The Midnight Club (NETFLIX)

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PoopaPapaPalps

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I was going to resurrect the "Netflix Recommendations" thread but I thought a little thread on this show was better suited. I only slightly recall that this was book series, I think YA/Young-Adults type; something to continue reading post-Goosebumps if you were a kid (that or jumping into Stephen King's library) but beyond that, I never read them so I have no idea as to what its contents were.

However, that didn't stop me from enjoying this show adaptation. It focuses on a group of terminally ill kids in their late-teens and early twenties telling ghost stories at midnight while spending their remaining time in a hospice care facility. There's a "spooky" subplot that follows it throughout, which makes it suitable for the Halloween season, but that's not what really mattered here, and it was a relief to see it: the show is about these kids. More than that, how humanly it depicts their feelings about their situation. It completely affected me in a way that I wasn't expecting and I think that's why I've forgiven some of the more clumsier elements (some of the acting and stories are a bit chunky otherwise). It talks compassionately and humanly about cancer (and similar terminal diseases) and death in a way I've seldom seen in media; without pity and condescension, but genuinely and honestly of its impact on those with it and those who care for those afflicted. It dealing with themes both when these people are alive and when they've died. It moved me in a way I wasn't expecting it to, although, I feel it may have been that I'm sympathetic to these topics. Especially of late.

My maternal grandmother and my step-father both died of cancer. The former when I was a young boy, and the latter when I was a young man. Both times, they were staying at home and I saw how they withered away in a single spot: in their favorite chair. It is the old-school way. I couldn't do much for my grandmother at the time, as I was a boy, but for my step-father, I cooked his favorite meals and I cleaned and changed his IV's regularly in his brief stay at home before he passed in hospital after a short return there. It's a very personal thing to me, cancer, but I think it's that way for many people. Everyone knows somebody affected by it one way or another.

Most recently, my best friend of near 30 years was also murdered in August and I've been mourning his passing since. I've not completely "gotten over it" but I am in a better state now. Though I don't think that's something anyone ever heals from. I think constantly about it and the fact knowing he's no longer here. It's one thing having a family member pass but another when it was someone you met as a child, another stranger swimming about the world, and then liking something about them so much that you've never let them out of your sight again. All this platonically, too; without any base desires and unburdened by romantic feelings towards the other person. You grow to appreciate the very time and space their mind occupies. Then, one day, they're gone.

This show tackled that. The stages of grieving and mourning from the broken bond and the vacuum that now exists. It's subplot of folk-magic and ghosts and stuff work almost as a palette cleanser to keep the show from getting too heavy, but the themes rang true for me and were treated with such sincerity and respect that it lingers with me now after having just finished the series tonight. I wasn't expecting anything of this caliber to happen and it was a genuinely moving thing to see it unfold as it did.

I whole-heartedly recommend this for people to check out. It's a little clumsy at times but its honesty, especially to those who've experienced loss similar to what the show's subject tackles, is really refreshing. I don't know if this will have an affect on younger viewers but its maturity really had an affect on me. You'll get your spook-fix here, as cheap as it is at times, but for those that can sympathize, it is a fuller experience than one might expect going in. I say this not having been a fan of almost everything Mike Flannagan has produced up until now, as well (Haunting of Hill House/Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, etc).

They leave room for a second series to follow but after handling the themes of this series as well as it did, I don't know how well it could do a second time round. It would be a great pity to squander what they accomplished here.
 
My wife and I enjoyed it too but for some different yet still sentimental reasons. I spent many a moon reading and watching Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark books with my daughter as she grew up and those memories are very, very dear to me. Watching this took us right back to that place like a time-machine and it was glorious. My eyes rained at least once. Uh, maybe twice. You are spot-on regarding the themes of grieving and loss and the other addressed complexities in the show. The jump-scares are hilarious and are a blast! Thanks for sharing your story ~
 
For those who were unaware, the show has been canceled by Netflix and will not receive a new season.

Mike Flanagan, being the mensch that he is, however, released basically the bullet points for what would have come and how it would all have ended up making sense. It sounds terrific, but I'm glad for what we got. I didn't feel as if the show ended on a cliffhanger, per se. Rather, I felt like it left a few questions dangling that could be answered by what Flanagan ultimately put out.

He continues to be one of my absolute favorite filmmakers of the modern era. He's also now working with Amazon to develop The Dark Tower as a TV series and if anyone can pull that off, I believe he can.
 
While I'm a bit bummed there won't be more, I'm also relieved that it won't continue at the same time. What the first (and now only) season did I thought genuinely touching and let just enough to our imagination as to what would ultimately happen to the kids. From the plot points, it seemed sound but maybe just treading in same waters again where it had already done well at. I'm fine leaving it at the one series; I found it cathartic enough as a one-and-done-r.

This is the first series I fully got behind of Mike Flannigan's. While I liked the main premise of Midnight Mass, and a lot of it technically, my problem was that the dialogue all sounded the same for each character and personality was relegated to the superficial external elements. This has been my biggest gripe in all his work thus far.
 

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