[User 224999]

Edit: ok found the problem: I used the <content> string for Recent Media directly as you have in the new wiki...and there you are using reload with widgetreload2 ... removing the "2" reloads the widgets immediately
Its now working brilliantly.

One request: is it possible to have a parameter to tell the widget to only display 1 episode if multiple exist for the same TV show?
Usecase: adding new TV show with multiple episodes, completely fills out the widget with that TV show... It would look nicer if only one entry was there, for example just the first unwatched..

1) The widgets indeed have their own caching to make sure the database isn't hammered constantly with requests. With the reload parameter you can make sure that kodi refreshes the container and that the latest info is pulled from the kodi DB (cache ignored).
For the "media" widgets it's recommended that you use both the widgetreload and widgetreload2 propety to make sure all scenarios are caught.

widgetreload is used for all video library items and widgetreload2 just changes every 10 minutes.

2) As for your request: In the addon settings for the Skin helper Widgets you'll notice a setting "group episodes" which is what you need.