Who Are the Old Ghosts in ‘The Midnight Club’ and What the Cast Hopes for in Season 2
Spoiler alert: The following article contains spoilers and discusses the entirety of “The Midnight Club” Season 1.
Episode 10 of Netflix’s “The Midnight Club,” aptly titled “Midnight,” ritualistically delivers on a plethora of promises the series made early on in the season: We learn quasi-cult leader Shasta’s (Samantha Sloyan) backstory; Sandra (Annarah Cymone), who was revealed to have a false terminal diagnosis, leaves Brightcliffe; Kevin (Igby Rigney) finally finishes his ever-winding tale of a teen forced to kill due to a generational curse, and Ilonka (Iman Benson) concludes her story about the bond between witch mother and daughter. Oh, and the two lovesick fools finally kiss!
But in the last moments of the episode, Dr. Georgina Stanton (“A Nightmare on Elm Street’s” Heather Langenkamp) — who had just rebuked Ilonka for her dangerous involvement with Shasta’s iteration of the mysterious Paragon — takes off her wig, revealing a bald head (potentially signifying her undergoing chemotherapy) and a neck tattoo of the cult’s half-filled hourglass symbol. What to make of this, and what does the cast want to see in Season 2?
“I have a wild idea: I think it would be so cool if Stanton, at least one time, joined the Midnight Club and told a story of her own,” Rigney told TheWrap. “I think that would be so dope.”
His co-star, Chris Sumpter, who plays Spence, has other thoughts: “I hope we get a bloodbath. I hope it’s just bloody — dead people everywhere. I hope [co-creator and EP] Mike [Flanagan] just really sends a lot of people to the grave,” he said, prompting uproarious laughs from Rigney (as well as confused looks from Adia, who portrays Cheri, and mild concern from Ruth Codd, who is Anya).
When asked to clarify if he meant deaths in the real world of Brightcliffe Manor or in the residents’ story worlds, Sumpter replied, “In all regards. I wanna see fatalities, that’s what I’m interested in.”
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But Stanton’s true motivations isn’t the only question left unanswered in the twisty, horrifying series. Who are those old ghosts that only Ilonka and Kevin see? In Christopher Pike’s book of the same name, the paranormal creatures are meant to be the elderly representatives of the Midnight Club members, who prematurely lose their lives. (The YA show itself adapts several of Pike’s stories, explored in some eponymous episodes, and the author serves as executive producer.)
“I’m actually the old man and Igby’s the old woman in a different life,” Benson explained.
Rigney added, “I think the main theme with that idea is rebirth and the idea of soulmates or people who are meant to be together. Hopefully that’s where that’s going.”
Flanagan himself offered his own tease, and the promise of resolution should the series get renewed for Season 2.
“This was the first [series] I’ve worked on that was designed to be ongoing,” the “Haunting of Hill House” and “Midnight Mass” showrunner said in a separate interview. “I don’t know if [Season 2] will happen. We’ll have to see, but if it doesn’t, I promised everybody at Comic-Con yesterday that I’d put up all the all the answers to the central mysteries on Twitter, which I will honor. But yeah, the show was designed to carry forward and we made the decision in the writers room not to reveal two of our kind of bigger existential secrets of the show so that we’d have something to say in the second season.”
“The Midnight Club” is now streaming on Netflix.
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