Mike Flanagan Reveals What We Would Have Seen In The Midnight Club Season 2
Almost immediately following the news that Mike Flanagan and producing partner Trevor Macy would be leaving Netflix and heading over to Amazon Studios as part of a new overall deal, the streaming giant announced that they would not be pursuing a second season of "The Midnight Club," Flanagan's recent teen-horror series based on the books of Christopher Pike. The news was unfortunate but not all that surprising, especially as "The Midnight Club" didn't pull in as high critical reception as his previous series like "The Haunting of Hill House" or "Midnight Mass," but it certainly still had a pretty dedicated fanbase of younger viewers. The show centered on a group of terminally ill young adults who meet each night at midnight to trade scary stories, which provided a vehicle for other Pike stories to be told.
With over 85 books to choose from, "The Midnight Club" had enough material to last for plenty of seasons, but alas, the show is no more. In the wake of the cancelation announcement, Flanagan took to Tumblr to express his feelings, and provide some insight into what season 2 could have entailed. "I'm very disappointed that Netflix has decided not to pursue a second season of 'The Midnight Club,'" he said. "My biggest disappointment is that we left so many story threads open, holding them back for the hypothetical second season, which is always a gamble." Rather than leave fans of the show in agony trying to figure out what would have become of their favorite characters, Flanagan posted an entire season breakdown on his Tumblr blog, to serve as a small form of closure on the series.
Love, death, and 'Remember Me'
Now, we're not going to rehash everything that Mike Flanagan posted on his Tumblr, because he provided a compelling breakdown complete with gifs and images to help emphasize his points. As the show deals with terminally-ill characters, it was only a matter of time before fans would have had to say goodbye. Flanagan revealed that season 2 would have seen the deaths, in order, of Amesh (Sauriyan Sapkota), Natsuki (Aya Furukawa), Kevin (Igby Rigney), and Ilonka (Iman Benson), with Spence (Chris Sumpter) leaving Brightcliffe Hospice following a positive reaction to HIV treatments. This would leave Cheri (Adia) as the sole member of The Midnight Club. As Flanagan puts it:
"The series would end with Cheri telling this story to a whole new table of patients, including our new series leads. Most of our original cast now would exist as stories, a story told to the next 'class' of storytellers at the table, all of whom we will have met by the end of the season. A story called 'The Midnight Club.'"
Flanagan said that the Pike book he was "most excited" to cover in the second season was "Remember Me," which he called one of his "all-time favorite[s]." He said the story would have been told by Ilonka as a way to help Kevin stay alive for just a little while longer. "She has to navigate being a spirit while trying to solve her own murder," he said. "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 trying to wrap her head around being a ghost ... but this is the coolest part ... the lead character of Ilonka's story wouldn't be played by Ilonka. She'd be played by ... Anya."
The return of Anya
For those who watched "The Midnight Club," the decision to cast Anya (Ruth Codd) in Ilonka's story would have been a huge shocker, as the character passed away in season 1. "Because this is how we live on, isn't it?" Mike Flanagan asked on his Tumblr. "In the minds of those we leave behind. And Ilonka would use 'Remember Me' as a way to imagine her dear friend Anya, waking up as a ghost, navigating the afterlife." The "Remember Me" story would have stretched across five episodes and helped provide many of the unanswered questions left after the season 1 finale.
Flanagan also gave the answers to the identity of the Mirror Man and the Cataract Woman, as well as the truth behind Dr. Georgina Stanton (Heather Langenkamp). Admittedly, season 1 of "The Midnight Club" didn't feel like Flanagan's strongest work, while this season 2 blog breakdown sounds like the show it was always meant to be. It's a tragedy that streamers and studios are so clearly unwilling to let a series find its footing over time, instead opting to slam that "cancellation" button if a show doesn't become a smash success right out the gate.
Although Flanagan and Trevor Macy are taking their talents to Amazon, "The Midnight Club" is owned by Netflix, and therefore a season 2 is just not possible elsewhere. For more details on the season 2 that could have been, and an impassioned breakdown from Mike Flanagan, head over to his Tumblr.