I know I’m a little late to this party, but as the majority of my TV viewing is geared toward a 10-month-old, shows like Midnight Mass sometimes wind up on the back burner. I was very interested in this October’s psychological horror outing from the team that created The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor— especially given the newest show’s prominent religious themes. Set in a small island fishing village, Midnight Mass centers around a strange new priest, Father Paul, who begins performing miracles during the Lenten season, but all is not as it seems. Coinciding with the priest’s arrival on Crockett Island are sightings of a strange bright-eyed creature roaming the wilds, as well as the unrelated return of Riley Flynn, the island’s prodigal son who has just been released from prison after a drunk driving incident four years prior.
The show definitely has its bright spots. The acting is solid; in fact, I can’t think of a single performer who feels out of place in their role. The island itself feels like a melancholy character with its cloudy skies, tangled brush, and weatherworn homes. The central supernatural device is interesting, and its placement in a church makes for some great contrast. I’m always a sucker for a “corruption of the holy” story, and yet, something’s a little off. Even though I enjoyed it, I’m hesitant to recommend this show, and I had a hard time putting my finger on why. As such, I figured I would frame my thoughts around the prompt:
I enjoyed Midnight Mass, but…
I enjoyed Midnight Mass, but Hill House is a hard act to follow.
I really feel for this creative team. The Haunting of Hill House is such a masterpiece, and while The Haunting of Bly Manor was fairly solid as well, neither it nor Midnight Mass hold a candle to Hill House. Hill House spends exactly the right amount of time with each character. Backstories and motivations all make perfect sense. Intimate family dynamics play out in interesting and believable ways, and no one character is ever a true “bad guy.” There’s rich symbolism, and the ghosts just get more interesting as the show goes along. The handling of addiction, trauma, and mental illness is compelling and never judgmental or othering. Really, I have no issues with Hill House. As such, Bly Manor and Midnight Mass will always exist in that show’s shadow for me. So while I enjoyed Midnight Mass, it couldn’t live up to its predecessor.*
*It should be noted that Midnight Mass is not officially part of the “Haunting of ________” anthology series, but it has the same creator, many of the same cast members, similar cinematography, similar genre, was released in October, etc. There’s so much in common that I had to do some digging to even find out the show wasn’t set in the same fictional universe.
I enjoyed Midnight Mass, but those freakin’ monologues, man.
There’s a rule in film: “Show, don’t tell.” A series of events in a movie or TV show will almost always be more interesting if we, the viewers, see them firsthand rather than having a character tell us about them. Case in point, Hill House and Bly Manor both use flashbacks to incredible effect to create atmosphere and give us glimpses into the characters’ pasts. In fact, Bly Manor‘s ghosts often reenact traumatic events from their lives, giving us not only a look into their pasts but also some terror in the show’s present!
Midnight Mass, on the other hand, makes almost no use of flashback, with almost all the action taking place in the present on the island. Any events from the past are explained through long monologues. And when I say “long monologues,” I’m talking a 5-10 minutes of uninterrupted speech by one character while the camera cuts between the speaker and the listener. Even the extended flashback surrounding the fate of the town’s old priest is framed within a long monologue from the town’s new priest. While some of the monologues are fairly compelling (Riley’s first AA meeting for instance), it’s a tedious way to tell a story. I really enjoyed the show’s conclusion, but I rolled my eyes when the creative team chose to put yet another monologue over the whole thing.
I enjoyed Midnight Mass, but it’s not the critique I was expecting.
Before watching Midnight Mass, I had seen comments online that it’s a harsh critique of Christianity, specifically Catholicism, but… well… it’s not really. Yes, an evil force on the island uses the guise of Catholicism and dupes the faithful, but ultimately, the townspeople’s faith plays a powerful role in the community’s redemption. If Midnight Mass has any critique to offer, it’s that (1) people of faith should be careful not to rationalize our way into harming others, and (2) there will always be wolves in our midst who look to exploit the faithful for their own gain. I didn’t read this as a critique of religion writ large; if anything, the show offers very sympathetic portrayals of religious characters (particularly the town’s Muslim sheriff and the question-asking schoolteacher). Even Father Paul, while acting in sinister fashion, still has sympathetic hopes for the town and its people. The church itself is largely morally neutral, and the people within it determine its course. But hey, back to that “wolves in the herd” thing for a minute…
I enjoyed Midnight Mass, but let’s talk about Bev Keane.
***MINOR SPOILERS***
One of the things I’ve loved about this team’s previous Netflix series is how every character is relatable. Not so much with Midnight Mass‘s antagonistic church lay leader, Bev Keane. I would argue Bev has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. She wields her power in the church for her own gain, and she has manipulated the people of the island for as long as anyone can remember. She is judgmental and cruel at every turn, and she never shows a shred of remorse.
Truth be told, every church I’ve worked in has had a Bev Keane. The difference is that the real-life Bev Keanes I’ve known always acted out because of some deeply relatable personal struggle. One Bev Keane was facing extreme family issues, so she abused her authority at the church to compensate for her feelings of powerlessness at home. Another Bev Keane was deeply insecure about her appearance and lobbied to have the entire church directory reprinted. Then there was the Bev Keane who ruled the contemporary worship service with an iron fist because she had a deep fear of the church (and, by extension, herself) being forgotten. While Bev Keanes have certainly been thorns in my side over the years, they always had some sort of relatable motivation, and I cared deeply for them. I might have been frustrated, but at least I could sympathize with the things they were facing.
