Some of you might be aware of a new Netflix series called Midnight Mass, from the mind and pen of Mike Flanagan, who has been producing some rather popular horror series of late.
Horror is not my bag, really, but this one has a strong Catholic element – reviewed here in America – so I thought I’d take a look. Well, more than a look – I watched it over the past couple of days.
I’m going to write about it in two parts. Maybe three, if I sense myself getting too verbose. In this post, I’m going to look at the Catholic culture of the 7-episode series, and in the next post, I’ll look at the thematic elements. This post will be spoiler-free, but just warning you – the next one won’t be. There’s no way to do spoiler tags on WordPress, so I’ll just post many warnings at the top of the post. And yes, if want the full impact of the series, you don’t want to be spoiled. And there’s really no way to write about the themes – and how the series ultimately just doesn’t work – without spoilers.
So basically: Midnight Mass is set on a tiny island – somewhere (it was filmed in British Columbia). Fishing has, of course, been the island’s primary income, but that’s been devastated in recent years by the impact of an oil spill.
The basic plot is that a new, youngish priest named Paul Hill shows up on Crockett Island as a purportedly temporary replacement for the quite elderly pastor who fell ill during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He’s got a fairly attractive, if a just a bit off personality, he’s shaking things up just a little in a good way, and then …surprise….odd things start happening.
This isn’t where the series begins, though. It begins with Riley Flynn, a young man sitting by the side of a dark road, blue lights flashing in the background. He’s just killed a young woman in a drunken driving accident. In the next few minutes, we’ll se him be sent to prison for a few years, then, upon release, return home to Crockett Island the same time as the new priest shows up.
So yes, addiction, sin, remorse, and forgiveness are all in play here.
And weird rushing sounds and a beach full of dead cats. But – as I said, that’s for the next post.
Let’s talk Catholic Scenery.
As many have mentioned, Midnight Mass gives us one of the more accurate depictions of ordinary Catholic life (in a not-ethnic Western parish) that’s been put on screen. Flanagan is himself lapsed, but he comes out of a deep Catholic background, has wrestled with faith issues himself, and while he has emerged on the other side a skeptic with a heavy dose of Eastern philosophy, he doesn’t seem, from his own words, to bear any particular animosity about Catholicism – his own personal experience growing up was, in his own telling, positive.
So for once – the Mass is pretty accurately depicted onscreen. No distribution of Communion right after the Gospel or saying the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of “Mass” here. I have to say what I was most impressed by was the sitting posture of the altar servers – the fruit of clearly “correct” training, they sit up straight, hands on knees. Good job, fellows! And Catholic consultant!
Some points:
When Father Paul consecrates the wine, he bows down low and speaks the words into the chalice – you see that more frequently these days, but it’s still fairly old school. That was interesting to me at the moment from the perspective of liturgical trivia, but in hindsight, it ends up being…important.
After watching the first episode, you probably will take issue with the priest wearing gold vestments in Ordinary Time and his use of the “old” translation – commented on by a parishioner – that is the translation before the more faithful to the Latin new translation – that’s a weird liturgical nerd thing to highlight – you might think. Well, in the end, you’ll see. It’s relevant.
My only quibbles with the Mass – and they are minor – are, first, that they make a big deal about filling the censer a few times, but you never see any actually incensing, and we do see the beginnings of a few Masses, complete with procession to the altar and the beginning of Mass.
And one more: at one point, the announcement is made, “Today’s Psalm is Psalm 27” or something – and the lector just reads through it. Reading through a Psalm with the response only at the beginning and at the end is fine – it’s monastic – but that’s not what happened here. She just proclaimed the whole Psalm.
Probably the biggest mistake – glaring – concerns Ash Wednesday. You have the important Ash Wednesday Mass – presented well – and then right after that? There’s a parish/community festival. On Ash Wednesday after Mass. And they serve hot dogs. (But it’s still clearly Ash Wednesday, because folks converse, still with their ashes on their foreheads.)
So that’s….wrong.
I also question whether a bunch of cradle Catholics would be able to belt out Nearer my God, to Thee by heart at a crisis moment. I know, I know – Titanic reference and all that – but more realistic would be a mass warbling of Be Not Afraid, don’t you think?
Oh – also, as Steven Greydanus of Decent Films reminded me on Twitter – Communion wine on Good Friday. Don’t know how I forgot that!
Also a little off is the way the title of the series ties into the liturgical season. The climax of the series is on Holy Saturday night, and the Mass in question is the Easter Vigil – and referenced as such. Not the Mass at Midnight of Christmas. Which of course is what anyone would think of when they hear “Midnight Mass” – Christmas. But I guess Easter Vigil wouldn’t snap as a show title.
Now – the Catholic landscape outside of Mass. There’s not much because it’s a small community, but:
One of the primary characters is the officious Church Lady, Bev Sharpe. She is by far the most unpopular character on the show, not just because she’s a bad guy, but because the character is written so formulaically and really, superficially. You can have a mean, hypocritical, authoritarian Church Lady character with a bit of depth. You can.
But the type – well, she lives. She does, and we all know her. She might be the parish secretary, she might be the nun pastoral associate, she might even be the Volunteer of the Year. But she is definitely a part of the parish landscape, and here she is, on Crockett Island.
And what about people’s faith?
It’s all over the place, in a realistic way. You’ve got skeptics – most notably Riley himself, whose dialogues on faith with others are a huge part of the show and clearly coming right from Flanagan’s head.
But aside from Bev, most of the believers – all of them, in fact – are presented as being sincere, well-meaning, and not in the least unthinking or shallow. They’ve grappled with questions of free will, suffering and life after death. They’re suffering themselves. They’re living with hurt and the need to forgive. And they live out their faith intelligently, and Flanagan gets the conversations that people would have about little things right.
So when Riley comes back after his incarceration, he’s lost his faith. Will he go to Mass? At first he says no, but then his father makes clear that this really isn’t an option – he has to go, but, his father also says, he should “sit back” at Communion. If he doesn’t believe, it just wouldn’t be right – there’s no question.
And then comes Ash Wednesday – will Riley go up for ashes? He initially resists, but then his mother smiles and encourages him saying, “It’s not the sacrament – it’s a blessing,” and that he should approach.
Now, none of this gets at the theology or metaphysics of the show, which are, in the end, fairly incoherent. Next post for that.
Spoiler alert!
