Television Midnight Mass, Netflix

Got around to watching it.

By far the weakest of his Netflix series so far. Started very strong, when he was steelmanning the priest, but the profound anti-Christian theme laced with the painfully trite and politically liberal motifs of cultural criticism crippled it in the third act. It was so contemptuous of people who don't deserve contempt, and yet so forgiving of people who don't even make an effort to seek forgiveness.

Also, while all of his works sometimes meander into overly long monologues of self-indulgent pathos, it's gotten progressively worse with each series. It's horror melodrama, so I cut it some slack, but the dialogues between Erin and Riley, in particular, were excruciating. It was like reading poetry written by girls in middle school. His stuff is at its best when the narrative events justify the extreme depths of emotion he's always seeking to unearth. This show forced it way too often.

It was ironically a long-winded sermon against people who deliver sermons. That's hypocrisy, and it never makes for good art.

Ultimately, it didn't really have anything to say worth saying.
 
This is my favorite tv show in some time. Took a few episodes to get moving, but still had me hooked from the beginning. Lately shows have been disappointing me with their endings. Not this one.

Only way it could have been better is if everyone died. :D

I also really enjoyed the vampire being viewed as an angel and there being no talk of vampires. Worked well with incorporating the scripture that painting the creature as such. I wonder to what degree it was intended to deny the validity of Christianity. People seem to be viewing this show as an indictment on the religion, but without it then do we really have the vampire? Personally I took the show more as a cautionary tale on the pitfalls of religion as practiced by a very flawed humanity. That's if we're going to dig any deeper than it simply being some entertaining horror.

Acting throughout was on point. Only a couple week spots come to mind. Bev certainly pulled off the character you love to hate.
 
Finished it last night. Was decent. Not sure about that ending though.
 
I really enjoyed it. I thought Hill house was better but this was still really good
 
I liked it but it didnt go anywhere. Theyre eyes looked cool, a copied look from his Doctor Sleep.

Answer me this? How could priest be in sunlight?
 
TrueBias said:
Answer me this? How could priest be in sunlight?
Click to expand...

Great question. My best guess is that he didn't die from the original attack. Then later he died (although I'm not sure from what), and that's when he could no longer be in the sunlight. There needed to be death and resurrection before the full transformation took place. Same as all the communion receivers could gain the benefits of the blood while still going about their normal lives.
 
From reading comments here and talking to friends I feel like people seem to really really love Flanagan's work or it's just meh to others
 
TrueBias said:
Answer me this? How could priest be in sunlight?
Click to expand...
After first aggression vampire gave him enough blood to cure him from the biting wound and return young

The vampire needed him as vehicle to leave the tomb first and then corrupt the community till they are ready to see him as an "angel", so he(vampire) made priest transformation purposely slow and gradual

Priest truly died and transformed only later on the island
Before that he has just got lot of vampire blood to drink(wich mde him young/healthy as some others but more), so the body got the benefits but not the vampire weakness
 
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Tentacle Grape said:
which is funny saying that religion is harmful when the objective data proves otherwise. Such as atheists are more likely to commit every crime than religious people...and that the most murderous people/regimes were hardcore atheists like the USSR and Maoist China.
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This is such a nonsense post but one that is trotted out by gaslighting religious folk.

This exact same logic can be used to say People who don[t believe in BigFoot are responsible for the deaths anyone who does not believe in Bigfoot do.

There is no correlation for the causation you suggest. People are not killing in the name of atheism.

However Religion is and has been one of the historically biggest reason people kill. All through the world you can find people killing now in the name of their religion.

Religious people at the street level are largely good people, just like most other people. Organized religion is a scourge on society, on balance responsible for far more harm then good.
 
Cubo de Sangre said:
This is my favorite tv show in some time. Took a few episodes to get moving, but still had me hooked from the beginning. Lately shows have been disappointing me with their endings. Not this one.

Only way it could have been better is if everyone died. :D

I also really enjoyed the vampire being viewed as an angel and there being no talk of vampires. Worked well with incorporating the scripture that painting the creature as such. I wonder to what degree it was intended to deny the validity of Christianity. People seem to be viewing this show as an indictment on the religion, but without it then do we really have the vampire? Personally I took the show more as a cautionary tale on the pitfalls of religion as practiced by a very flawed humanity. That's if we're going to dig any deeper than it simply being some entertaining horror.

Acting throughout was on point. Only a couple week spots come to mind. Bev certainly pulled off the character you love to hate.
Click to expand...

the ending was terrible, by far the worst part of the show. they had set up the possibility of lots of lore regarding the main villain and the decided to go a low intelligent and animalistic route. I gave it a solid 8 or 9/10 leading up to the ending but its so anticlimactic that I cant even recommend the show to people.
 
sjon22 said:
the ending was terrible, by far the worst part of the show. they had set up the possibility of lots of lore regarding the main villain and the decided to go a low intelligent and animalistic route. I gave it a solid 8 or 9/10 leading up to the ending but its so anticlimactic that I cant even recommend the show to people.
Click to expand...

I guess we disagree. Personally had zero interest in backstory lore. The show wasn't about the angel and no explanation was necessary.
 
