Midnight Club EP Mike Flanagan Spills Season 2 Secrets, Including Anya's Return, [Spoiler]'s Deaths and More
The Midnight Club may have been disbanded for good, but its creator Mike Flanagan has delivered on his promise to reveal everything in wake of the show’s recent Netflix cancellation.
In a Tumblr post Friday, Flanagan spilled it all, answering fans’ questions that were left hanging from that rather open-ended Season 1 finale and revealing what would’ve been the entire arc for Season 2.
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After noting his “disappointment” that Netflix decided against pursuing a second season (Flanagan and his partner Trevor Macy have inked a production deal with Amazon Studios), the writer/director began by detailing Season 1’s big cliffhanger: Dr. Stanton’s bald head and past. The doctor was enduring chemotherapy for her own illness, but that tattoo? She was part of the original cult during her teenage years!
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“Dr. Stanton is actually the daughter of the original Paragon cult leader, Aceso,” wrote Flanagan. “Her nickname was Athena, she wrote the Paragon journal that Ilonka found in Season 1. She turned on her mother and helped the kids escape, but because she was part of the cult in her teenage years, she had the tattoo.”
The initials Ilonka found carved in the tree (G.B.) stood for Georgina Ballard — the doc’s maiden name. But the doctor’s disease would’ve gone into remission, and she would’ve continued to care for the terminal kids at Brightcliffe.
As for the creator’s tease about who Death was? That would’ve been the janitor (played by Robert Longstreet), but no one but the dying kids saw him. He served to offer them kind words before they passed on. And the Shadow? That was an idea taken directly from Christopher Pike’s Remember Me novel.
“The Shadow is THEMSELVES,” he revealed. “It’s the Unknown. As it engulfs someone, in the last moment of their life, it takes them through a place of understanding and catharsis, preparing them for the next step. THIS is what happened to Anya in Season 1 when the Shadow finally reached her — that’s why she fantasized a life beyond Brightcliffe, which ultimately let her find acceptance of her death. It looks different for everybody, depending on their mind-set — because it is simply an extension of themselves.”
The Mirror Man and the Cataract Woman were, of course, Stanley Oscar Freelan and his wife, who originally built Brightcliffe.
As for the Season 2 that will never be, Flanagan offered the following details for fans to chew on:
* The beginning of the season would’ve heavily focused on Amesh’s deteriorating health, as his glioblastoma quickly advanced. A love story between him and Natsuki would’ve developed, but Amesh would’ve eventually died, followed shortly by Natsuki.
* In a desperate ploy to keep Kevin alive a little while longer, Ilonka would’ve told the club the story from Remember Me with — wait for it — Anya (Ruth Codd) portraying the main character! That story would’ve been stretched across five episodes. “Remember Me is one of my all-time favorite Pike books,” said Flanagan. “It tells the story of a teenage girl who is pushed off a balcony and awakens as a ghost. She has to navigate being a spirit while trying to solve her own murder… We were going to use it as a vehicle for Ilonka to try to come to terms with the fact that she is going to die, and to begin to trying to wrap her head around being a ghost.”
* Advancements in HIV treatment in the late ’90s would’ve given Spence a completely different prognosis. He’d “ride the swell of antiviral advancements,” and by the end of the season, would’ve no longer been terminal. He’d leave Brightcliffe just as Sandra did to live out the rest of his life.
* Both Kevin and Ilonka would’ve died as well, but here’s the kicker. “There’s a reason that Ilonka only sees Stanley in the mirror, and sees the Cataract Woman whenever she looked at Kevin,” the creator noted. “This is something else we took from Pike’s original book… these aren’t ghosts, but glimpses of PAST LIVES. Ilonka WAS Stanley Oscar Freelan, and Kevin WAS his wife. They’ve lived many lives this way, and are true SOUL MATES — they always find each other, and they always fall in love. In this life, they knew it would be a short one, so they agreed to find each other in the house they built.”
How do you feel about how Season 2 would’ve shaped up? Did Flanagan keep his promise to give us answers or what? Leave your words of mourning for the Club in the comments below.
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