Midnight Mass
Oct. 16th, 2023 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
predelectionMy sister got my mom to watch Midnight Mass and my mom freaking loved it, so she got me to watch it and...IT WAS GOOD!!! I just finished the last episode and I was WEEPING!!!! My mom was like, "It's a horror story but ultimately it's a love story" and I like like "yeah yeah yeah whatever" because being on tumblr dot com made me allergic to having recommendations presented to me this way. BUT MY MOM WAS RIGHT!!!! CYNICISM DESTROYED!!!! (Spoilers under the cut):
Basically, a super old Catholic priest with dementia gets sent on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem by his parish and because he has dementia, he gets separated from his tour group, lost in the desert, and uncovers the ancient liar of a vampire that he calls "The Angel". The vampire makes him young again and he brings the vampire home because he wants to turn everyone else in the parish into vampires. Did I mention the parish is located on an extremely small and isolated, economically depressed island?
The show starts off with the priest's secretive return to the island which coincides with the return of Riley, who killed a young girl while driving under the influence and was just released on parole. His family situation is very awkward and tense but was done sympathetically to all the family members, so I could easily tolerate the awkwardness, and even looked forward to seeing it! He has a special friendship with "the girl next door", Erin Greene, who is SO COOL. She ran away from home and returned years later, pregnant, to take possession of the family home and take over her mom's old job as a teacher. Their relationship is very beautifully portrayed, it's loving and intimate but still "new" since they are reconnecting after a long time apart.
Warren, Riley's younger brother, is in love with his schoolmate, Leeza, who was paralyzed in a shooting accident by the local outcast, Joe Collie. Warren recently befriended the new kid, Ali, who is the son of the new Sheriff and they are also the only Muslims on the island. Leeza is extremely Catholic (almost everyone on the island is too) and spends a lot of time at the church where the EVIL BEVERLY also spends most of her time. Beverly is literally the anti-Christ. I would incept myself into this show just so I could kick Beverly's ass. FUCK BEVERLY!!!!
Last but definitely not least, was the local LESBIAN (!!!!) doctor, Sarah, and her mom with Alzheimer's, Mildred. Sarah is so smart and cool and wonderfully perfect in every way. I love her. I think she should be held up as an example of how to write great lesbian characters. She's openly gay, but the writers didn't make her say a tacky line explaining to the audience that she's gay and even though she IS gay and it IS relevant to her character, her involvement in the plot isn't being "the lesbian".
It's slowly revealed to the audience throughout the show that there is a vampiric presence on the island and that it has something to do with the "new" priest, but the islanders experience it as "miracles" and get increasingly excited about it as the religious fervour ramps up. The intense religious atmosphere shifts the social lines of the island, pushing characters in and out of the "social sphere" as their relationship to the church and its parishioners change as a result of subsequent miracles. Joe Collie, a beaten down alcoholic, receives a visit from Leeza after her paralysis is cured. She forgives him and challenges him to forgive himself. This tacit acceptance from the girl he paralyzed gives him some grace within the community as he starts attending AA meetings with the priest, but it's quickly revealed that this acceptance was superficial after he is murdered and everyone (except Riley!) dismisses him as a lost cause on another bender. Riley realized the priest has been lying to him about what happened to Joe, and when he goes confront him he sees the vampire priest and The Angel pouring vampire blood into the communion wine. They fucking KILL HIM and turn him into a vampire but he tells Erin the truth about what's going on and commits suicide by letting the sunrise burn him to death. Meanwhile, Beverly the Evil goes into Super Evil Mode because she wants to be a vampire sooo badly she helps the priest orchestrate a mass murder-suicide in the church to turn all the parishioners into vampires. Warren, Leeza, Ali's dad the Sheriff, Sarah (lesbian!!), and Erin all get away and try to stop the vampires from leaving the island as a Beverly-lead vampire coven slaughter the rest of the island residents.
I found all the relationships between the characters compelling and well-written. After Riley went to confront the priest about his lie about Joe and is turned into a vampire, he finds out that the priest is the same as the old priest who he knew as a child and they discuss a shared memory where the priest also lied to Riley as a child. The priest lied to child-Riley about raising a mouse from the dead on Easter to sustain Riley's faith. Though this was a small moment I think it encapsulates the way the show tried to build detailed histories for the characters that inform the way they interact with each other and their fundamental beliefs and struggles. After Riley killed someone in a drunk driving accident, his conscience was tortured and he lost his religion. However, the story of the false resurrection of the mouse shows the audience that his loss of faith was the culmination of many other incidents where his faith went unrewarded. This memory also demonstrated a lot about the priest's own religious struggle and his fear of death. To him, preserving faith, time, and happiness was more important than truth and we can see him rationalize these priorities throughout the show. I loved that the writers trusted the audience to pick-up on subtext and the indirect conversations characters had. You can see the unspoken thoughts going on in people's heads without shitty dialogue overly explaining it. It's soooo good.
