Warning: spoilers for The Midnight Club episode 5 in this review. Turn back if you don't want to be spoiled!
The Midnight Club reaches its halfway mark with an episode that ties various threads together, gives us a hefty dose of vital backstory, features a fun cameo from a Flanagan favorite, and raises the emotional stakes. Now this is more like it.
‘Gimme A Kiss’ ended with Anya looking distinctly worse for wear, having overdosed on her meds. Kevin and Ilonka find her and manage to save her life. Anya, for her part, is both angry about this and scared - although she doesn't admit it at first, she sees a shadowy presence lurking in the room.
It's not all darkness and doom in Brightcliffe, however. Cheri (Adia) has been pretty under-served as a character so far, but she gets a couple of nice moments here. Way back in ‘The Two Danas’, dedicated gamer Amesh mourned the fact that he'd never get to experience the next generation thrills of a PlayStation (yes, that's what they were called back then, not the PS One), so she gets him one as a gift, her dad apparently knowing someone high up in Sony.
She was also paying attention when Ilonka said that she missed her hair. She gifts her friend an incredible designer wig worth tens of thousands of dollars. We still don't know a tonne about Cheri, but she's clearly a sweetie.
That night, the gang get together and eat weed brownies. It's Amesh's "death day" - the date that his doctors told him that he'd never live to see. He gives a touching speech and it becomes clear that there's some serious romantic tension between him and Natsuki. He confides that he has two frustrated desires, to save the world and to get the girl, but neither have come true.
All of this ties into his story at the Midnight Club, titled 'See You Later'. It casts Amesh as Luke, a young programmer who gets the chance to work with his idol, superstar games designer Vincent Beggs - played with rugged charm by Flanagan regular Rahul Kohli. Beggs has created a game so complex and realistic that it's basically unplayable. He hires Luke to try and beat the game. At the same time, Luke has fallen for a girl named Becky - played, of course, by Natsuki actress Aya Furukawa.
What follows is a deliberately convoluted yarn that takes in an alien race known as the Alumini and a time travel plot straight out of the Terminator. "Watch out, James Cameron," as Kevin knowingly quips.
The point of all this is pretty clear. Amesh is projecting his dreams of being a hero and getting to make out with a girl, with Kohli's Vincent an idealised projection of what his future might have looked like, had life not gone so drastically awry. But even in a place as dark and scary as Brightcliffe good things can happen too. After he finishes telling his story he chats some more with Natsuki and the two end up kissing.
Anya, alas, is still not in a good way. Ilonka talks with her and she finally opens up about her past, claiming somewhat startlingly that she killed her parents. The truth of that is not quite so clear cut, but it makes sense of the ‘Two Danas’ storyline she told at the Midnight Club back in episode two.
Like the protagonist of her story, Anya was a ballet dancer with a promising future ahead of her. And like Dana, she couldn't cope with the absurd amounts of pressure put on her. She got heavily into partying and drugs. One night, while searching for their wayward daughter, her parents were killed when their car hit a patch of ice. Naturally, this caused Anya to spiral even further before a cancer diagnosis put her in Brightcliffe.
It's a harrowing story, brilliantly played by Ruth Codd who continues to be the standout actor in an impressive cast. It's genuinely remarkable that this is her first professional acting gig. Iman Benson is also excellent here, playing both Ilonka's horror and the deep well of compassion that drives her. The episode ends with Anya breaking down in tears and sobbing, “I don’t want to die”. We don’t want you to either, Anya.
Brightcliffe notes...
Last episode, the numbers in Julia Jayne's art led Ilonka and Kevin to discover a book in the library. This is a journal documenting the Paragon - the mysterious cult that used to operate out of Brightcliffe. Clearly Ilonka has been studying it - early on here she gives us a potted history of the group.
The Paragon was founded in 1931 by a woman named Regina Ballard following the deaths of her husband from pneumonia and her son from polio. She took on the name Aceso, in honor of the Greek goddess of healing. She recruited four lieutenants, naming them Panacea (the goddess of universal health), Hygeia (the goddess of cleanliness), Iaso (the goddess of recuperation), and Aglaea, the goddess of beauty. Their aim was to find a way of perpetual healing and they chose the hourglass symbol to represent this.
Unfortunately, at some point in the process, Aceso went too far, eventually turning to blood sacrifice. Her daughter, named Athena, turned against her and went to the police. They were too late, however, arriving at the hospice to find all of the Paragon dead, except for Aceso who claimed that her followers had been accidentally poisoned. The mysterious Julia Jayne found this journal and hid it in the library, leaving the numbers as a trail of clues for future members of the Midnight Club to follow.
So, what are the chances that Dr. Stanton will turn out to be one of these characters, most likely Athena? And could the mysterious Shasta be connected to them as well? We’re eager to find out.
The Midnight Club is available on Netflix – keep with us for episodic reviews of Mike Flanagan's new show. For more viewing options, check out our list of the best Netflix shows available to watch right now.
