Walton Budgell Is the Unsettling Secret Hiding on the Island in ‘Below’
Anyone who has finished ‘Below‘ on Netflix is probably still thinking about Walton. He shows up late, he is oddly friendly, and he turns out to be one of the most important figures in the whole story. If you are wondering who Walton is, you are asking the right question.
Netflix describes Walton Budgell as an old friend of Calvin who reunites with his childhood buddy after Wade ventures to new shores. That warm description hides a much darker role in the finale. Here is everything you need to know about Walton in ‘Below’.
Who Is Walton Budgell in ‘Below’?
Walton is the childhood friend of Calvin Penney. He knew Calvin as a boy, which gives their reunion real emotional weight.
Calvin is the fisherman played by Josh Hartnett who lives in the town of Snook’s Arm. His son Wade washes ashore on a small island believed to be abandoned and is taken in by its three residents. Those residents are Walton, Walton’s father and Walton’s daughter Maggie.
Decades ago, when the rest of the locals were leaving the island, Walton and his family secretly stayed put. That decision makes him a living link to the painful past that haunts the Penney family.
Shawn Doyle Plays Walton Budgell
Shawn Doyle is credited as Walton Budgell in the cast of the Canadian supernatural thriller. Andy Jones plays Walton’s father, while Marthe Bernard plays Maggie. Together the three actors form the strange little family that Calvin and Wade stumble into.
The six episode series arrived on Netflix on October 8, 2026. It was created by Jesse McKeown, who previously wrote for ‘The Umbrella Academy’. The show has received generally positive reviews from critics.
Not everyone is convinced, though. TV Guide argued that the series never figures out what kind of show it wants to be. Even so, the island sequence with Walton remains one of the most talked about stretches of the season.
Little Pot Rock and the Budgell Family
Little Pot Rock is the island the Penneys fled forty years earlier, and it is where the Budgells stayed behind. Calvin is startled to find his own father’s grave while he is there. The place is a graveyard of old family history as much as a hiding spot.
The backstory is tied to a bigger conflict in the show. The Crockers are a wealthy merchant family who own the local fish plant and much of the town, and they have long pushed to resettle Snook’s Arm. The relocation effort turns out to be a cover for the Crocker corporation to mine the resources on the island.
According to Netflix Tudum, McKeown drew on real resettlements in Newfoundland, which affected many families in the province. That real world grounding is part of why Walton’s stubbornness lands the way it does. Walton, his father and Maggie refused to leave in 1986, and they appear to have an understanding with the creature.
Maggie Budgell and the Old Hag Twist
The biggest reveal tied to Walton involves his daughter. The Old Hag who haunts Wade turns out to be a young woman named Maggie, who is Walton’s daughter. The show leans on misdirection to suggest something supernatural, but she is a real person.
Walton’s beliefs are where things turn disturbing. He thinks the creature Mudder marked Wade for Maggie so the pair could have a child together. Calvin suspects that Wade would be sacrificed once that child arrived. Walton also tells Calvin that he is looking for a mate for Maggie so she can carry the family legacy forward.
The evidence for that belief is thin. The circular welt on Wade’s back looks like a sucker mark from a giant squid, which only shows that Mudder grabbed him and let go. Walton simply treats it as proof that Wade was chosen.
By the end, Walton’s plan collapses. Wade chooses his dad over Maggie and saves Calvin when Walton tries to attack him. The two escape together while Maggie’s heartbroken shrieks echo across the ocean. As McKeown tells TIME, the finale is about Calvin finally seeing everything with his eyes open, and Walton is a big part of what he has to face. So was Walton a desperate father trying to keep his family alive on Little Pot Rock, or was he the true monster of Snook’s Arm all along?
