Well written. 👍🏻

I’m a big fan of Flanagan’s work, and while I did enjoy this series, it certainly felt like a weaker outing for him.

I loved the standalone anthology stories, but the overarching storyline wasn’t anything remarkable. As the article says, it set up so many mysteries and answered pretty much none of them, in hope of luring us back for a season 2 that might never happen. The fun of Flanagan’s work is usually seeing these mysteries build up and then seeing how he cleverly resolves them all. The Midnight Club didn’t do that.

Flanagan’s other shows are some of the best television I’ve ever seen. The Midnight Club on the other hand was still good fun, but nothing remarkable.

Pretty much agree with your whole comment. The stories were generally pretty fun (and I liked the different cinematography styles) and the one in episode 8 was fantastic imo. But the overall story didn't really go anywhere.

Episode 8 was definitely the standout, and one of the many reasons why, despite its flaws, this show is still absolutely worth watching.

I loved Haunting of Hill house, and I've genuinely loved his movies, but this really was an absolute miss for me.

I remember seeing an article before this came out saying that Midnight club was going to be "Less monologues and more scares".

I don't know what happened because it felt like we had more monologues and less scares than ever.

It felt like no one could say they were upset about something without going into an extremely long extended monologue.

Not only that but most of those monologues just felt so pointless. It felt like you could cut half the minutes of each episode and nothing of value would have been left.

As well as that the construction of the overarching story felt so cynical. Every episode was about 5 minutes of story advancement at the start of an episode, and the 5 more minutes at the end which ends on a cliffhanger so that you watch the next episode.

And then the overarching story just ends with a bunch of unresolved plot threads even though season 2 isn't confirmed.

Did you watch Midnight Mass?

I would have loved it if not for the baiting for a second season. The last minute of the season could have been cut and I would have loved it.

I did, I didn't adore it like some people did, but I overall liked it despite excessive monologues happening in that too.

At least with Midnight Mass the series had a definitive end.

I was just curious if you thought MM had more or less monologues than MC. I haven’t watched MC yet but it’s pretty hard to believe it has more than MM.

Oof I think midnight mass may have more monologues, but they are at least better acted.

Like midnight club has multiple monologues from the main character which are really poorly acted and is her saying the exact same thing every time about how they "need to fight with everything we have to survive".

Haha ok gotcha. Quantity is a problem when quality is at issue. Not sure if I'll ever make the MC effort. All the word of mouth is so average.

> It felt like no one could say they were upset about something without going into an extremely long extended monologue.

What is up with that? It’s not just Flanagan, either. I’m afraid it’s a growing trend that is just a reflection of how the generation taking the reins of this stuff actually communicates… or, rather, how they communicate online, because it is reeks of performative artifice.

My wife and I certainly aren’t that old, but we’ve been big Trek fans for ages. Although we watched, and mostly enjoyed the new Trek stuff, both Discovery and, to a lesser extent, Strange New Worlds are guilty of this. People are just emoting to 11, all the time. Everyone seems to be constantly on the verge of tears, either from sorrow or anger, and they’re ready to drop a super-heavy emotional monologue at the drop of a hat. It’s exhausting.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some crusty, macho, the-only-feeling-I-feel-is-anger guy. I cry at Adventure Time, I freely admit this. I get choked up damn near every night when we watch Bluey.

But these shows, this monologue heavy style, seems to have gleefully abandoned the old adages of “show don’t tell” and “less is more” in favor of “tell tell tell” and “more is more.”

I've noticed this too and I think it has something to with this term I've heard called "viral-logues".

The idea being right now there are scenes in tv shows being written and framed in a specific way that they are easily screenshot able and shareable over Twitter and tik tok etc. The idea being people share them and make wild exclamations like "So true", "This speaks to me", "louder for the people at the back".

Even Flanagan's "worst" is better than 95% of new streaming content. I love how much he focuses on character

I watched the trailer and was immediately annoyed by 8 gorgeous diverse teens in a cabin.

