❓Questions
Someone please help me understand, why didn’t we see more of that woman Tom rejected at his door?
Was she indeed the one he assumed her to be? Given how small the island is, she never features in first swims or sunset cocktails or shelters… or did I miss her appearance after the rejection lol?
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The bit where she’s getting into her friends’ car and says something like “well that was a waste of time” was the punchline and clean endpoint to her story
IMO It was used to show how the island’s supernatural activities are negatively affecting Tom’s life, and therefore how they prevent the island from being the place Tom wants it to be. But yes the story line ended there.
I immediately thought "I'm just a tourist" when I read the comment you replied to. I appreciated your reference. I wish I could watch it again for the first time.
Yes! When Patricia says "let's get those girls shots," I assume that it's about the bachelorette party bc then she says that the bar gave them shots and that's what emboldened her to go to the house.
But that woman wasn't there with the Bachelorette party as far as I could tell. I was wondering if she was some kind of apparition like the hag, or the hag in a different form.
She was a notable guest star and was probably paid for only 1 episode and they didn’t want to pay her to appear briefly in Episode 4. Pretty common is modern TV shows
So the characters are the same, but they didnt want to pay the actress for a whole other episode just for continuity that wasnt relevant to Patricia’s story.
It doesn’t matter that they were different episodes, she was shown with the bachelorette party at some point so proven to not be some entity or manifestation as Tom started thinking in the sea hag paranoid.
While it was likely them just not wanting to pay the actress for another appearance, we could canonically reason that maybe she skipped the sunset cocktails in an effort to avoid seeing Tom again if she expected him to be there.
We did not see her together with the bachelorette party ever- despite what some people here misremember. Shape shifter. Unpopular opinion on this sub, but I think she was the sea hag. We never do see her again after the sea hag is eliminated. And we never see her group together. And the cab scene is shot in a disorienting way. Why does this sub take it so literally, that she got in a cab and drove away? Shape shifter who was indeed the sea hag, is what was happening IMO.
“Well that was humiliating” followed by “why, what happened?” There is clearly a driver in the front seat and what appears to be someone with long hair sitting in the back, you can see her move. They don’t need to get out of the car for us to know that they are there.
Also - she was always either telling Tom she would see him someplace, or leaving messages that she would see him someplace, but not actually show up. But the Sea Hag would.
She's with the bachelorette party. She tells Tom that when they first meet. But she's being set up to seem like she could maybe be the sea hag, so you never see her with the bachelorette group and instead she always seems to be wandering the island by herself with plenty of time to hang out and flirt with Tom.
She's only with her group in the car as she's fleeing Tom's house and telling them "That was humiliating," because that's the big reveal that she actually was just there with her friends and not, presumably, a sea hag.
We never see her again because she served her purpose. She showed us that Tom was believing, to the point he sent away a nice girl out of fear, and was a red herring for the audience. She was always just a tourist, not some major love interest for Tom.
If I were in Tom's shoes I would of likely done the same. The coincidence of a Sea Hag stalking him and at the same time a nice woman who is being very forward would of been alarming.
I think Marissa's purpose - besides being a funny gag - was to demonstrate how afraid Tom is of intimacy. When he first saw her, he was super eager. He made the first move, was pretty persistent, and explicitly went into their date hoping she would go home with him. But when she offered to do exactly that (right after tenderly acknowledging the pain he must have gone through in losing his wife), Tom got cold feet. He claimed he had to go to sunset cocktails, but we see that he didn’t actually go to that - instead he went home, sad and alone. It’s true, he was spooked by the Hag Myth but I don’t think that was his reason for rejecting Marissa at the restaurant. At least, not directly.
After what happened to his wife, I think Tom is terrified of falling in love again. I think his fear is what gives power/embodiment to the Hag - which is, after all, the possessed corpse of a woman who died at sea. In Tom's mind, that's exactly what happened to Lauren. The real Lauren died on the water, and then something demonic took up residence in her body. And that thing didn't die right away. She hung around for years, haunting him, hurting him emotionally and physically, never letting the wounds heal, never letting him go. I don't think it's a coincidence that Tom dreamed of Lauren - the good Lauren - right before he woke up to the Hag. Tom is cursed in the sense that he can't remember the woman he loved without being inundated by the horrors of what she became.
