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WHEN YOU HEAR the word “cocktail,” it can mean a couple of different things. For most, the word “cocktail” brings to mind a drink, made masterfully from a number of independent ingredients, coming together as something cold, probably sweet, and definitely delicious. A piña colada is a great cocktail. A Moscow mule might be even better.

But we also sometimes use the word “cocktail” a little more liberally, referring to anything that brings together disparate ingredients into one great, magnificent sum. Apple TV’s new horror-comedy series Widow’s Bay , for example, has been one of the greatest cocktails of all, bringing together parts that feel like Jaws , parts that feel like Parks and Recreation, parts that feel like Halloween , and tons of influence from New England-centered horror stories from Stephen King to create what’s been, for my money, the best television series of 2026 so far.

It’s fitting, then, that the show’s best episode—episode 4, titled “Beach Reads”—is centered around a main…