you burn so bright

the thing widow's bay does with the final girl is super interesting to me. i don't have fully formed thoughts and i feel like i should know more about the horror genre to truly convey them, but it's just this thing where the final girl is any age and she's everywhere. the story doesn't end with her overcoming the obstacle, her life continues, and how do you continue after the impossible has happened to you? patricia is the clearest archetype, she survived as a teen only to still be the final girl in her 40s after a lifetime of dragging rumors and shame after her for having survived in the first place. she never stopped being that final girl! ruth is another one. she is elderly and survived a life of pain and loss, only to be the moral compass of the story as the final girl in the warren bloodline. everyone wanted to dismiss her because old birdies like her seem so unimportant, only to be the most important piece of all. sarah westcott was also a final girl of sorts, tasked to be warren's last wife and his downfall. she had to crawl through mud and take charge of children she didn't even know to try and save herself and a town (she didn't even belong to!) plagued by her husband's arrogance. warren's daughter frances was also a final girl. she endured the literal extermination of all her family and survived the drowning and lived long enough to have children even though the man who took care of her never treated her as a person. over and over again, women survive and endure in widow's bay. like even after her attack, lauren survived, even if not of sound mind, and became the wife in the attic asylum amidst pain and loss. but she endured, she thought of her son every second, she was trying constantly to reach out to him. there's just a lot of resilience from specifically the women in widow's bay. even the name of the island, it points at a woman who outlasted her husband. it's all final girls. we're all final girls. and we never stop being final girls.