A major conflict of the show is not religion vs. atheism, but religion vs people; how different people approach the same religion, how religion is interpreted, believed, or rejected. I thought this was much more interesting than "Catholicism bad, cold rationality good". Riley was a very troubled person who suffered for his loss of faith and the loss of meaning it gave him. Though he (a protagonist) rejected the faith he was brought up in, he still interacted with it on a social level (going to church with his mom to make her happy) which in turn influenced how his social non-conformity (stigma of his drunk driving accident and incarceration, alcohol abuse, his open questioning of religion) was tolerate by other islanders. This on it's own is a lot more nuanced than many other depictions of religion I see in media. But the show takes it a lot further by letting various characters discuss religion with each other without positioning one person as "right" or the "winner" as a result of theological debate. There are definitely people who are "wrong" and who "lose" the religion dialogue, like Beverly the Abhorred. She twists scripture and manipulates people's faith to her own ends. This frequently lets her "win" interactions and fights in the show, but because her religion is self-serving and self-justified she inadvertently deludes herself to practical realities (like "do not burn down all the buildings on an island full of vampires who die in sunlight"). Beverly is proved wrong not because her religion is Literally and Textually Incorrect, but because of who she is as a person and who she is as a person is the prism through which her religion is reflected.
I have to have an aside here about how much I loved Sarah the awesome lesbian doctor. She is the secret love-child of the priest and his long-time lover, Mildred who viewers first see as an elderly woman with dementia. As the vampire blood in the communion wine heals and de-ages the characters in the show we see more and more of who Mildred used to be before her illness. She and the priest (I literally cannot remember his name) have several intimate scenes that I found genuinely touching and romantic. In the end, the priest said that he did everything (bring an evil vampire to the island) because he wanted to have a second chance at life with Mildred and Sarah and he honestly talked to Mildred about his religious doubts, fear of death, and regrets about life. I think what I admired about Mildred and Sarah is that their characters could accept their regrets as "choices" more than "mistakes" which allowed them to accept death and uncertainty one billion times better than the priest. When Sarah is dying and the priest tries to give her vampire blood to make her live she, AN EXTREMELY COOL AND BADASS LESBIAN, uses her dying breath to spit out the vampire blood so she can die. This, and several other moments where characters confronted with vampirism (or the possibility of it) was an interesting reflection on human nature. I was really happy we got to see this family, and there were some funny moments with them too. Sarah didn't know the priest was her biological father until the last moment, but he was always weirdly intense about her. She and her lesbian friend (maybe girlfriend?) previously had a laugh over the fact that he always used to stare at her "like he could tell [she was gay]" and sometimes he would just randomly tell her how amazing she was and how he was proud of her and she would just be like "oh, thanks...?"
The Angel vampire was truly disgusting though. I am curious if it ever was human at one point (as implied by Sarah's theory about vampirism), but by the time the priest found it and brought it to the island it was just an animal... a creepy animal capable of understanding human nature enough to imitate behavior but without perceptible meaning. I was left wondering about its motives and why it went along with the priest's plan to turn the island into a vampire town and subsequently how capable it was of higher thinking and planning. It seemed both capable and incapable of restraint but in either case it was totally without compassion. If it was capable of human-level thinking I would be disgusted because of it's cruelty, but if it was incapable then I would be disgusted that humans would eventually degrade into its base animalism after being turned. I was disturbed by the idea that the priest (and other vampires) shared a mental connection to it because I would find it repulsive to have something like the Angel vampire connected to my mind. It also gave me nightmares last night.
I ended the show feeling like if I was in the situation of one of the vampired islanders I would also choose sucky human death over being a vampire, and the show provided a compelling argument for why vampirism Had To Die. I was relived that the show ended with Warren and Leeza surviving and un-vampired though! I enjoyed this show so much that I hope they don't do something insane like make a sequel and ruin it. I think the writers did an amazing job and many of the actors really sold me on their characters (Riley and Beverly's actors delivered stand-out performances). I feel like I could probably write an essay about every single episode, or even just scenes! There was a lot to think about in this show and I might revisit it again in a future post.