Haven't seen Midnight Club yet, but I think Midnight Mass is on another level. It's not the acting, it's the writing. I will post a snippet from the script of episode 6 from Midnight Mass, in which the sheriff is asked to investigate a suspicious church, and, rather than simply say "there's no way these people who barely tolerate my religious beliefs would allow this", he sets off into this. And bear in mind this isn't even the stupidest monologue this episode, I'm just posting it because it doesn't really spoil anything and is easy to see how stupid it is without context. The actual stupidest monologue in the show is the one about Ignaz Semmelweis earlier in the episode.

Anyway, here's the sheriff's response that should have been two lines of dialogue:

---

What exactly are you asking of me?

I suppose I’m asking you to look into it.

Look into what, exactly?

Look into St. Patrick’s?

On… And just to be clear, on the basis that some of your mother’s blood tests got damaged?

It’s a lot to ask, I know.

Do you?

[Sarah sighs]

Do you?

[clicks tongue] Did I ever tell you why I moved here?

No. No, I don’t think you did.

Didn’t tell anybody, now that I think about it.

It’s almost as if nobody asked.

You know, I was, um, 21 when the Towers went down.

Watched it on TV in my dorm room just weepin’.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t religious at all, really.

But I went to the mosque that day, because they had a blood drive, and the line went for blocks.

I wanted to help.

I wanted to protect this country.

So I moved to New York and enrolled in NYPD training.

Now, some of my friends, they weren’t happy.

“NYPD is against us,” they’d say. But I’d tell them, “No. You’re wrong.”

“I’ll show them they don’t have to be afraid of us.”

“I’ll show them who we are.”

So I worked my way up.

You know, traffic, and translating and transcribing wiretaps, then Vice.

I get married. Ali is born, and I’m promoted again. Detective now.

Top secret security clearance for the joint terrorism task force.

I’m helping the FBI fight terrorists.

We’re taking collars. You know, petty stuff, pot, parking tickets and leaning on them hard if they’re Muslim.

“You know, we’ll drop the charge, help you out.”

“You go to the mosque and listen.”

I thought we were supposed to be fighting terrorists.

Not flipping some pothead student in Queens to spy on Americans.

So I complain.

Gently. One time.

Everything changed.

I was surveilled by other cops.

I mean, they even had an official file on me.

And not just me. See, like, after the Towers, Muslim officers were promoted fast. Especially if we knew the language, like, linguistic knowledge, cultural knowledge.

We were very desirable for that.

But it started to occur to them, with so many of us on the force, elevated to positions of real authority, what if that had been our plan all along?

What if we were interlopers?

What if we were infiltrators?

What if we were double agents? And they fucking panicked.

Internal Affairs was suddenly all over us. We were being followed.

We’re being recorded. Civilians too. Surveilled at mosques, cafes.

And suddenly I’m out of plain clothes and I’m back in uniform.

Night shift, street beat.

And more and more, I realize I’ve lost their trust.

I roll with it.

I keep my head high.

Dignity.

Dignity is a word my wife uses.

“Show them dignity.”

And then she’s diagnosed.

And she’s robbed of her dignity so fast.

And then she’s gone.

And I couldn’t…

Ali and I get as far away as we can. And I find this gig.

This little island.

So sleepy, it could be dead.

No elections, no staff. Just a tiny room at the back of a grocery store, and a bunch of fishermen without a notable incident of intentional violence in almost a century, and I beg for the post.

Dignity.

Ali is bored to tears.

But he’s safe.

And I still think I could maybe move the world that one millimeter.

You know, maybe here’s where we make a difference.

Not in the big city, but in this tiny village.

Win over the fucking PTA and call it a victory for Islam.

So I don’t intimidate.

I don’t overshare or overstep or intrude in any way.

I don’t even carry a gun.

And still…

Still…

Beverly Keane and a few others too look at me like I’m Osama bin-Fucking-Laden.

And you’d like me to investigate St. Patrick’s?

For what it’s worth, I want very much… very much to be wrong.

[Sarah sighs]

Or Mike Flanagan had a deep love for gothic horror and American Gothic especially and wears that influence on his sleeve. And gothic literature is absolutely steeped in monologues or internal asides.

Wasn’t unbearably bad by any means but still my least favorite of the things of his I’ve seen.

