Why Matthew Rhys’ ‘Widow’s Bay’ Should Scare the Emmy Comedy Field

“Widow’s Bay” could be the thing that goes bump in the Emmy race.

The Television Academy knows what it likes. It’s usually the polished prestige drama, the bittersweet half-hour dramedy and the new miniseries built around a movie star and a timely message. So, when something strange wanders into the race, the instinct is to ask whether it fits. The better question, with three days of voting left, is whether the Emmys see it that way.

Apple TV’s “Widow’s Bay” is this season’s “strange something.” The horror comedy has surged over the past few weeks, with it climbing the pundits’ charts (Variety is projecting 10 nominations in its most recent update), and it could be a real force on nominations morning.

Created by Katie Dippold (“Parks and Recreation” and “Ghostbusters”), it stars Matthew Rhys as Tom Loftis, the beleaguered mayor of a cursed New England island. An artful blend of Stephen King and “The Twilight Zone,” with an absurdist sitcom tone and a “Get Out” streak humming underneath. It refuses to be one single thing. That refusal is precisely the best argument for it, and not in the exhausted way we now litigate whether “The Bear” is really a comedy.

For years the comedy and drama categories have rewarded shows that know exactly what they are. “Widow’s Bay” doesn’t, and it’s better because of the uncertainty. It can be funny and frightening in the same scene. It can also hand its biggest moments not only to a single marquee lead but to a bench of character actors, and the kind of performers that awards bodies claim to cherish but routinely overlook.

With last year’s comedy winner, “The Studio,” absent and the drama side already conceding to “The Pitt” or “Pluribus,” the comedy push strategy can work because the show earns it from both directions. It could have the muscle to stand toe to toe with front-runners like “Hacks,” “Shrinking” and “Abbott Elementary.”

However, nothing is ever that simple, and there’s a hurdle to overcome. While “Widow’s Bay” is eligible this cycle, its final three episodes, including the buzzy season finale, missed the May 31 cutoff. Only the first seven of its 10-episode inaugural season can compete. That can hurt someone like previous Emmy nominee Stephen Root (“Barry”), whose crackpot Wyck does his showiest work in the back half that voters can’t officially weigh.

And yet the show is rising anyway.

We’ve seen this type of simultaneous airing during voting before. FX’s “The Bear” routinely has its next chapter airing while ballots are out, which has left the sense that winners like Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Liza Colón-Zayas were winning a season too early. Voters at large do not study eligibility calendars (that’s my job). All they know is what they’re watching, and most importantly, they know they love it. A contender that can overcome a handicap on pure affection is exactly what the Emmys want to reward.

Then there are the “Widow’s” performances, which are the real payoff.

Rhys, an Emmy winner for “The Americans” and a double nominee threat this season as a lead actor contender for Netflix’s limited series “The Beast in Me,” for which he’s already earned Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations, anchors the series as Loftis, with his meme-worthy facial expressions and antics.

The surrounding ensemble is a murderers’ row of supporting talent: Root, the stoic Kevin Carroll, the impassioned Kingston Rumi Southwick, the beautifully present Jeff Hiller, the great Dale Dickey and the quietly scene-stealing K Callan.

The revelation though, is Kate O’Flynn. As the socially awkward assistant Patricia, who channels a modern-day Shelley Duvall in “The Shining” to utter perfection, with frayed nerves, dawning dread and two impeccable standout episodes — “Beach Reads” (her standalone episode 4) and the post-deadline “Your Baggage” (episode 8 that has her running and fighting the boogeyman). Often a single performance that’s nominated can be the surest hint to pundits that a show is a bigger deal than anyone expected. Look at Katherine LaNasa (“The Pitt”) or Annie Murphy (“Schitt’s Creek”). Their nominations (and eventual wins) were arguably essential to their show’s top series victories.

In the guest races, Betty Gilpin and Hamish Linklater make a meal of the island’s founding couple, and either recognition would be another sign of strength.

Horror has never had an easy time with this Academy (or Film Academy), and that history is the part worth correcting. When the Emmys do let genre through the door, it tends to arrive through specific darlings and industry stewards. Ryan Murphy launched “American Horror Story” into a franchise voters couldn’t ignore, and recent critical favorites like “The Last of Us” and “Wednesday” leaned on the names of its creators, Craig Mazin and Tim Burton, respectively, to rack up their technical nominations at the Creative Arts ceremony.

“Widow’s Bay” is built for that kind of run, loaded below the line, with Hiro Murai’s direction taking center stage. And when you take a step back, Murai could be a viable threat to win his first directing statuette if the season breaks his way. He’s been a crucial part of acclaimed series including “Atlanta,” “The Bear,” “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and “Station Eleven,” yet his only Emmy win so far came as an executive producer sharing in “The Bear’s” comedy series victory for its first season.

No director of Asian descent has ever won the comedy directing category. Murai, the Japanese-born director of “Atlanta,” has been a nominee twice without winning, nominated in 2018 for “Teddy Perkins” and again in 2022 for “New Jazz,” losing to Amy Sherman-Palladino and MJ Delaney, respectively. Aziz Ansari, the Indian American co-creator of “Master of None,” contended in 2016 for the “Parents” episode and lost to Joey Soloway.

Dippold’s pilot script, “Welcome to Widow’s Bay!,” could be a force in the writing race too, and history says the opening episode of a series is fertile ground for Emmy darlings. The comedy writing Emmy has gone to a show’s first episode 13 times, eight of them for an installment literally titled “Pilot,” a lineage that runs from “The Cosby Show” in 1985 through “Abbott Elementary” in 2022. Premieres under other names have won just as often of late, from “Cheers” and “Frasier” to “Hacks,” “The Bear” and “The Studio.” A debut that introduces an entire cursed world in one half-hour is exactly the script voters love to honor.

None of this guarantees a nomination, let alone a win, but that’s not the point. An awards body reveals its tastes and values in what it chooses to notice (and snub). Rewarding “Widow’s Bay” would say the Emmys have an appetite for risk, genre, ensembles over stars and for art that doesn’t fit neatly into a box.

The voters are deciding right now. Hoping they don’t get too scared to check it off.