Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for The Midnight Club.
Mike Flanagan and Leah Fong’s The Midnight Club is finally available on Netflix, bringing another chilling horror tale from the horror master who created The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass. However, while Flanagan’s previous Netflix series were self-contained miniseries, The Midnight Club actually leaves many unsolved questions behind, teasing a second season.
We don’t know yet if the series will be renewed or not, but now that The Midnight Club is available, it is time to discuss every plot thread left hanging after the finale.
Who Is Dr. Georgia Stanton? Could She Be Athena?
The finale of The Midnight Club had a shocking reveal about Dr. Georgia Stanton (Heather Langenkamp), the sweet doctor who runs Brightcliffe. As the season went by, we learned that Dr. Georgia was aware of the Midnight Club gatherings, knew about the hidden basement where the Paragon performed pagan rituals, and even got to the basement through secret stairs. It’s obvious Dr. Georgia has been hiding something, but nothing could prepare us for the finale’s cliffhanger. The last scene of The Midnight Club reveals that Dr. Georgia is bald, just like a cancer patient or the leader of the Paragon, Aceso (Katie Parker). She also has an hourglass tattooed on the back of her neck.
The tattoo on the back of Dr. Georgia’s neck is equal to the one Aceso’s daughter, Athena, had. It would make sense for Dr. Georgia to actually be Athena, as it would explain why she bought Brightcliffe in the first place. Dr. Georgia’s baldness, however, might tease the woman has sinister intentions for keeping terminal patients around. If Dr. Georgia is performing pagan rituals just like Aceso used to, she might be stealing the wasted life force of terminal patients to prolong her own life. If The Midnight Club gets renewed for a second season, Flanagan and Fong will have to explain who Dr. Georgia truly is, and why she founded the hospice.
Does the Ritual Really Work? Or Is It All Myth?
While Ilonka (Iman Benson) spends most of The Midnight Club’s runtime exploring the secrets of the Paragon and trying to recreate pagan rituals, the girl comes to terms with her own death in the finale. The ritual failed to save Anya (Ruth Codd) and also is unrelated to Sandra’s (Annarah Cymone) recovery. On top of that, Dr. Georgia gives a convincing speech about how Shasta (Samantha Sloya) was willing to kill people in the name of a myth, and Ilonka could have been following the same path soon if she didn’t let go of her hopes. But is the ritual really a myth? Or are there mystical forces acting on Brightcliffe? The first season of The Midnight Club never gives us a clear answer about what’s real or not with the supernatural elements of the series, and a follow-up season should clear things up.
Did "Shasta" Kill Her Friends to Stay Alive When She Was a Teenager?
At the end of The Midnight Club’s first season, we find out that Shasta is actually Julia Jayne, the teenager who founded the Midnight Club and theoretically used ancient pagan rituals to cure her cancer. We even get a flashback scene in which Julia (Larsen Thompson) escapes Brightcliffe to meet Aceso. We don’t know what Aceso taught Julia. However, if Shasta still believes that human sacrifice is the key to a long and prosperous life, does that mean Julia murdered the first Midnight Club to be free of her cancer? Even if the ritual is fake, Julia could have sacrificed other people just because she believed it was real. In an eventual second season, The Midnight Club must explore Julia’s past.
Where Is "Shasta"?
In The Midnight Club’s finale, Dr. Georgia and Ilonka try to resuscitate the three women who were poisoned by Shasta during the pagan ritual. The duo is successful in keeping the three women alive, but they were so focused on the dying women that Shasta escaped amidst the chaos. The police know what happened at Brightcliffe’s basement, so we assume they are looking for Shasta. And since Shasta was a prominent entrepreneur who ran a healing tonic company, it should be easy to track her. So, where is Shasta hiding? How will she evade capture? And is she still a threat to Ilonka and the Brightcliffe residents? Season 2 of The Midnight Club must bring the villain back for her final reckoning.
Why Can Only Ilonka and Kevin See the Brightcliffe's Ghosts?
During the first season, Ilonka is haunted by the ghost of an elderly woman, who follows her at night and says she’s hungry. Ilonka also experiences hallucinations in which she’s transported to the past. Closer to the season’s ending, we learn that Kevin (Igby Rigney) suffers from a similar haunting, but he mostly sees a dead man instead of the woman. One of the final episodes of The Midnight Club even teases that the ghost of the woman might be possessing Kevin and forcing him to wander Brightcliffe at night.
It would be fair to assume every patient in the hospice experiences the same thing, right? However, at the finale it becomes clear that Ilonka and Kevin are the only targets of the ghosts. But why? The series never explains why the couple is somehow special, and we need a second season to find out what these hauntings are all about.
What Did the Elderly Ghost Couple Want?
And speaking of ghosts, what does the elderly couple really want? During the cliffhanger scene, we get a look at Stanley Oscar Freelan and Vera Freelan, the original owners of Brightcliffe, before the Paragon came to the house. They look similar to the couple of ghosts that haunt Ilonka and Kevin. However, we still don’t know why they are still trapped in the hospice. They didn't do any harm for the entire season, so what could be their goal? If The Midnight Club gets a second season, they better answer these questions.
Who Left the Warning on the Basement Before the First Ritual?
Before Ilonka leads the whole Midnight Club to perform a pagan ritual to save Anya, the girl sees a huge “Don’t” written on the floor with white sheets. This sign was either put there by a supernatural force or by someone made of flesh and bone. Either way, the series never explains the sign. One of the most obvious authors of the sign is Dr. Georgia. After all, she knew about secret stairs leading to the basement. And if she has some Paragon history, she might be trying to stop the young patients of Brightcliffe from committing a human sacrifice.
Another candidate is Sandra, as she suspiciously asks Ilonka if there was anything strange at the basement before the ritual. Sandra could have put the sign there to scare her friends away from the ritual. However, she does join their efforts on the same night. And even after she confesses to tricking Spencer (Chris Sumpter) by pretending to be a ghost in the intercom, she never owns to having left the sign behind. In short, we need some sort of explanation about the sign.
Did Anya Really Send a Sign From Beyond?
In The Midnight Club’s finale, Ilonka and Rhett (Daniel Diemer) discover that Anya’s ballerina statue was fixed. Ilonka chooses to believe Anya reached out from the beyond and fixed the statue as a sign for the club. However, there’s nothing to prove the ballerina statue wasn’t just replaced by a new one for someone other than Anya. In fact, considering how Ilonka comes to terms with her mortality after finding the statue, we could argue Dr. Georgia might be behind the supposed miracle, and she might have done it to force Ilonka to give up pursuing the Paragon’s mysteries. In fact, it’s worth remembering another supernatural event, Spencer hearing a voice from beyond, was just Sandra trying to give him some kind of hope. So, in the end, there might not be a lot of supernatural events happening in Brightcliffe.
There’s still no news about a second season renewal for The Midnight Club, but we do hope the series gets some more episodes to tie up all the loose knots. The first season is available right now on Netflix.