Awful awful awful show

Yeah that’s a really good point.

I preferred all his other work, but still quite enjoyed Midnight Club and will definitely be watching Season 2.

Not speaking on Mike Flanagan specifically, just on the general increase in monologues in movies and shows- some of them are very obvious award shows bait, whether it be for the actor or the writer. And the more commonplace it gets, the more unconvinced I am. Like when a character launches into a monologue and the scenery chewing just screams obvious and unsubtle 'LOOK AT ME IM ACTING' vibes...it takes me out of the scene.

I don't really buy this idea because monologues due to their length are inherently not easy to screenshot and share.

Hes an every other guy apparently

Hill house: fantastic

Blair Manor: 💩

Midnight mass: top tier

This: kinda a stinker

I'm fully expecting fall of house of usher to be an absolute banger

I think I was more engrossed in the main narrative and felt like most of the anthology stories were weaker (Kevin's story being the exception), but I was also expecting a big pay-off. I didn't realize it wasn't a mini-series like the rest of Flanagan's shows until it just abruptly ended without resolving much. Still enjoyed it, but yeah I agree, it's definitely not as good as his other stuff. Then again, I don't see how he could possibly top Midnight Mass.

I felt the acting was also just hit or miss across the board, though it may have been bad direction. Too much sassy / smarminess. That could have been justified as a sort of entrenched cope, but I suspect was just "cool teens being cool teens."

The wrap-up of the mirror man and old lady was the laziest. B-tier horror. The mystery kept me hooked, but the payoff was so scant. I think multi-season horror is just quite hard to get right.

It really is the best way to put it. I also wasn't the biggest fan of this show when compared to his previous work, but it was still hellishly watchable.

Looks like they need a dub edition

Flanagan only directed 1 episode on Bly Manor and 2 episodes on Midnight Club.

Hill House and Midnight Mass is all Flanagan, as will House of Usher be I think.

Flanagan only directed two episodes of this show. He directed everything on Hill House and Midnight Mass.

My wife and I went straight from Midnight Mass which we really liked into The Midnight Club. We only lasted 2 episodes. We wanted to like it but it really didn't grip us.

Bly Manor was the weakest but I still thoroughly enjoyed it

Good show with a greatly unsatisfying ending

It felt like a hospice breakfast club mixed with are you afraid of the dark?

Yeah there’s like one monologue that I know if that’s gone viral and it was the chicanery one from better call Saul- so a series that already had a dedicated, hardcore fan base to begin with. Blaming it on the darn kids and their memes seems a little boomery to me

I like your comment and the content you are expressing. I also like the possibly intentional irony of explaining your dislike of monologues with the Reddit equivalent of a monologue.

He still co-wrote 9 out of the 10 episodes and was showrunner, so even despite the fact he only directed two episodes, it was still very much his baby.

I have actually watched paint dry..... and it had more pace than this show did.

Interesting. I watched all of midnight mass and hated it, maybe I’ll like midnight club.

Perhaps! To each their own!

I really don't know how to feel about this show. I kept expecting there to be at least some kind of resolution by the end of the series and then it just ends.

Had no idea it was going to be a multi season show and that really just disappointed me. I didn't feel it had any payoff by the last episode like how his other shows do.

I enjoyed it. Kinda feel like they killed off the most interesting one tho. Which was kinda a bummer.

Hah! Just call me Polonius, because I, too, think brevity is the soul of wit…

And in this 25 point essay, I’m going to explain why:

Just my two cents, but I think a lot of this stems from the fact that horror has had to work within the subtext for much of its existence and also that it’s not getting a bit of a mainstream resurgence with the whole “elevated” horror thing.

Horror has always been elevated, but it’s message has been highly subtextual for a very long time. Take something like the queerness in The Haunting being highly coded to Theo openly being a lesbian on The Haunting of Hill House. Couple the fact that a lot more can be openly said with the popularity of highbrow horror and a general audience that might not be super familiar with horrors history and I think you have some filmmakers who don’t trust their audience to get what they are trying to do so they do a shit ton of hand holding. Instead of just leaving a lot of stuff up to the viewer to get or interpret Flanagan verbally tells the audience what he wants them to know. I’m his effort to make elevated horror he’s just making super easy and digestible horror. That’s not necessarily a bad thing depending on what you like.