Cubo de Sangre said:
I guess we disagree. Personally had zero interest in backstory lore. The show wasn't about the angel and no explanation was necessary.
Click to expand...
I agree and disagree at same time
I mean vampire backstory lore was not needed, but not because he's not been a big piece or because backstory in his case was irrelevant

For how i seen it vampire's backtory being purposely omitted was big deal, so we had the chance to see the priest filling this void with his faith and see with his eyes the vampire becoming an "angel"

sjon22 said:
regarding the main villain and the decided to go a low intelligent and animalistic route.
Click to expand...
Wich is not true
You're simply making assumption he was dumb because you did'nt seen him on screen explain his plan moves etc

Reality is he managed to manipulate the priest to get him out of the cave, to bring him in america, to prepare the ground for him to be sold as an angel, handled his own blood to obtain mutations on humans to the level he wanted and even took part of the church farce where he got all dressed to play the part
If plan did'nt failed next move would have been the continent with his band of vampires and would have done crazy numbers before people started realize the fuck is going on
Had different brain for sure, but not inferior
If anything felt good amount of him not showing much conventional communication is because... he does'nt care, maybe even hate it. Watching the powers he showed was like a tiger next to rats and likely seen himself that way even if he showed to know he needed rats collaboration to get more rats

He had animalistic side (up to completely lose control when drinking, wich fucked his wings), but he clearly shows he knew how to manipulate humans, their mental weakness and herd mentality shit

Given time he would have probably learned to talk current language if he felt the need, we seen he was able to mimic voice... probably a bait trick he learned to confuse human prey, but given other signs of intelligence he showed it's pretty possible he was also "studying" current language
Plus of course he seems perfectly aware that ability to communicate or not, his physical appearance alone needs huge psychological foreplay on the population (in fact he used human ambassadors)

If anything reason the show seems to hint for his fail was'nt him not being smart but simply that he sleept too many centuries, and lot of his aura that used to trigger blind faith in gods/supernatural beings got crippled by modern times atheism
Not casual key peoples that made his plan fail were atheist, later followed by a guy that had diffidence being of a different faith

Dude showed up with a strategy that probably served him well plenty of times, got incredibly unlucky with the historical period timing
Plus of course got also bad luck have most atheist guy of the island spot him, forcing to act, wich leaded to group of resistance.
But tbh was'nt much bad luck alone, there was definitely the element he never felt in danger of fail (arrogance/onnipotence vibes)... in fact got caught because just casually left the church door wide open as acceptable risk

All this if we want assume the director want say there's no God and humans did all themselves.

If we wannt consider in director's mind God exist, vampire was just fooked because humans (at least some) have been designed so well by him that even using their free will and no God's magic help they still will win
 
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Bacco said:
I agree and disagree at same time
I mean vampire backstory lore was not needed, but not because he's not been a big piece or because backstory in his case was irrelevant

For how i seen it vampire's backtory being purposely omitted was big deal, so we had the chance to see the priest filling this void with his faith and see with his eyes the vampire becoming an "angel"


Wich is not true
You're simply making assumption he was dumb because you did'nt seen him on screen explain his plan moves etc

Reality is he managed to manipulate the priest to get him out of the cave, to bring him in america, to prepare the ground for him to be sold as an angel, handled his own blood to obtain mutations on humans to the level he wanted and even took part of the church farce where he got all dressed to play the part
If plan did'nt failed next move would have been the continent with his band of vampires and would have done crazy numbers before people started realize the fuck is going on
Had different brain for sure, but not inferior
If anything felt good amount of him not showing much conventional communication is because... he does'nt care, maybe even hate it. Watching the powers he showed was like a tiger next to rats and likely seen himself that way even if he showed to know he needed rats collaboration to get more rats

He had animalistic side (up to completely lose control when drinking, wich fucked his wings), but he clearly shows he knew how to manipulate humans, their mental weakness and herd mentality shit

Given time he would have probably learned to talk current language if he felt the need, we seen he was able to mimic voice... probably a bait trick he learned to confuse human prey, but given other signs of intelligence he showed it's pretty possible he was also "studying" current language
Plus of course he seems perfectly aware that ability to communicate or not, his physical appearance alone needs huge psychological foreplay on the population (in fact he used human ambassadors)

If anything reason the show seems to hint for his fail was'nt him not being smart but simply that he sleept too many centuries, and lot of his aura that used to trigger blind faith in gods/supernatural beings got crippled by modern times atheism
Not casual key peoples that made his plan fail were atheist, later followed by a guy that had diffidence being of a different faith

Dude showed up with a strategy that probably served him well plenty of times, got incredibly unlucky with the historical period timing
Plus of course got also bad luck have most atheist guy of the island spot him, forcing to act, wich leaded to group of resistance.
But tbh was'nt much bad luck alone, there was definitely the element he never felt in danger of fail (arrogance/onnipotence vibes)... in fact got caught because just casually left the church door wide open as acceptable risk

All this if we want assume the director want say there's no God and humans did all themselves.

If we wannt consider in director's mind God exist, vampire was just fooked because humans (at least some) have been designed so well by him that even using their free will and no God's magic help they still will win
Click to expand...

Everything you are assuming could have been answered with backstory that they didn't provide. A centuries old Vamp has the ability to manipulate a priest but cant stop itself from having its wings carved up while feasting. Its silly.
 
sjon22 said:
Everything you are assuming could have been answered with backstory that they didn't provide. A centuries old Vamp has the ability to manipulate a priest but cant stop itself from having its wings carved up while feasting. Its silly.
Click to expand...

Maybe it is silly. But it was set up earlier when the angel was feeding on someone and the cripple girl pumped some rounds into him and doused him in gasoline. As if it becomes overly fixated during those moments. Hence no response as his wings were perforated.
 
Prolly halfway through the show, Erin and Riley are insufferable, especially when talking to one another. Like holy shit it’s bad.
 
I enjoyed much of the show until the ending, which was as weak/lazy as the tired attack on Christianity. It was better than Bly Manor (what a pile of crap that was) but pales in comparison to the haunting of hill house. I really enjoyed that.

i will give massive props to Midnight Mass for that entire Holly Holy scene though, it was beautiful and masterfully put together. I love that song, it got me all emotional lol.

Kate Siegal and those bedroom eyes...
jesus-kate-siegel.gif


I actually thought she was the young sister from Downton Abby
original
 
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