Not so with Midnight Mass‘s Bev Keane; she’s a pressure-cooker of spite and authoritarianism from start to finish, and we never find out why. Some characters work better without a backstory —The Joker, Nurse Ratched, Boba Fett, etc.—, but with Bev, there’s something missing. You just know she had an abusive parent or a troubled marriage or an impoverished adolescence or something to make her the way she is, and the show really suffers by not at least alluding to this. Bev is cartoonishly evil, and the actress portraying her is clearly having a blast in the role. Still, given this creative team’s track record of believable and relatable characters, Bev’s mustache-twirling villainy was disappointing.
I enjoyed Midnight Mass, but the story is kind of a mess.
***MINOR SPOILERS***
Look, I can tell this thing was rushed. It’s only seven episodes— the shortest of any of this team’s Netflix series. There was only a year between this show and Bly Manor, whereas both Bly Manor and Hill House had longer development cycles. The show can’t quite decide whether it wants one main character or an ensemble, and several characters are left pretty underdeveloped (or, worse, they have to explain their motivations in long monologues). I even wonder if some of those long speeches were written in lieu of filming more complicated scenes, and nowhere is this more painfully apparent than Sheriff Hassan describing his journey as a Muslim police officer after 9/11. I mean, holy hell, if ever there was a character who deserved his own show (or at least a whole episode devoted to his past), it’s Sheriff Hassan! But nope, we got his whole story in one painfully long monologue.
There’s also the issue of suspension of disbelief. I found it interesting no one ever uses the word “vampire” on the show, but there are occasional allusions to “folktales.” Clearly, there’s some knowledge of vampires in Midnight Mass‘s universe, but the avoidance of the word took me out of the story somewhat. Thankfully, no one sparkled, and I appreciated the streamlining of vampire lore: only one way to make a vampire (tainted blood) and only one way to kill a vampire (daylight). At least the show kept that part simple.
I mean, all that said, I did enjoy it.
Midnight Mass was still a good time. Riley and Father Paul have compelling character arcs; the progression of the creature’s plan makes for some interesting conflict (especially in the finale); I just think this show could have been more. It’s like it didn’t have room to breathe. We needed more time with Erin, with Sarah, with Sheriff Hassan, with Bev and Sturge. We needed Father Paul and his acolytes to struggle and doubt a little more. We needed fewer monologues; let the peaceful-yet-oppressive Crockett scenery do some of the talking instead! It’s a really interesting premise with some really outstanding performances, but at the end of the day, Midnight Mass is only a good show, not a great show.
If you want a great show, The Haunting of Hill House is still on Netflix.
If you want a fun show with a few solid twists which might be improved by taking a drink every time the characters take communion, there’s Midnight Mass.
A few other quick notes:
Race— I was intrigued by the fact that a few wide shots of the church showed a multiracial/multiethnic congregation when the overwhelming majority of the speaking roles in “Midnight Mass” are white North Americans. There’s a discrepancy here that’s never addressed: why don’t we ever see this diversity outside the church building, and what sort of racial tension is there around town? I counted only four named characters of color in the show (Dolly, Leeza, Ali, and Sheriff Hassan, who only has a last name) plus Sarah’s unnamed significant other, while all other speaking roles are white. Yet here’s this seemingly diverse church? I realize the COVID-19 pandemic probably just affected the pool of extras they could use to fill the building for those scenes, but what?
Revelation— This will probably be a longer post at some point, but I love the way Father Paul’s inner circle continually try to label different things around town as symbols from the book of Revelation. “Aha! They’re the False Prophet!” “Aha! They’re the Whore of Babylon!” The way the symbols were applied so haphazardly is pretty typical of folks who think they have a claim on that biblical book. In truth, much of the interpretive lens for Revelation has been lost over the years; we don’t understand the bulk of its symbols.
Prooftexting in General— While Revelation provides the most noteworthy example, I appreciated how many of the characters cited bible verses out of context to validate their opinions. I didn’t even feel like “Midnight Mass” was so much condemning the practice as just pointing out how frequently it occurs. Most of the characters who do this (possible exception: Bev) are also shown to be confused or scared and are clearly drawing on these verses to have something comforting and familiar. Prooftexting is a dangerous practice, but the show seems at least a little sympathetic to those who do it.
Okay, last thing on this show before I move on to other stuff: seriously, just give us a Sheriff Hassan show. At least tell us his first name. What a waste of a fascinating character!
What I love about your strategy in unpacking Midnight Mass is its beginning: You reframed the question, “why” with a series of “what” questions – which follows your suggestions for deepening conversations. I also found the show better than average but short of greatness. The critique regarding the use of monologue is spot on, cinema photography is powerful in framing the world the media creator intends for us to see. There is one moment, however, when the conspicuous absence of visual sensory information was absolutely wonderful. Riley was explaining “things” to Erin in the boat and the episode ends with a visual blackout while the audio continues. That was a powerful moment in the show and I couldn’t wait to begin the next episode. It is a technique used extensively in the show, Van Helsing, and personally, I find that it gives my imagination a jolt that is different from the average cinema experience.
My fill-in-the-blank to the “I enjoyed…but..” statement would read: I enjoyed Midnight Mass but I do not know “whose” story was being told. In the beginning, it seemed the show was focused on Riley’s story. Halfway through, it was no longer Riley’s story, the show became a wrestling match between Erin and Father Paul. I might have thought it was the town’s story if each episode was viewed from the perspective of a different character, but that was not the case. There were moments when I thought the show might become Sheriff Hassan’s story, but then he would vanish for long periods of time. The same could be said of Bev Keane, she would gain screen time and then seemingly disappear. Similarly, it is difficult to clearly name an antagonist, is it Bev Keane or the creature/angel? It could be argued that the church (or religion by extension) is the central character, and myth (or superstition) is the villain. In that sense, both the religious faithful and the atheist are “saved” when together they defeat superstition (represented by both Keane and the creature).