My gf and i didn't like midnight mass and we liked midnight club so I'd say give it a go

I did not like midnight club. But jeah you can not only make fantastic productions.

Here’s the thing. the monologues aren’t good. They are just plain bad dialogue.

I love monologues. Most people love a good monologue. But when I complain about something like Bly Manor people start saying “you just weren’t ready for the switch from horror to something more thoughtful”

No, I wasn’t ready for the switch from good to bad writing. A monologue is a boom or bust kind of thing. When they’re good, they’re awesome. When they’re bad, they’re painful to listen to. When Mike Flanagan is at his worst, he’s barely above the level of an emo teenager writing poetry that they think is the most important thing anyone’s ever said

Even below this comment someone is just saying it’s only “Mikes love for the gothic genre”. No, everyone gets that it’s supposed to be gothic. The problem is that Flanagan is no Brontë

I thought this was solid and for a younger demo, I think his fall of the house of usher show next year will be back on the level most people expect from him and I’m sure he directed all that one. Think he was just trying something a little different than usual and I think it was good for what he was aiming for. I don’t expect the huge fans of hill house or midnight mass to love this one tho, think they will probably be more into the fall of the house of usher, that show will also feature more of his regular actors as well plus other great actors like mark hamill and Carl lumbly.

Anyway I’m just kind of rambling now and I think this was for a younger demo while the fall of the house of usher will be more for the hill house and midnight mass fans.

I mean this is a YA series (for all those saying they were confused about why midnight mass/haunting/etc was better). Also I could be wrong but Flanagan was less involved in this vs his other shows right?

When you pander to the Young Adult market, there's no pressure for your stories to have any substance or for your actors to be competent.

Oh wow can’t wait for this. Thanks for getting me hyped for this. A lot of returning cast members from his previous shows too.

Wish he stopped casting Katie Siegel, but it’s his wife so I get it.

I've loved everyone's performances but I'm also not a huge fan of all these re-casts.

At some point it gets harder to get truly immersed in something new when you keep seeing the same face that you already have associated with another character or characters.

Flanagan manages to get amazing performances out of people. I'd rather he brought in new actors to let them shine.

It was a young adult horror show. My least favorite out of Flanagan’s stuff but not really unexpected given the setup.

House of Usher is next year. That’ll be another adult horror series.

Bluey has a seven-minute runtime, which forces the writers to be very clever with how they communicate emotion. The noble idea of streaming services having different runtimes per episode was that writers should not be constricted to force every episode into a 42-minute box, allowing for shorter stories without padding or longer epic episodes. The downside is that there's no need to be economical with words, necessarily.

Bluey's a whole other bag. Clearly the writers are geniuses and some of the experimental stuff they've done is top notch.

I like the concept of the show but I still havent finished it which says a lot since I binged Hill House, Bly Manor & Midnight Mass.

Midnight Club should have been released weekly imo.

I would have loved this when I was a teenager, specifically because this is based on goddamn Christopher Pike YA thriller novels from the '90s. The second I spotted his name in the credits, I knew exactly what I was in for, and that some Flanagan fans were going to be seriously disappointed.

It's important to note that unlike Midnight Mass and Haunting of Hill House, this was only produced by Flanagan, with one episode directed by him. So it's similar to Haunting of Bly Manor in that respect. The next "real" Flanagan series will be The Fall of the House of Usher next year.

That was earned though. That was like three seasons of malice finally exploding on to the screen. It wasn’t monologue-o’clock every episode

It's not like old Star Trek isn't heavy on monologues at times, and throughout every damn episode is full of clunky, dreadful writing. But damnit it's fucking fun and somehow despite a lot of things in my mind being really bad about it... I just... Still think it somehow holds up well. I may be entirely wrong, though!

Anyway, hard to say how things made in this day and age hold up a few decades down the line.

Massively disappointed by this one. Definitely liked “The Haunting of” series better

My gf and I only lasted two episodes too.