Mike Flanagan's latest show, The Midnight Club, co-created with Leah Fong and based on the novel by Christopher Pike, is out now on Netflix. If you've already watched all ten episodes of The Midnight Club, then you'll know that it's an alternately meditative and menacing tale of terminally ill teens finding hope and each other in a seemingly haunted hospice.
Unlike Flanagan's previous shows, The Haunting Of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and – our personal favorite – Midnight Mass, this isn't a self-contained mini-series. Instead, it's the first season of an ongoing show (though Netflix has yet to officially confirm that a second run is on the way). Because of that, it sets up a whole host of ongoing mysteries and doesn't give us too much in the way of answers. So, if you were left scratching your head at the end of episode 10, 'Midnight', hopefully we'll be able to clear a few things up for you with these answers. It should go without saying that there are major spoilers ahead for The Midnight Club ending...
The Midnight Club ending explained *spoilers*
Is Sandra really cured?
The Midnight Club is all about terminally ill kids, but one of the biggest twists this season was the revelation that one of the gang was, in fact, in recovery. The show teased this out for a couple of episodes before revealing that the lucky person was Sandra (Annarah Cymone).
How this has happened remains a mystery. The teens tried to save ailing Anya's life by conducting the Five Sisters ritual, but Anya still died. So, did the ritual work but heal the "wrong" person? Or was Sandra's recovery simply a misdiagnosis as Dr. Stanton believes? The ambiguity is intentional and this may be a mystery that we never get a definitive answer to. The important thing is that, yes, Sandra really is getting better. She leaves Brightcliffe for good in episode 10. That said, we wouldn't be surprised to see her again in some capacity in season two. The character is too interesting to drop from the series entirely.
Who was Shasta?
Throughout the series, Ilonka keeps running into a mysterious woman in the woods around Brightcliffe: Shasta (Samantha Sloyan) whose name, as she is eager to point out, means "teacher" in sanskrit. She runs Good Humor – a wellness company with a worrying cult vibe. Still, Ilonka immediately takes to her and the two become friends.
Shasta is not her birth name. Over the course of the series, Ilonka becomes aware of Julia Jayne, a girl who, like Ilonka, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and found herself in the hospice. Julia disappeared for a few days in 1968 and, when she returned, appeared to be completely cured of her ailments, thanks to the Five Sisters ritual. She was also, interestingly, the original founder of the Midnight Club.
Now, if you've been paying attention you'll probably have clocked fairly early on that Shasta and Julia Jayne are the same person. She was indeed cured, but there's more to her story than she's letting on. We learn in ‘Midnight’ that Shasta didn’t simply vanish – she tracked down Regina Ballard, founder of the Paragon cult, and lived with her for a while. Ballard – also known as Aceso – seems to genuinely believe that "old gods and goddesses" are at work in Brightcliffe and hopes to harness their power. She concocts a scheme with Julia that allows her to sneak back into the building and conduct the healing ritual – seemingly successfully. Her contact with Ballard, however, remains a secret. We don't know what happened to the former cult leader but there's clearly more to come from her.
But what does Shasta actually want?
It's still a little unclear what Shasta wanted, though we can speculate.
We learn from Dr. Stanton that Shasta has spent the last few years trying to break into Brightcliffe again. She believes that Shasta is starting to get ill again and is perhaps resorting to desperate measures in her search for a permanent cure (it's interestingly ambiguous if the seemingly rational Stanton thinks that this is actually possible or not).
Shasta, for her part, claims that the hospice is built on top of a "healing vortex" and that there is a tremendous power there. We know that she's carried on Aceso and the Paragon's work – which, you may recall, involved blood sacrifice – to try and secure some kind of immortality. We've got to assume they're still pursuing that goal.
What does Dr. Stanton want?
Stanton remains a very ambiguous character. For almost all of the series, she is presented as an arch-rationalist and a direct contrast to Shasta's more wooly, faith-based approach to life. There are plenty of hints, however, that things aren't that clear-cut with her. She doesn't just tolerate the Midnight Club's existence – she actively encourages it, restocking the library with firewood each night. She's very aware of the building's chequered history and of Shasta's attempts to break back in. We also, in the final scene, discover that she wears a wig and bares an hourglass tattoo, just like Shasta's.
So, was she too a part of the Paragon? And does she have a connection to Regina Ballard? We don't know for certain, but the tattoo certainly suggests so. One popular fan theory is that Stanton is Regina's estranged daughter Athena. It seems plausible, though there's an age discrepancy there. Athena would have been in her teens when the Paragon poisoning took place, meaning that she should be 70ish in 1994. Heather Langenkamp is 58 and there has been no attempt to try and age her up with makeup or prosthetics. Is she perhaps Athena’s daughter, then, carrying on her mother’s work?
What does the hourglass symbol represent?
The hourglass is the symbol of the Paragon. It represents life and death and the sands of time. However, the key thing with an hourglass is that, when all the sand has run out, it is turned upside down again. We see it throughout the series, on the journal that Ilonka discovers, etched into the lift that takes the gang downstairs to the secret chamber, and on the tattoos that both Shasta and Dr. Stanton bear. Once again, it suggests that all of this is part of the cult's quest for immortality.
Who were the ghosts haunting Ilonka and Kevin?
The first indication that something is wrong with Ilonka comes long before she's even heard of Brightcliffe. She looks in a mirror at the start of the first episode and sees a ghostly man (William B. Davis) and then passes out. Later, she sees a spectral woman too. These ghosts don't seem to do her any harm, but they're certainly keen to get her attention and follow her throughout the series.
We find out – via a newspaper clipping on the wall, seen in the last episode – that they are the ghosts of Stanley and Vera Freelan, the wealthy couple who first founded the estate in the 19th century. Why they still haunt its corridors, however, remains a mystery – though one that Mike Flanagan has promised will be explained in season two.
Is Amesh dying?
Well, the obvious answer here – as Dr. Stanton says at one point in episode 10 – is that everyone is dying. That’s doubly true for the residents of Brightcliffe who all have terminal diagnoses. Living with looming mortality is the show's primary theme and, in the first half of the season, we lost Tristan and Anya (and the unseen Rachel before them). Although it's a little painful to think about, it seems certain that we'll lose more characters as the series progresses and, with his motor functions and eyesight deteriorating, it does seem likely that Amesh is running out of time, just as he has found love with Natsuki. It’s bittersweet, but that’s The Midnight Club.
That's a wrap on The Midnight Club season 1. For more on what to watch on Netflix, be sure to check out our pieces on the best Netflix shows and best Netflix movies available to stream right now.
