Remove ads, unlock a dark mode theme, and get other perks by upgrading your account. Experience the website the way it's meant to be.

Midnight Mass (Netflix) • Page 7

Discussion in 'Entertainment Forum' started by drewinseries, Aug 9, 2021.

  1. imthegrimace

    the poster formally known as thesheriff Supporter

    Yeah my gf loved hill house and bly manor and didn’t really enjoy this one.
     
  2. Nyquist

    I must now go to the source Supporter

    Also, as the actual villain of the show, Bev is terrifying. I have known Bev. I have had people like Bev tear my world apart and she scares the shit out of me. Her death was extremely satisfying. I kept waiting for her to get what was coming, but everything I imagined paled in comparison to what we got. She ends up alone in her hatefulness, the point hammering her even harder when she looks over and sees that she’s wound up on the same beach as the sheriff and his son. Riley’s mom was right and she’s no better or more special or more right than anyone else. But she IS alone. And she will die alone, horrifically. The others join each other in a last moment of peace and forgiveness, in a faith Bev cannot comprehend, and she is alone. It’s what she deserves.
     
    zachmacD, Cameron, OotyPa and 6 others like this.
  3. Brother Beck

    Trusted Supporter

    I loved that she, of all people, was the only one who vainly tried to dig a hole to avoid what was coming. Because that thought did occur to me as soon as Sturge mentioned to Bev that all of the buildings were burning - I looked at the sky and how close it was to dawn and thought to myself 'these MF's better start digging'. And it ties in beautifully to Annie's earlier point about how it's weird that people who claim to have faith that some better thing awaits us after we die still scramble like rats on a sinking ship for a few more desperate minutes of life in that moment when the abstract idea of you ceasing to exist is unavoidably being made real to you.
     
    Nyquist and RyanPm40 like this.
  4. RyanPm40

    The Torment of Existence Supporter

    I don't get why someone couldn't hide in the trunk of a car or pull an upside down canoe over their heads. There were definitely options lol. Sturge could have reconnected the cell tower the following night and call in a ferry
     
    ncarrab, zachmacD, OotyPa and 2 others like this.
  5. Brother Beck

    Trusted Supporter

    Also, as I struggled to have that last sentence in my previous post make sense and say what I was actually trying to say, it occured to me that this show could be pretty comforting to someone who has a strong religious faith whilst at the same time being utterly and soul-shatteringly horrifying to an atheist.

    I don't call myself an atheist but I will say that I found this show horrifying.

    I can't speak for anybody else or even what Flanagan and the other creators were going for, but for me, these scenes where the townspeople have actively burned down all of the buildings on the island operated on almost a mythic level sort of like a parable, where it was more about the grand ideas of what was happening at that point. It was more important to show that they have chosen by their actions to put themselves into this predicament than it is to actually parse our whether there is like a cellar hole or a storage trailer somewhere they could all climb into. Like if vampires don't have to breathe, The Angel could have just dove into the water and swam down really far and just waited for it to be night again instead of Attempting To Outfly The Dawn On Broken Wings. This ties into all of the Catholic stuff and the way stories are told in a mass and what their function is.

    It's not a perfect idea, and it's not a permanent thing either - like the moment where Bev tried to dig a hole with her hands isn't really mythic or anything, that's just realistic and straightforward to me.
     
    noisyneighbour, Nyquist and RyanPm40 like this.
  6. Penlab

    Prestigious Supporter

    Did anyone have a car on the island? I don't really remember anyone having one.
     
    Rowan5215 and Brother Beck like this.
  7. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    I think they all realised they were wrong anyway, like when Sturge asked the kid to forgive him (which hit me pretty hard). it was between hiding under a tree or something and eking out a few more days before they died of starvation or just peacing out with something like grace, I think their choice makes sense
     
  8. Brother Beck

    Trusted Supporter

    I don't specifically remember seeing any cars, but there were plenty of canoes and stuff all around, and I'm sure other sorts of free-standing small structures like a barrel or a box or any number of things.
     
  9. Penlab

    Prestigious Supporter

    I guess nobody on the island has ever played Metal Gear Solid. Just like how no one on the island has apparently seen Dracula.
     
    Brother Beck likes this.
  10. Brother Beck

    Trusted Supporter

    I agree - it seemed to me like mostly everyone (of the main characters shown anyway) realized they had been wrong and had a change of heart or at the very least were prepared to meet their fate without scrambling desperately at that point. I mean, ultimately, we all have to do something similar.
     
    noisyneighbour and Rowan5215 like this.
  11. domotime2

    Great Googly Moogly Supporter

    One episode left but think this is the best Netflix show of the last two years. Loved the slow methodical pacinf of the beginning, loved the absolutely haunting visual of the dead car accident girl, and Holy shit the ending of episode 5 in the boat is everything! So haunting! So visually amazing. That entire episode was perfect
     
    Brother Beck likes this.
  12. flask

    Trusted Supporter

    [​IMG]

    Ahem yes in episode 7 why didn't the citizens of the island simply hide under a pile of fish to avoid the sun for 10 hours?
     