Anyway, I recommend this show to anyone and everyone. Please watch it!! It was so good!!!
Basically, a super old Catholic priest with dementia gets sent on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem by his parish and because he has dementia, he gets separated from his tour group, lost in the desert, and uncovers the ancient liar of a vampire that he calls "The Angel". The vampire makes him young again and he brings the vampire home because he wants to turn everyone else in the parish into vampires. Did I mention the parish is located on an extremely small and isolated, economically depressed island?
The show starts off with the priest's secretive return to the island which coincides with the return of Riley, who killed a young girl while driving under the influence and was just released on parole. His family situation is very awkward and tense but was done sympathetically to all the family members, so I could easily tolerate the awkwardness, and even looked forward to seeing it! He has a special friendship with "the girl next door", Erin Greene, who is SO COOL. She ran away from home and returned years later, pregnant, to take possession of the family home and take over her mom's old job as a teacher. Their relationship is very beautifully portrayed, it's loving and intimate but still "new" since they are reconnecting after a long time apart.
Warren, Riley's younger brother, is in love with his schoolmate, Leeza, who was paralyzed in a shooting accident by the local outcast, Joe Collie. Warren recently befriended the new kid, Ali, who is the son of the new Sheriff and they are also the only Muslims on the island. Leeza is extremely Catholic (almost everyone on the island is too) and spends a lot of time at the church where the EVIL BEVERLY also spends most of her time. Beverly is literally the anti-Christ. I would incept myself into this show just so I could kick Beverly's ass. FUCK BEVERLY!!!!
Last but definitely not least, was the local LESBIAN (!!!!) doctor, Sarah, and her mom with Alzheimer's, Mildred. Sarah is so smart and cool and wonderfully perfect in every way. I love her. I think she should be held up as an example of how to write great lesbian characters. She's openly gay, but the writers didn't make her say a tacky line explaining to the audience that she's gay and even though she IS gay and it IS relevant to her character, her involvement in the plot isn't being "the lesbian".
It's slowly revealed to the audience throughout the show that there is a vampiric presence on the island and that it has something to do with the "new" priest, but the islanders experience it as "miracles" and get increasingly excited about it as the religious fervour ramps up. The intense religious atmosphere shifts the social lines of the island, pushing characters in and out of the "social sphere" as their relationship to the church and its parishioners change as a result of subsequent miracles. Joe Collie, a beaten down alcoholic, receives a visit from Leeza after her paralysis is cured. She forgives him and challenges him to forgive himself. This tacit acceptance from the girl he paralyzed gives him some grace within the community as he starts attending AA meetings with the priest, but it's quickly revealed that this acceptance was superficial after he is murdered and everyone (except Riley!) dismisses him as a lost cause on another bender. Riley realized the priest has been lying to him about what happened to Joe, and when he goes confront him he sees the vampire priest and The Angel pouring vampire blood into the communion wine. They fucking KILL HIM and turn him into a vampire but he tells Erin the truth about what's going on and commits suicide by letting the sunrise burn him to death. Meanwhile, Beverly the Evil goes into Super Evil Mode because she wants to be a vampire sooo badly she helps the priest orchestrate a mass murder-suicide in the church to turn all the parishioners into vampires. Warren, Leeza, Ali's dad the Sheriff, Sarah (lesbian!!), and Erin all get away and try to stop the vampires from leaving the island as a Beverly-lead vampire coven slaughter the rest of the island residents.
I found all the relationships between the characters compelling and well-written. After Riley went to confront the priest about his lie about Joe and is turned into a vampire, he finds out that the priest is the same as the old priest who he knew as a child and they discuss a shared memory where the priest also lied to Riley as a child. The priest lied to child-Riley about raising a mouse from the dead on Easter to sustain Riley's faith. Though this was a small moment I think it encapsulates the way the show tried to build detailed histories for the characters that inform the way they interact with each other and their fundamental beliefs and struggles. After Riley killed someone in a drunk driving accident, his conscience was tortured and he lost his religion. However, the story of the false resurrection of the mouse shows the audience that his loss of faith was the culmination of many other incidents where his faith went unrewarded. This memory also demonstrated a lot about the priest's own religious struggle and his fear of death. To him, preserving faith, time, and happiness was more important than truth and we can see him rationalize these priorities throughout the show. I loved that the writers trusted the audience to pick-up on subtext and the indirect conversations characters had. You can see the unspoken thoughts going on in people's heads without shitty dialogue overly explaining it. It's soooo good.
