[Image description: A digital drawing of Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks. The drawing is cut-off around her waist, and is shifted more to the right. It depicts her staring off to the side, mouth open and lips blue. A red substance, either lipstick or blood, is trailing upwards from her mouth. Her skin is discoloured, and her hair is an amalgamation of different styles she's worn, namely her prom hair, everyday hair, and hair from Fire Walk With Me. She's wearing the black dress from the Red Room, but it has her angel's sleeves. Rope is tied around her body, along with a gold ring that has a green middle. It glows slightly. Angel wings grow out of her back, their perspective wrong. One of her hands is up, holding her heart necklace. The hand skin rolls up like a plastic glove, and the necklace floats upward, shining. The background is blue and purple warped shapes, with two drawings of her hands from a side view, one held up vertical and the other horizontal. These drawings are repeated, but slightly lower and lighter.]
they've all gone away
178 notes
·
View notes
Midnight Mass spends six episodes weaving a web horror, of faith so blinding it consumes all it touches and a small, isolated community marked by prejudice. The path the characters are on seems inexorable, father Paul’s conviction so strong nothing can make his faith waver, not even murder. And it does come crashing down. it’s too late to stop John Pruitt, too late to save the people of the town from becoming monsters.
but instead of leaving it as wholly a tragedy, instead of rightfully letting them all consume each other and burn up in the aftermath, they do something different. instead, John Pruitt, the man who started it all, who doomed the entire island. doesn't die. he doesn't die, and he doesn't help Bev Keane destroy the entire island. instead, he sits in the church with the woman he loves, and he tells her he did it all for her. and in that scene, he stops being a villain, stops being the monster who doomed the entire town, and you see him for who he really is. soft, human, scared. in over his head, and just trying to protect the people he cares about. And you forgive him for it.
one of the most important scenes in the entire show is when after the chaos, the fire, after the rec centre burns down and they know they’re all doomed, Bev’s right hand man approaches one of the altar boys. simple, and resigned, they tell each other what they’ve done. what faith, what the angel’s blood made them do, and they tell each other: I forgive you.
later, sitting vigil over their daughter that the church never wanted to be born, in the moments before they go up in flame, john asks Mildred: can you forgive me?
Bleeding out in the grass, Erin Greene looks up at the stars, and imagines herself talking to Riley Flynn. she talks about the grass, the stars, her. All of them are one. Matter is just energy, moving slowly. She is not dying, because everything that makes her up, electrons, atoms, all of it, cannot be destroyed. All the galaxies in the universe, every person and living thing, are one. And that is God.
They could have let us hate John Pruitt, could have let us walk away thinking about how easily we can be manipulated when we want to believe, and thinking about how religion blinds people to the truth, no matter how horrific. but I don’t think that was the point. In the end, Bev Keane is the only one alone, desperately trying to escape the fate she had sealed for herself. the only one so blinded by piety that she couldn't see that her actions were monstrous.
The others are singing.
In the end they leave the church, and they gathered together in the middle of their ruined town, and they sing. Mr and Mrs Flynn know what had happened wasn’t God, wasn’t a miracle. They were not blinded by faith, and yet they were the one to start singing, and to start singing a hymn. Nearer, my God, to thee.
The writers of Midnight Mass could have left it a tragedy, but instead they offered an alternative: the rising sun bleeding into the fire engulfing Crockett island, and hundreds of singing voices. atoms, energy, becoming one. Becoming God.
57 notes
·
View notes