‘Midnight Mass’ Recap – ‘Book VII: Revelation’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for the series finale of ‘Midnight Mass’.
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While it is always wonderful to enjoy a horror story that is filled to the brim with deep commentary and dramatic moments and incredible meaning, there comes a point in that story’s life cycle where it has to abandon all of those elements and lean hard into the scares. Simply because, that is what the audience wants and why they settled in to watch this story in the first place and also because… to do otherwise… wouldn’t make said story, a horror story at all. It would in fact, make it a strange hybrid tale with horror elements and that is likely why Mike Flanagan and his creative team, opted to put their intelligent commentary on religion out of sight for the majority of the final episode of Midnight Mass. All so this series could display the terror expected of it and wow, did this decision pay off in spades.
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For ‘Book VII: Revelation’ is an outright masterclass in horror since it provides the viewer with an unyielding assault on their senses and it accomplished this feat, courtesy of Bev Keane’s selfish and idiotic decision to open the doors to the church. For those that were now vampires, hadn’t a clue they were vampires and didn’t understand their hunger. They just knew they needed to feed and did so with impunity in the dead of night, allowing for a Romero-esque sequence to take place where people were pulled from their homes and feasted upon in the darkness and the bedlam that came out of this, prompted some hard decisions to be made by Erin and her friends. For they realized that if left unchecked, these monsters would reach the mainland and that in turn… would be the end of everything. 

A revelation that motivated them to sacrifice themselves to keep the whole of humanity safe and one by one… they fell to either Bev Keane’s mob or the head vampire himself. But their end was not in vain. For they set fire to the boats, trapping everyone on the island and the Rec Center that Bev planned to use for daylight shelter… burned with the rest of island. Making her a grand fool at last since it was her decision to burn everything but the shelter and well… that action also made her a doomed fool. For she and the majority of the island’s inhabitants, would now suffer the same fate as Riley once the sun arrived and that led to a mostly bleak finale. In fact, the only real joy to come out of this end, came about from Erin’s decision to keep the master of these vampires close to her veins. Since she was able to wound its wings badly enough that it couldn’t escape the sunlight when it finally arrived.

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But outside of that, just about everyone we came to know on this island over the past few weeks, turned to ash once daybreak arrived… leaving the island devoid of life and structures and this ending also left Warren Flynn and Leeza Scarborough in a tenuous place. Since they were of course, floating on a boat and watching their home burn, leaving all of us to wonder… what would have been if Monsignor Pruitt had left well enough alone and accepted his fate and well, what’s surprising about that ending… outside of the terror it instills, is that this is where the commentary comes back into play. For this is the kind of finale that forces you to sit in silence and think about all the horrors untold you just experienced and the meaning of the story and well, what that silence has to say about the dangers of religion and what needs to change is powerful and impactful for certain. 
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Since it basically tasks the audience to demand that we reform religion through and through. For its false promises and dedication to stories that are unproven, makes it dangerous. Which means that in order for it to survive and in order for it to be impactful going forward… religion needs to focus heavily on how it can help people, and how it can use stories to inspire. Which means it can no longer worship deities and concepts, it must celebrate the human condition, and how we share in the same sorrow and joy, and it must preach for a need for all of us to come together and lift one another up and above all else, it must teach everyone how they can improve their lives through their actions instead of through blind faith. And if by chance religion can do all that, then it will indeed make the world a better place.

But as this finale points out, we are a long way from that. For right now, religion is embraced by the wicked and the broken and they use its purity to offer comfort and absolution for vengeful acts and twisted lessons and well… while we wait for that day when religion becomes less about the unjust and how it can serve them better and more about humanity and the wonderful things we can accomplish as a people if we set aside our differences and embrace the wonder of love, we can bask in the wonder of one powerful and horrifying tale. One that truly offered up a sobering look at modern religion and scared the hell out of us in doing so, by putting the worst parts of religion and our psyche on display.  

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