A major conflict of the show is not religion vs. atheism, but religion vs people; how different people approach the same religion, how religion is interpreted, believed, or rejected. I thought this was much more interesting than "Catholicism bad, cold rationality good". Riley was a very troubled person who suffered for his loss of faith and the loss of meaning it gave him. Though he (a protagonist) rejected the faith he was brought up in, he still interacted with it on a social level (going to church with his mom to make her happy) which in turn influenced how his social non-conformity (stigma of his drunk driving accident and incarceration, alcohol abuse, his open questioning of religion) was tolerate by other islanders. This on it's own is a lot more nuanced than many other depictions of religion I see in media. But the show takes it a lot further by letting various characters discuss religion with each other without positioning one person as "right" or the "winner" as a result of theological debate. There are definitely people who are "wrong" and who "lose" the religion dialogue, like Beverly the Abhorred. She twists scripture and manipulates people's faith to her own ends. This frequently lets her "win" interactions and fights in the show, but because her religion is self-serving and self-justified she inadvertently deludes herself to practical realities (like "do not burn down all the buildings on an island full of vampires who die in sunlight"). Beverly is proved wrong not because her religion is Literally and Textually Incorrect, but because of who she is as a person and who she is as a person is the prism through which her religion is reflected.
I have to have an aside here about how much I loved Sarah the awesome lesbian doctor. She is the secret love-child of the priest and his long-time lover, Mildred who viewers first see as an elderly woman with dementia. As the vampire blood in the communion wine heals and de-ages the characters in the show we see more and more of who Mildred used to be before her illness. She and the priest (I literally cannot remember his name) have several intimate scenes that I found genuinely touching and romantic. In the end, the priest said that he did everything (bring an evil vampire to the island) because he wanted to have a second chance at life with Mildred and Sarah and he honestly talked to Mildred about his religious doubts, fear of death, and regrets about life. I think what I admired about Mildred and Sarah is that their characters could accept their regrets as "choices" more than "mistakes" which allowed them to accept death and uncertainty one billion times better than the priest. When Sarah is dying and the priest tries to give her vampire blood to make her live she, AN EXTREMELY COOL AND BADASS LESBIAN, uses her dying breath to spit out the vampire blood so she can die. This, and several other moments where characters confronted with vampirism (or the possibility of it) was an interesting reflection on human nature. I was really happy we got to see this family, and there were some funny moments with them too. Sarah didn't know the priest was her biological father until the last moment, but he was always weirdly intense about her. She and her lesbian friend (maybe girlfriend?) previously had a laugh over the fact that he always used to stare at her "like he could tell [she was gay]" and sometimes he would just randomly tell her how amazing she was and how he was proud of her and she would just be like "oh, thanks...?"
The Angel vampire was truly disgusting though. I am curious if it ever was human at one point (as implied by Sarah's theory about vampirism), but by the time the priest found it and brought it to the island it was just an animal... a creepy animal capable of understanding human nature enough to imitate behavior but without perceptible meaning. I was left wondering about its motives and why it went along with the priest's plan to turn the island into a vampire town and subsequently how capable it was of higher thinking and planning. It seemed both capable and incapable of restraint but in either case it was totally without compassion. If it was capable of human-level thinking I would be disgusted because of it's cruelty, but if it was incapable then I would be disgusted that humans would eventually degrade into its base animalism after being turned. I was disturbed by the idea that the priest (and other vampires) shared a mental connection to it because I would find it repulsive to have something like the Angel vampire connected to my mind. It also gave me nightmares last night.
I ended the show feeling like if I was in the situation of one of the vampired islanders I would also choose sucky human death over being a vampire, and the show provided a compelling argument for why vampirism Had To Die. I was relived that the show ended with Warren and Leeza surviving and un-vampired though! I enjoyed this show so much that I hope they don't do something insane like make a sequel and ruin it. I think the writers did an amazing job and many of the actors really sold me on their characters (Riley and Beverly's actors delivered stand-out performances). I feel like I could probably write an essay about every single episode, or even just scenes! There was a lot to think about in this show and I might revisit it again in a future post.
Anyway, I recommend this show to anyone and everyone. Please watch it!! It was so good!!!