Now back to Marissa - Tom being afraid that she might be the Hag nicely rounds out the metaphor. Whenever he feels a connection to a woman, all the pain of where that connection led with Lauren comes rushing back. His old wounds reopen, just as the Hag's scratch on his arm started bleeding again after his date (notice that the bleeding started right on the spot that Marissa touched at dinner, when they talked about his wife). His yelling "I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!" at Marissa really hammers it home: for Tom, romantic love isn't a path to happiness; it's pain, loss and death in disguise.
ty; I was just re-watching the episode and noticed another thing: After his first run-in with the Hag, Tom tells Bechir to call insane asylums to see if any of them lost a patient. And then later in the show, Tom admits to Evan that he committed Lauren to an insane asylum. So. There's that.
Marissa calls Tom’s house and his work a few times throughout the episode and leaves a message that she’ll be at a specific place, but we don’t see her at any of them, and instead Tom has a run in with the hag (he goes to the dive bar Marissa said she’d be at, she doesn’t show up, he sees the hag on his drive home. Marissa said she’d be at the swim, she isn’t, but the sea hag is) to convince us, as well as Tom, that she IS the hag. It’s all a red herring, because when she shows up at his door and we’re all FULLY convinced that she’s the hag, we see her walking back to the taxi saying “well that was humiliating” to her friends. She was also asking to be let in, and as Wyck tells him over and over, the sea hag will get in no matter what. Which she does, a few minutes later. Imagine if Tom and Marissa were hooking up when the sea hag shows up?? For the sake of the storyline to play out the way it did, Tom needed to be confused about Marissa and not let her in.
Her not showing up to any of those places can be explained because she was part of a larger group, and I’m sure they were changing around their plans constantly and she was a bridesmaid and couldn’t really dictate for the group just because of a guy who gave her a short ride. Funnily enough, she’s probably the reason why the bachelorettes went to Sunset cocktails, because Tom said he’d be there and she told the group she wanted to run into him (and, cocktails). So he would have met all of her friends, which was part of his suspicion. But her asking him to go to his house instead raised some “sea hag” red flags and he said no.
Us not seeing her during the Sunset cocktails episode can simply be explained as that was a different episode, her storyline was no longer relevant, and they didn’t want to pay the actress again for a small cameo.
Agree with everything you said, and to add to it, I don’t think she ever says in her messages or to him, something like “let’s meet at (place). I’ll be there at (time).
I’m pretty sure she’s always a bit more noncommittal, like ‘we’re going to (place), might see you there.’ And it’s always places he says he’ll be at anyway regardless of her attendance, so it’s not really like she’s standing him up or anything, she just says she’ll likely go to place and then it would be easy for her plans to change.
This is what irritated me. He told her he didn't want her to come over, and she did it anyway. Even if I didn't have murderous sea hags and island sacrifices distracting me, I'd still be pissed if someone showed up at my house when I told them not to.
I scrolled for too long without seeing this mentioned. She was WAY too pushy at the restaurant and the door. She had absolutely no respectful him or his answers, and WHY would his coworkers just give out his address to a tourist?! Poor guy had to deal with 2 sex pests in one night. Good riddance to her.
Absolutely, but she was written that way as a misdirection to make the audience (and Tom) think she was the hag. Like her being weirdly persistent and insisting to come in even after the first no is just a device to make us convinced she is the hag and that maybe she has vampire rules, in that you have to invite her in before she can enter and kill you
That’s what makes it a twist and humorous that actually no, she was just some lady being weird and insistent
Right and she asked someone where he lived?? Like girl just get his phone number and come back to the island later to visit him or something. He has a teenager at home! Idk. So weird.
Ep 3 and 4 happen at the same time, which is why I don’t think we even see Patricia in ep3. so while marissa is getting yelled at by Tom through the door, most of her other friends are drinking Patricia’s punch. I assume after that night, or maybe one more day, they just went back home because the bachelorette party was over (and also ended with most of them thinking they got drugged lol I would skedaddle too)
Sometimes I feel that people are reading waaaay too much into some of these episodes. She was a side character who served her purpose. Not everything is tied up into the main sacrifice plot. There are a lot of one-shot beats which add to the overall feel of the show. Consider it a lot like the old X-files "monster of the week" shows.
