Have you heard the good news? He is risen.
Riley Flynn died and was born again as a vampire. The show may eschew the v-word, the same way shows and movies about the proverbial walking dead never say “zombie,” but we’re under no such obligation here. But his plight is different than that of most vampire victims you’ll come across, insofar as his guide into this dark new world believes he’s on a mission from God.
This deserves some unpacking before we get into the meat, no pun intended, of Midnight Mass Episode 5 (“Book V: Gospel”). I don’t know where creator/director/showrunner/co-writer Mike Flanagan is going to go with this story in the end, and certainly the hopepunk makeover he gave to Shirley Jackson’s brutal The Haunting of Hill House inspires little confidence. But so far—so far—he sure does seem to be likening Roman Catholicism and Christianity more broadly to, yes, a vampire, profiting off the suffering of the communities on which it battens itself. And that’s something worth a personal confession, of sorts.
The priest who confirmed me was a child molester, and you can read legendary newspaperman Jimmy Breslin’s column about the horror he wrought right here, if you can stomach it. A priest on the faculty of my all-boys Catholic high school was a predator as well; last time I checked, he enjoyed a Vatican sinecure. So even aside from wider questions of doctrine, of historical atrocities, of Catholicism’s role as a bastion of present-day right-wing revanchism from the Supreme Court on down, I get it.
The thing about this episode, though, is that the vampire who attempts to tutor Riley in the ways of his new covenant does so invitingly, convincingly, perhaps even persuasively. It’s not just a matter of walking Riley through the nature of his newfound existence—the heightened senses, the vulnerability to sunlight, the hunger for blood. It’s the way, in actor Hamish Linklater’s remarkable performance, he makes the lack of guilt and shame felt by a vampire sound not selfish and evil but virtuous, a gift, God’s grace.
Why wouldn’t that be appealing to a man who killed a teenager by passing out drunk behind the wheel of his car, ending her life and ruining his own, along with those of God knows how many others? Why wouldn’t you listen to the man of God with the sensitive demeanor and the hypnotic voice when he tells you that this was all God’s plan, and that if you really listen to your new hunger for the living, God will direct you to whom you must kill, completely guilt-free?
You can see why, in his Good Friday homily to the congregation at midnight Mass, Father Paul/Msgr. John tells the faithful that they are the army of God. He challenges them first, adroitly, by rejecting the idea that people should fight for their country. Then he draws them back in by saying there is only one country, God’s, and that they are called to fight on its behalf, on His behalf. Suffering is good, he says, when it brings you to the right destination. It’s not hard to see where this is headed, in a story where the vampire’s human victims are thus far a drug dealer and two alcoholics, one who maimed a teenager and one who killed one. A community of righteous undead avengers, feeding on the unfaithful, the unworthy. (If I were Sheriff Hassan, I’d start sharpening stakes.) Linklater makes this poison sing, makes you almost want to drink it yourself. Only Mildred Gunning, the rejuvenated mother of the local doctor, recognizes it for the poison it is.
Alas, there is a dark side to all this good stuff, and its name is Bev Keane. You wanna talk about miracles? Somehow, this character has become more insufferable now that she’s the human familiar to a vampire priest. For God’s sake, she gets all condescending and self-righteous with Riley, a man she knows for a fact was killed and resurrected by a supernatural entity. I’m not sure he needs your lectures! Compare her bog-standard Bible-thumping bullshit to Father Paul/Msgr. John’s mellifluous argumentation, alternately stern and cajoling, constantly shifting between light and shadow. She’s as dull as he is lively, as inert as he is unpredictable. I know this character is a type, but when you’ve created a character as compelling as the priest, allowing his right-hand woman to revert to type is, well, a sin.
But there’s one more remarkable thing this episode has to offer. Resurfacing after going missing for 24 hours, Riley approaches his old flame Erin Greene and asks her to go out rowing into the bay with him. Not to get her alone and vulnerable—to get himself alone and vulnerable. He heard all of the priest’s arguments and all of Keane’s chapter-and-verse and, to his eternal credit, he recognizes that it’s all bullshit. No one may say the word “vampire,” but Riley knows what he is, and he knows what he is isn’t good. So he rows out into the middle of nowhere and lets the sun burn him alive, or whatever he is.
And we’re left with Erin’s screaming, minutes of it, as his body disintegrates, as the credits roll. Screaming, and screaming, and sobbing, and silence.
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.
Watch Midnight Mass Episode 5 on Netflix
This post first appeared on Nypost.com
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