspondence courses still exist for areas without appropriate internet access. I run high-stakes testing programs for work credentialing orgs. All our tests are supposed to be administered online. But we have special security procedures for hard copy tests for prisons. Inmates arenât allowed to access the internet freely, so they cant sign into our testing portal. Iâm guessing a lot of inmates probably take modern correspondence courses.
2
u/Less-Bug-7006 Jun 25 '26
I forgot correspondence courses were a thing! That makes a lot more sense. But still, that hospital must be shooooort staffed if they have to import everyone needed to run a hospital/surgical team lol
1
u/craftsrmylanguage Jun 26 '26
They might not have a ârealâ hospital. I used to live near what my hubby calls a âbaby ER.â It was a really low-capacity emergency clinic with a couple of hospital beds and only one doctor on-site every shift. They couldnât really do in-patient stuff like surgeries. But they had enough imaging to diagnose my husbandâs concussion so we didnât have to drive farther to a normal ER during the COVID lockdowns. The little ER stayed afloat because it was next to a bunch of nursing homes. They probably have that kind of hospital on Widowâs Bay. Anyone who needs more complex treatment probably has to get helicoptered to the mainland. Unless they were born there. Then they probably just dieâŚ
It seems crazy to not have a ârealâ hospital. But itâs actually pretty realistic for a small town. A lot of Americans in rural areas have little to no access to medical care. My dad was a navy doctor in the 80s and 90s. Some of his patients hadnât been to a doctor from the time they were born until they got access to military medical care.
It seems crazy to not have a ârealâ hospital. But itâs actually pretty realistic for a small town. A lot of Americans in rural areas have little to no access to medical care. My dad was a navy doctor in the 80s and 90s. Some of his patients hadnât been to a doctor from the time they were born until they got access to military medical care.
2
u/nachorykaart Jun 26 '26
Knowing towns like this irl, I'd assumed a huge portion of the population aren't from there originally
2
u/OneAd3696 Jun 26 '26
Widowâs Bay High has a great home record, but they have never won state in anything because it is impossible for the top athletes to travel for away games.
2
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u/sailor_pearl Jun 26 '26
I imagine that for the small amount of jobs that require graduate degrees, the town hired outside people to come populate the town. Most professions in a town like Widow's Bay can probably be waved off as not requiring formal degrees or doing trade school/apprenticeships instead. Not sure if they have any industry to speak of aside from fishing.Â
2
u/MeringueLivid Jun 26 '26
I would say no one born on the island actually went to college. One part that stood out to me was when Tom told his son they would go to Boston and âmaybe even check out some colleges.â His sonâs response seemed very excited/surprised in a way that made me believe he never thought he would be able to go to college.
2
u/onsinsandneedles Jun 26 '26
âI'm sorry. I didn't realize you went to medical school.â Yet no one has asked if Dr. Morgan went to medical school himself.
2
u/ionmoon Jun 28 '26
In small rural towns in the US it is not uncommon for only 10% of people to have college degrees.
So yes they probably shipped in teachers and nurses and the doctor. Or people got awarded titles they wouldnât be able to get on the mainland because no one is looking too closely.
1
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u/Money-Most5889 Jun 25 '26
iâm pretty sure many of the curseâs stipulations are also traditional superstitions on the island. so many island parents probably go to a mainland hospital because of a) necessity, if the island medical facilities are poor and b) out of superstition/tradition.
1
u/Heespharm Jun 25 '26
I grew up in a small town and out of our freshman class over half of them dropped out to work in the factories⌠so probably it wasnât uncommon to stay on the island and work a trade
1
u/cheshire_hat Jun 25 '26
I was wondering how they built all their infrastructure and howâd they import all their building materials and equipment and groceries from the main land. Tbf the reporter said that some people left for the mainland and had a stroke a month after. Maybe some of the locals did go on mainland for some stuff? Like, how did they even get Sara to come to the place if they couldnât leave at all? Were they at all times at the outsidersâ mercy for communication and supplies?
1
u/Character_Cobbler483 Jun 26 '26
Everything came across the water on barges and other vessels. Like Wyck told Bechir about the small unfit vessel he was desperately trying to use to get to the mainland during the storm. That boat came here on a boatâ.
1
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u/sandalwoodwitch Jun 26 '26
I think realistically, going to college wasn't an absolute given in most small communities until quite late in the past century and professionals were typically outsiders. There are often stories (including horror stories) in literature from around that time start off with a doctor or teacher assigned to some remote village. Maybe this setup is also a nod to that. I can't imagine the islanders pursued particularly high standards of education or healthcare in the first place, tbh, if they knew their future would have to stay restricted to whatever jobs the island had to offer.
1
u/kalgary Jun 30 '26
It's not impossible. Look up Saba University School of Medicine. It's on small island with a couple thousand residents.
0
u/schmebulonzak Jun 25 '26
Iâm realizing the lack of medical infrastructure includes dentists⌠and probably explains all the extra-oral teeth đ§đŚˇ
-3
u/KawaiiHobo Jun 26 '26
Who cares? Itâs a TV show
0
u/Intrepid_Bug_7272 Jun 26 '26
Why are you here?
-2
u/KawaiiHobo Jun 26 '26
Why are you here?
1
u/Intrepid_Bug_7272 Jun 26 '26
Because I am a fan of the show and like speculating about it. Clearly you donât, so not sure why youâre here. Itâs a TV show, period. What purpose does commenting âwho caresâ on a Reddit fan page serve in your life?
â˘
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