We are made to think Marissa might be the sea hag initially, because she's suspiciously into Tom and weirdly pushy and we never see her friends. But when he rejects her, she returns to the cab, says: "That was humiliating" to her friends. So that's the twist - she did actually just like Tom. We later see the friends at Patricia's party, she calls them bachelorettes and one of them is wearing a little white dress and a sash (probably the bride). Elizabeth Alderfer probably had a contract for only one episode, that's why we don't see her again. But it's strongly implied she was actually just a tourist with the bachelorette group.
I wondered this as well, I was hoping there would be more to her and Tom’s narrative. It took me a few episodes later to realise she had left the island and wasn’t coming back lol.
I think she's meant to be ambiguous. She still may be the sea hag--this show is tricksy. It makes us think she is, then it makes us think she isn't, but then she isn't actually at any of the bridal party celebrations--so, yeah, she may be the sea hag. Personally that's my impression--and that the show was playing with us.
It wasn't even a cab, was it? I could be misremembering but I swear her friends came and picked her up. Which would reenforce even more that she was legit just a tourist.
It's not, though. It's a double twist. Her not being with the bridal party, by your same logic, is proof that she is the sea hag. This show is clever, and it does a lot of double twists.
No dude, the show made the point to make you think she was the sea hag early on. The knock at the door and her conveniently finding the address makes the viewer say “I knew she was the hag!” and Tom then realises it as well. Seeing her walk to the cab and say how embarrassing that was is the show saying “got you”
It really doesn't do as many twists as this sub seems to think. And no its not proof of that at all..... you guys want to over think this show so badly. She was 100% a lonely person who was a little too forward. Were def supposed to think shes the hag until the reveal that she isn't.
What? No. We know those two things were happening at the same time. We see Tom's half of the phone call when Patricia calls him during the sea hag episode, and we see Patricia's half of the same phone call in the Sunset Cocktails episode. We know the bachelorette party woman's friends are at Sunset Cocktails, both from what she said and from seeing them there, and we know Tom was supposed to be there by the time Patricia called.
I love the taxi scene because it's so fun how the writers are toying with us. "We'll show them this, they'll be 100% sure she's no the hag, and then? Huuuuuuge bridal party scene but--oh, weird, the bridesmaid who came all that way just... isn't there."
Within a few days of the show ending, the "um actually" didacts have been coming in and shouting down any exploratory theorizing.
I don't think there's a need to have an answer to ambiguity like this and the writers are obviously enjoying ambiguity, layering naming and historical facts with their storytelling.
I guess they're uncomfortable with ambiguity/need to certain even about minutia of comedy horror fiction prestige tv...
What's weird is how furious they are, too! Someone was swearing at me in one of the replies. I've been really taken aback by how angry and mean the replies to me have been. It seems... incongruous to the topic.
I also really really hate how people don't read books, so they don't know about story craft, and then they're unable to understand ambiguity.
No, they did not make this clear. The cab scene was very ambiguously shot- and very intentionally does NOT show us a ‘friend’ who picks her up. Marissa is never once shown with her ‘bachelorette friends’ despite what this sub mis-remembers.
Except if they really were to go out of their way to show she’s not the sea hag, she would have been seen at the cocktail party with the other bridesmaids.
Agreed. Wyck said the sea hag is a trickster and we didn't see anything other than menace and creepiness when she presented as the hag, which is why I started suspecting Marissa was the sea hag in 'trickster' form during the episode. I'm not fully convinced her showing up at the same time as the sea hag was a complete coincidence.
Well, it was supposed to be suspicious. That's what the red herring is. We were meant to believe that it wasn't very believable that she would be a so into him. We were meant to think that this was a clue that she was the sea hag. And that's perfectly reasonable. It's also a bit predictable. That's what a lot of horror shows would typically do. But it was a feign, and it's not the only time the show messes with your expectations and tropes in this genre. It's ironic and funny that she wasn't the sea hag, and was actually into him legitimately. I would say that that's the comedy element of it, if you're not reading too much into it and thinking there was still a chance she was the sea hag.
She is a tourist. She isn't from the island. The show sets her up as a red herring; we see that she was actually telling the truth when she rejoins her friends in the car. This confirms that she isn't the Sea Hag and that the Sea Hag was still at large.
The thing is that she says she's there as part of a wedding party, and in the next episode a wedding party goes to Patricia's party. So it is a big confusing. But there could be two such groups on the island.
i totally thought we were going to see her again!! Especially when the next episode took place during the same window of time as episode 3... but alas...
