Walton’s Place in the Story of ‘Below’ Explained

Walton Budgell is one of the more consequential supporting characters in ‘Below,’ the Netflix limited series created by Jesse McKeown. Netflix describes him as an old friend of Calvin, the fisherman played by Josh Hartnett, who unexpectedly reunites with his childhood buddy when Wade ventures to new shores. That short description undersells how much of the series turns on him.

Anyone asking who Walton is in ‘Below’ is really asking how the show links Calvin’s buried past to the creature lurking off the coast. The series arrived on Netflix on October 8 and follows a fisherman, a dying Newfoundland fishing village and a mysterious sea creature. Walton sits at the point where those threads meet.

Who Walton Budgell Is in ‘Below’

Calvin Penney is a widowed father of three who struggles to make ends meet in the village of Snook’s Arm, and he lives with his son Wade, played by Charlie Heaton. Walton belongs to Calvin’s earlier life, before any of that began. He knew Calvin as a boy, and his family stayed behind on the island the Penneys left forty years earlier.

That island is Little Pot Rock, which Calvin and his family had to leave when the government took it over. They towed their house across the ocean by boat, and an underwater force dragged it under with Calvin’s father inside. Walton is therefore tied to the most painful event in Calvin’s history.

The name may also catch searchers off guard, since the series is written by Karen Walton, Perry Chafe and Natty Zavitz. The character and the writer share a surname only by coincidence, and the character is the one drawing viewer questions after the finale.

Shawn Doyle’s Role Among the Budgell Family

Shawn Doyle plays Walton Budgell in the series. He is not alone on the island. Wade washes ashore on a small island believed to be abandoned and is taken in by Walton, Walton’s father, played by Andy Jones, and Walton’s daughter Maggie, played by Marthe Bernard.

Maggie turns out to be the figure Wade has been seeing throughout the story. She is the Old Hag of Newfoundland lore, and she is actually a young woman who is Walton’s daughter. The reveal shifts the series from folklore toward something more human and more unsettling.

Not every critic found that shift satisfying. In its review, TV Guide argued that the hag being a regular woman is among the first signs the series may not stick the landing. Others will see the Budgell family as the point where the show’s mystery finally gets personal.

What Happens on Little Pot Rock

Calvin arrives on the island looking for his son and finds a very different Walton from the boy he remembers. Walton cryptically hints that his family struck a pact with the sea creature, whom he calls Mudder, but he does not elaborate. The details come out gradually.

The arrangement works by exchange. Mudder supplies the family with large amounts of fish and they feed her in return, which includes holding a fisherman named Phil hostage on the island. It is the series at its darkest, and Walton is the one who has accepted that bargain.

There is also an unexpected moment of grace. Calvin finds his father’s grave, and Walton explains they recovered what little remained of his body and buried him properly. When Calvin confesses he cut the rope, Walton insists the rest of the family would have died had he not done so. The same man who comforts Calvin is the one who is dangerous to his son.

How Walton Shapes the ‘Below’ Ending

Walton believes Mudder marked Wade for Maggie, and Calvin suspects Wade would be sacrificed once a child was born. Wade ultimately chooses his father, saving Calvin’s life when Walton attacks, and the two escape together. The choice completes Wade’s arc and removes the Budgell family from the center of the story.

Walton still delivers one of the finale’s most important lines. He tells Calvin it is cheaper to move folks than to pay them what they are worth. That idea points toward the real antagonists, the Crocker family, who have pushed residents out for years to reach the valuable minerals beneath the ocean floor.

The wider context gives that line weight. According to Netflix Tudum, McKeown drew on real resettlements in Newfoundland, and he says many families in the province were affected by them. Walton is a product of that history, which makes him harder to dismiss as a simple villain. Readers who stayed through the finale may have a view on whether Walton was a menace to Calvin’s family or a man the resettlement left with no good choices, and the comments are open for that argument about ‘Below.’