  13. drewinseries

    Drew

    [​IMG]
     
    phaynes12, Penlab and RyanPm40 like this.
  14. drewinseries

    Drew

    [​IMG]
     
    OotyPa, Penlab and imthesheriff like this.
  15. the rural juror Oct 1, 2021
    (Last edited: Oct 1, 2021)
    the rural juror

    carried in the arms of cheerleaders

    I thought this was decent, but didn't love it. The plot and themes were unique and took some interesting turns, but the acting outside of Linklater was pretty rough at times, and the writing was so ponderous. I'm not sure I've ever seen a show pack more monologues into seven episodes.

    Doctor: I think the church might be poisoning people, can you investigate?

    Sheriff: I'll never forget where I was on 9/11....
     
  16. noisyneighbour

    Newbie

    when you write it like this, it does seem pretty ridiculous...
     
  17. Penlab

    Prestigious Supporter

    I mean, if you say it like that it sounds stupid, but it also ignores the nuances of the fact that he's trying to illustrate why he's not willing to ruffle feathers unnecessarily when there's no clear evidence of any actual crime. I dunno, I didn't find anything wrong with that conversation.
     
    Joe4th, OotyPa, mike1885 and 2 others like this.
  18. Rowan5215

    An inconsequential shift as the continents drift.

    I thought Rahul Kohli was pretty incredible in that scene, personally

    but I also love the monologues and think they're a Flanagan trademark at this point, as much as roving camerawork is for James Wan, so
     
    Joe4th, OotyPa, RyanPm40 and 2 others like this.
  19. the rural juror

    carried in the arms of cheerleaders

    It reveals nothing because the audience already knows why he would be reluctant, because his Muslim-ness has been pounded into our heads every episode. It also already hinted at what happen when the son mentions the racist police force and how they wanted to get away after his wife died. We already know his story at this point and can fill in the gaps ourselves. There are more interesting and effective ways to communicate how his character is feeling.
     
  20. Penlab

    Prestigious Supporter

    I dunno, I'm thinking about it as a real conversation. If I were the sheriff and I needed to explain to the person in front of me why I don't think it's a good idea for me to investigate, what would I be saying?

    And it was interesting to know a little more background. Sure, we knew the precinct was racist and that's why he left, but that's all we knew. I thought expanding on it both served the purpose of explaining to Sarah why it's so important to Hassan not to push the issue, and it said something a little real world too that was worth putting out there.
     
    Joe4th likes this.
  21. Thrillcollinz

    It's all hell.

    This is great

     
    ncarrab, zachmacD, RyanPm40 and 3 others like this.
  22. Brother Beck

    Trusted Supporter

    This critique is dead-on, 100% accurate but also, I love it. This is an accurate depiction of how the characters in this show talk, true, but it works for me for this story and I absolutely love it. The only scene where this didn't work for me and I felt like I was watching the first few attempts at actors improving a scene with absolutely zero prep was in the first episode when Riley is talking to Erin on her porch. I felt like the guy was just babbling about nothing and it felt like it went on for hours. All the other instances of it throughout this show though just served to pull me into the story more and more. The sheriff talking to the doctor in the back of the general store was one of my absolute favorite scenes from the entire show, and made the later church and shoreline scenes all the more devastating.

    Just as a knee-jerk reaction, I didn't really like the actor who plays Riley right off the bat. He annoyed me a little bit and I felt like he was just one of those generic, vaguely attractive, physically fit white dude actors, like Sam Worthington in Avatar. But the writing, along with his performance, drew me in throughout the show to the point where I felt like I was as traumatized and devastated as Erin was during the boat scene. Just going by this, because I'm otherwise completely unfamiliar with the guy, I was way off base about Zach Gilford.

    I can understand being turned off by all of the monologuing, because it's definitely there and in your face, but I feel like it's integral to what Flanagan is going for with this. Similar to how there are probably hundreds of other much simpler ways to block and shoot the dead cats on the beach scene, but he went with having the camera operator running circles around the actors with a steadycam. Yeah, it's show-offy in a film nerd way because long, unbroken tracking shots always are, but it also serves a purpose in the story. That type shot typically draws you into the story, which I felt as I was watching, but the way this one was executed also made it dizzying and disorienting. Absolutely fucking brilliant as far as I'm concerned.

    Taken altogether, it's definitely A LOT of Flanaganisms, and if this stuff rubs you the wrong way I can totally understand thinking this whole thing is boring or garbage or just silly. But for me, this is a masterpiece. Honestly, I'd rather watch a third-tier Flanagan character monologue for an hour about going to the dentist than I would sit through even five minutes of a hyperkineticly-edited, shaky-cammed PG-13 Michael Bay-produced reboot of some 80's or 90's horror flick. To each their own.
     
  23. Penlab

    Prestigious Supporter

    I will say that for my part, I'm pretty easygoing with my criticisms of... well, anything. TV, games, music, movies. I like to consume. It takes something really offputting to grind my gears.
     
    Brother Beck likes this.
  24. Flanagan writes his characters with such care, and I think long monologues is just a part of how he does that here. It's a shame that Bev is such a straightforward and unlikable villain, but I thought Samantha Sloyan killed it despite that.
     
  25. youll be fine

    Trusted Supporter

    Also going to church when I was younger all I heard were freakin monologues
     
    phaynes12 and Brother Beck like this.