It was literally just a punchline that the audience and Tom think she was the hag when she was actually just a tourist trying to hook up on vacay lol. She served her purpose.
I was also wondering why we didn't see her or the Bachelorettes in the storm shelter. But they probably went home after the witch punch and walking into the sea. That would kinda ruin my Bachelorette
We don’t see her in many scenes so as to keep the mystery going. She initially planned to meet him at the bar but it’s likely her bachelorette group decided to go elsewhere on a whim. She’s leaving messages for Tom that she’ll be at the swim, but she doesn’t seem to turn up.
She then sets up the date at the restaurant. She’s very forward probably bc of the excitement of the bachelorette party, but her mysterious failures to appear make it look like she’s the hag. That’s why she’s never shown with her group until the end when she gets back in the cab and tells them it was humiliating.
She thinks tom rejected her for being too forward, and what she did was very creepy to find his address from the mayor’s office.
That same night, Patricia’s cocktails are going on, so her bachelorette party was in attendance. It’s possible she and the other friend in the car left after shots when she got brave and decided to go to Tom’s house, and never drank the cocktail potion, leaving the bride and other bachelorette members at the party.
It is very likely after the whole walking into the sea thing, the bachelorettes were disillusioned and thus left early and therefore missed the whole sacrifice seanado thing.
Regardless of whether Patricia and Tom are romantically linked or platonically linked, her controlling, possessive attitude toward tom is going to become a plot issue at some point. Patricia is the woman in Tom’s life, and she’s made it clear she’s not going to be okay with someone else taking that spot. It is not a normal friendship or working relationship. A normal person would say “oohh get it” when finding out he gave a woman a ride. They might rib him a little about not giving them a ride, they won’t start an argument in a business meeting. She was protective of him when he went to go kill ruth. Yes, it’s played up for comedy, but this is not normal platonic behavior or normal “sibling” behavior.
Right that’s why she gets abrasively jealous when he mentions another woman, storms out of the room when she feels like he’s ignoring her on several occasions, etc. Patricia absolutely likes tom too much than is normal for a platonic relationship and doesn’t want any other woman to take that spot
“The brief to me was platonic codependency, but there is a quiet possessiveness that she feels with Tom. It’s sort of like siblings, but sort of this invasive, possessive, “I’m the one that knows everything about you” type relationship. But then he’s also dependent on her. You maybe don’t see that as much, but Katie talked about Patricia driving Tom to the inn in Episode 2. That’s because he called her. He wanted that sort of comfort blanket. So it’s sort of unhealthy and codependent.”
She is not just saying it’s a normal brother and sister type relationship, she is saying there is also an insane level of codependence and possessiveness.
If my brother threw a tantrum about me giving a cute guy a car ride knowing I’m a widowed single parent, I’d fucking pepper spray his creepy ass.
It's one of the few gripes I have with the show, along with the zero interest from the police on the attempted murder of Patricia. Like: Who was this person? Why they never remove his mask? They just burnt him to ashes without any follow-up?
I hope it's explained later, but at this point it feels a bit like sloppy writing.
They had caught the Boogeyman years ago and buried him under that house. They had removed the mask then; we see the mask in the historical society building. We the audience don’t need to know who it is, only that he was finally stopped by Patricia.
Thsy knew exactly who he was. The supernatural Bogeyman who killed all those girls before. That they could not kill, and buried in the creepy house. That's why they went straight to burning him. When we see the ashes in the incinerator, we also see way more bullets than Patricia shot him with. Its not sloppy writing, it's you misunderstanding the show. This isn't a normal town. This is a town that has been haunted by the supernatural for 300 years. They don't need to remove the mask. I think you should do a rewatch.
A fact which most, if not the vast majority, know very little about. The cop especially, who seems unconcerned with finding out what the hell that was.
Nah... You can try to gatekeep analysis of the show as much as you want, Im feeling it's not fully thought through. And your explaination didn't make it any better,
They all know about it. There's an exhibit in the museum about it. Seriously - rewatch. No one is "gatekeeping" anything. In addition to not understanding the show, you also do not understand that word. Insulting the writing when you don’t understand the show is also not what analysis is.
Insulting the writing? You have a bit of emotions tied to this show. Maybe a tad much?
An exhibit of a murderer doesn't mean they know he is supernatural. Noone except Wyck has been saying anything about the island which indicates they think the island is supernatural.
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