Midnight Mass - meta with light spoilers
Oct. 5th, 2021 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitewithfishI had a whole long post planned about the successes and failures of Netflix's Midnight Mass, and it was eaten by the internet when my computer shut down unexpectedly.
So, here's my thoughts - I like episodes 1-5, and then episodes 6 and 7 really leaned into elements of the show that I had been unconsciously forgiving, to the severe detriment of the show.
The show goes out of its way to forgive and humanize the behavior of someone who was legitimately wrong, acting in bad faith, and harming people from a position of authority - for decades. And the show ends with that person being a tragic main character, when I thought the show was setting that character up for a detailed and definitive fall from grace (a phrase I choose quite pointedly.)
I'll put this one non-detailed spoiler behind a cut:
The final episode of the show leaned hard into forgiving and excusing a group of Christians who literally lead an attack on any member of their community who was not in church for the Easter Vigil, and as far as I can tell, I don't think the show realized that it was depicting a Holy Week pogrom that was orchestrated by Catholic authorities. Then the show goes out of its way to depict the deaths of the murderers, the crazed religious crowd!, as tragic, using religious imagery.
The issues with Haunting of Hill House and Bly Manor were specific to the characters and focused on giving full scope to the emotions of the story, but this same trend really let me down with Midnight Mass. Like, you can depict and forgive flaws in a family or a relationship that you simply cannot forgive of an institution, and Midnight Mass simply did not understand that even a little bit.
So, here's my thoughts - I like episodes 1-5, and then episodes 6 and 7 really leaned into elements of the show that I had been unconsciously forgiving, to the severe detriment of the show.
The show goes out of its way to forgive and humanize the behavior of someone who was legitimately wrong, acting in bad faith, and harming people from a position of authority - for decades. And the show ends with that person being a tragic main character, when I thought the show was setting that character up for a detailed and definitive fall from grace (a phrase I choose quite pointedly.)
I'll put this one non-detailed spoiler behind a cut:
The final episode of the show leaned hard into forgiving and excusing a group of Christians who literally lead an attack on any member of their community who was not in church for the Easter Vigil, and as far as I can tell, I don't think the show realized that it was depicting a Holy Week pogrom that was orchestrated by Catholic authorities. Then the show goes out of its way to depict the deaths of the murderers, the crazed religious crowd!, as tragic, using religious imagery.
The issues with Haunting of Hill House and Bly Manor were specific to the characters and focused on giving full scope to the emotions of the story, but this same trend really let me down with Midnight Mass. Like, you can depict and forgive flaws in a family or a relationship that you simply cannot forgive of an institution, and Midnight Mass simply did not understand that even a little bit.
