“We all say there's a heaven. And it's waiting for us. Then we claw, fight, beg for a few minutes at the end. Minutes.”
I think instead of doing a beat-by-beat recap of the finale of Midnight Mass, this will be more philosophical. Solely by coincidence, this project will be wrapping up at almost precisely the time three years ago that I was admitted to a hospital because my kidneys were failing. Well, failed, they had already stopped working, and I was experiencing the life-threatening consequences of that.
It’s been a strange experience since then. A lot of high highs, when I’m exuberantly grateful for my dumb little life, and low lows, when “survivor’s guilt” has been added to the already long list of things that are wrong with me and exacerbate both my anxiety disorder and depression. I wish I could say that almost dying has made me less afraid of death, but it hasn’t, not really. As good as I feel most days (physically, at least), I sometimes stop and remember that this thing I’m dealing with could kill me. I’ll probably be fine, even great, after a kidney transplant, but there’s always that phantom Something that could go wrong.
Of course, I could just get hit by a bus tomorrow too. So could anyone. They say there’s no point in worrying about the things you can’t change, so considering none of us can change the fact that we’re all going to die someday1, why do so many of us spend so much time thinking about it to the point of existential panic?
Upon my third watch of Midnight Mass, I’ve really come to appreciate Bev Keane (Samantha Sloyan) as a villain. She represents the most odious, hypocritical aspects of modern-day Christianity, like the unsettling streak of mean-spiritedness that runs through it, and the smug assurance that she’s one of God’s favorite children, while demonstrating exactly none of the qualities anyone would associate with being a Godly person. She turns her back on her beloved Monsignor Pruitt (Hamish Linklater) precisely because he believes that anyone can receive the miracle if they so desire. Not Bev, she’s already designated herself God’s official enforcer, and believes that some, many people simply aren’t deserving of the miraculous chance at a second, eternal life.
Bev’s hypocrisy would be funny, if it wasn’t just a slightly exaggerated version of real-life cruelty being inflicted with some tenuous connection to Biblical scripture. When Annie (Kristen Lehman) confronts her, Bev gets a dig in about Riley being “a drunk and a murderer” literal minutes after she’s unleashed a crowd of newly created (and very hungry) vampires onto their defenseless neighbors. When she catches Sheriff Hassan (Rahul Kohli) attempting to set fire to the rec center, she excoriates him for his supposed cowardice in destroying the vampires’ shelter. Meanwhile, she’s ordered town handyman Sturge (Matt Biedel) to firebomb every house on the island, to drive out those who are attempting to hide.
I don’t doubt that, even up to the last minute, Bev believed that she was a good and righteous person, doing good and righteous things in the name of the Lord. Even when she coldly tells a newly converted vampire, distraught over murdering his family, that he won’t be permitted to take shelter because he wasn’t a regular churchgoer, she thinks that’s what God wants. Does God really care how often you go to church? I don’t think so. I haven’t been to a church service that didn’t have to do with either a wedding or a funeral in over thirty years, and I still don’t think it ranks very high on the list of things that might stop me from getting into Heaven.
“And God loves him. Just as much as he loves you, Bev. Why does that upset you so much? Just the idea that God loves everyone just as much as you?”
But at the same time, what must it be like to be Bev, to be that assured that you’re a good person? Bev, who poisons dogs, who gleefully indoctrinates vulnerable teenagers away from their parents’ religions, who can’t have a single conversation with someone without getting in some cruel remark about them or someone they care about, who so casually categorizes people as worthy and unworthy or God’s love? One wonders if she was always like this, or if Monsignor Pruitt, before his transformation, became so dependent on her that she began to mistake herself for a saint, so unimpeachable of character that she was entitled to judge people in a way that normally God Himself is not a fan of, at least according to the Book of Matthew, Chapter 7, Verse 1. See, Bev, I can do it too.
I don’t know that I’m a particularly good person. I try to be. I certainly have every intention of it. I’m well-aware of both my own failings, and my own hypocrisies. Do I think I’m evil? No. But I’m weak, and I’m selfish, and I’m lazy. If Bev symbolizes the current state of Christianity, then Annie represents what it’s supposed to be. Loving, forgiving, understanding that God’s love isn’t a matter of meeting a constantly fluctuating, human-made list of demands, it just is. Bev and Sturge are both shocked and confused when Annie commits suicide in front of them, ignorant to the concept that she’s sacrificing herself to save Erin and the others, to give them some headway to try to escape.
Annie is definitely going to Heaven. Between the two of them, I’d like to think I have more of Annie’s qualities than Bev. But not as many as I would like.
It’s also poignant to note that Annie, once she’s reunited with Ed (Henry Thomas), is at peace with her impending death. She and the other townspeople know that the end is inevitable, and take it standing up, some quietly, some in tears, but all bravely, standing up and giving thanks to God. Bev, on the other hand, a coward to the very end, scrambles to find shelter, sobbing in sorrow not just because she’s about to die, but because all the pain she caused in her twisted service to God turned out to be for nothing. She gets no special dispensation, no last minute loophole. She will not be saved.
“There is no time. There is no death. Life is a dream. It's a wish...made again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and on into eternity. And I am all of it. I am everything.”
I may have mentioned it before, but I don’t remember much of how I felt when I went to the hospital this time back in 2020. The funny thing is, other than worrying that I would throw up in the back of the Lyft2 on my way there, I don’t recall being scared. If anything, I think I was pragmatic about it: if death was the only way to put an end to how bad I was feeling, then death it would have to be. I hadn’t been able to keep solid food down in weeks, I was so weak I couldn’t shower without help, and I had gone four straight days without sleep; frankly, death would have been an improvement. When I finally did fall asleep in the emergency room (or pass out, we’re still not exactly sure), I didn’t fight it. I was relieved: yes, okay, let’s do this.
Now that I’ve been pulled back from the abyss, as it were, the fear has returned. Not so much of actual death, but the moments leading up to it, and the idea of leaving with so much left both undone, and unsaid. I still believe that so much of my life up to this point has been wasted on dumb, pointless bullshit, but I suppose that’s true of most people. I don’t imagine most people pass out of existence thinking “Yep, I’ve done and seen everything I hoped I would. I don’t need a minute longer here.” But knowing that rationally doesn’t really help much.
Sometimes I think about how much time I’ve wasted, and how the time still ahead of me is finite3, and I just freeze, and end up wasting more time. I spend far more time worrying about how to live my remaining years on this planet than actually living them. I worry that my final thoughts before blinking out will be tinged, if not entirely overwhelmed, with regret.
Nevertheless, despite it leaving me a sobbing wreck every goddamn time I watch it, Midnight Mass has also been an unexpected source of comfort. Yes, the circumstances leading up to Erin’s death are horrifying, but her final moments are, like Annie’s, peaceful. No pain, no sorrow, just a perfect view of the blue and endless night, knowing that, like Riley, she did her best. Riley is there, too, a recent memory flickering in her dimming consciousness, smiling at her with pure love in his eyes. Maybe she’ll see him again, maybe she won’t. But wherever she transitions, that love will be with her, in this world, and the next.
Yeah. I think I can live with that.
No, not even the various billionaire tech bros who think they’re entitled to live forever.
I didn’t, but I’m pretty sure I forgot to tip the driver.
No more or no less than anyone else’s, but finite all the same.