Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for all of Season 1 of The Midnight Club.“We are all stories in the end.” The Eleventh Doctor’s maxim rings truer than ever in Mike Flanagan’s new Netflix series, The Midnight Club, co-created with Leah Fong. Based on the book of the same title by Christopher Pike, the series tells the story of Ilonka (Iman Benson), a top-of-the-class teenager who moves to Brightcliffe Hospice after being diagnosed with terminal thyroid cancer. There, she meets a group of fellow kids that get together at night to share stories - most of them, spine-chilling tales about serial killers, deals with the devil, and screaming ghosts. But the stories of the Midnight Club aren’t mere works of fiction. They also tell us a lot about the children that came up with them. For instance, Natsuki’s (Aya Furukawa) tale about a girl that runs away from home in her mother’s car and picks up two eerie hitchhikers is actually about her depression and previous suicide attempt, while Kevin’s (Igby Rigney) tale about a boy commanded to kill young girls by a voice that has followed his family for generations tells us a lot about his relationship with his controlling and legacy-obsessed mother. And then there is “The Two Danas”, Anya’s (Ruth Codd) story about a rising ballerina that splits herself in two to enjoy the pleasures of life.
Told right at the show’s second episode, “The Two Danas” is, at the same time, the most mysterious and the most straightforward story of the Midnight Club. At first, the well-behaved, studious Dana seems to have nothing in common with the rude tough-cookie that is Anya. And yet, it is pretty clear that Anya’s story is about no one else but herself. Over the course of the following episodes, Anya reveals further information about her past to Ilonka, and viewers get to put together the pieces of “The Two Danas” and Anya’s real life. The final piece of the puzzle is revealed in the form of a ballerina statuette with a missing, broken leg - curiously enough, the same leg that Anya lost to bone cancer. But just as things are beginning to settle down, the plot thickens once more when Anya’s childhood friend Rhett (Daniel Diemer) pays a visit to Brightcliffe after her death. Suddenly, the ballerina statuette is no longer missing a leg. What happened there?
“The Two Danas”
Anya’s offering to the Midnight Club is about a young ballerina that never knew a life beyond her studies and ballet lessons. Tired of being so perfect all the time, she has the devil create a copy of herself, to which she would be forever linked: anything she felt, the copy could feel as well, and vice-versa. And so, Dana’s copy went out into the world to enjoy a life of sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll while Dana stayed back and kept on practicing to become the great dancer she was destined to be.
Except, at one point, Dana Two’s life became more about the drugs than about the sex and the rock’n’roll. This had disastrous consequences for Dana Prime’s health, as well as her career as a ballerina. One day, during an important audition, Dana Prime lost her balance and broke her foot while Dana Two was getting high on heroin. Still, no one seemed to notice that there was something wrong. No one, that is, but her childhood friend, Bill, who gave her a statuette of a ballerina as a gift after the botched audition. Feeling the effects of the bad trip that Dana Two was having at the time, Dana Prime threw the statuette at Bill, breaking one of its legs and driving her friend away for good.
Dana Prime had no control over Dana Two anymore, and she had to do something about it. She began cutting herself to cause her double pain in the hopes of getting her attention, but this didn’t do much good. In the end, Dana Prime came to the conclusion that she would have to kill Dana Two. At the exact same time, Dana Two had the exact same thought. The story ends with one of the Danas waking up in the hospital without one leg, having successfully killed her double. The problem is she isn’t sure which Dana she is anymore.
Anya’s Real Story
In Episode 5, “See You Later”, Anya tells Ilonka the truth about why her parents never visit on family day and reveals her inspiration for “The Two Danas”. When she was younger, Anya was a ballerina herself, and a pretty good one. So much so, in fact, that she was offered a spot at a big American ballet school. She moved across the Atlantic, from Ireland to the US, with her parents, but there was something inside her that just didn’t allow her to bet on her own success. While Dana struck a deal with the devil to split herself in two, Anya did something similar by living a double life. By day, she played the perfect daughter and the future prima ballerina, but, at night, she snuck out to party and get a taste of things she couldn’t learn from books or dress rehearsals. One night, Anya’s parents noticed that she was gone and went out looking for her. They never found her. Anya lost her parents that night after their car hit some black ice on the road.
The pain of losing her family drove Anya to start using heroin. She had no one else in the world, apart from her best friend at the time, Rhett. Despite being just a boy himself, Rhett tried to help Anya get clean, but she shut him out repeatedly. One day, Rhett gifted her a statuette of a ballerina with her right leg in the air. In a fit of rage, Anya threw the statuette at him, breaking the ballerina’s leg. This was the last time she spoke to her childhood friend. Ironically, years later, Anya would have her right leg amputated due to cancer.
Anya’s Dream
After the failed ritual Ilonka and the Midnight Club perform in Episode 6, Anya loses consciousness and falls into a coma. In Episode 7, titled simply “Anya”, we get a glimpse of what she dreams her life would be like if she ever left Brightcliffe with no cancer to hold her down. It is not a good life. Dream Anya works a boring job at a supermarket and is utterly alone in the world. She can’t bring herself to go back to dancing, and she misses her Brightcliffe buddies to the point in which their horror story versions begin invading her imaginary life. It is only when she allows herself to hear their voices from the real world and understands that that isn’t her real life that she can feel happy again. When this happens, Anya passes away, finally ready to let go.
To Anya, realizing that her friends of the Midnight Club are there by her side is coming to terms with the fact that she isn’t as lonely as she thought. But there is still something missing from her life. Even if she has found a surrogate family in Ilonka, Kevin, Natsuki, Amesh (Sauriyan Sapkota), Cheri (Adia), Sandra (Annarah Cymone), and Spencer (William Chris Sumpter), none of them is a replacement for Rhett - the only person she wronged with whom she could actually make amends, but didn’t. The Midnight Club knows this, which is why they include Rhett in the fantasy future they created for themselves and Anya. In her dream, Anya calls Rhett and apologizes to him, but he gives her the cold shoulder. This only makes her more and more desperate. Rhett is a piece that is missing from her, much like the ballerina is missing a leg.
Rhett’s return
A few days after Anya's passing, Ilonka receives a surprise visit at Brightcliffe. After reading the obituary Ilonka wrote for her former roommate, Rhett goes to the hospice to pick up Anya's things, but Mark (Zach Gilford) tells him he would have to go through Ilonka first. Ilonka tells Rhett that she tried calling the number Anya had written down to tell him of her death, but it was disconnected. They bond briefly over regrets and memories, and, in the end, Ilonka decides to give him the things Anya left behind. One of those things is the ballerina statuette, which is now whole, much to Rhett's and Ilonka’s amazement.
So how did this happen? How did the ballerina recover her leg? Well, it was magic, of course, but the show never explains of what kind. And, to be fair, this isn’t the important part. The ballerina was a stand-in for Anya, both in the story and in real life. The missing leg wasn’t just a broken piece of a china doll, but a reminder of the day Anya lost Rhett for good - a reminder of the day she lost a piece of herself. Anya couldn’t repair her relationship with Rhett, just like she couldn’t glue the ballerina’s leg back in place, no even in her dreams. Now that Rhett has forgiven her and come back to her, Anya is whole again, even if she’s not among us anymore. The fixed ballerina represents Anya’s heart now back in one piece, assuring us (and perhaps Ilonka and Rhett) that she will finally rest in peace.
All episodes of The Midnight Club are available to stream on Netflix.