Over the weekend my husband and I binged the new Mike Flanagan/ Netflix show – The Midnight Club. Mike Flanagan has basically an unimpeachable record when it comes to his Netflix limited series over the past five years. Starting with the Haunting of Hill House, which is a literal masterpiece, taking a slight dip with the follow-up, the Haunting of Bly Manor (inferior, but still good), and coming roaring back with another masterpiece last year with Midnight Mass.

Mike Flanagan’s format somewhat mimics American Horror Story in that he recycles much of the same cast in each new series, but the stories and a characters do not cross over and are each taking place in a new and unique universe (which turns out is not what is happening in AHS, but that’s another post for another day! Maybe. If I feel like it.).

And while The Midnight Club is considered part of the “Flanaverse” (I did not make that name, Netflix did!) it is not originally written by Mike Flanagan and only two episodes are directed by him. The story is instead an adaptation of a Christopher Pike novel from the 90’s, and if you are a child of the 80’s-90’s like me you definitely read Christopher Pike. He wrote hundreds of young adult horror books and was very much in the same vein as R.L Stine.

So while this series looks and feels much like the typical Flanaverse installment – from the start we are inundated with mysteries, questions needing answers, slow drips of information building up to an expected flood, combined with excellent casting and acting – that is where the similarities end.

The first clue that this show is not your typical Flanaverse story is that there only one crossover actor from a previous series – Zach Gifford aka Matt Saracen from Friday Night Lights aka Riley Flynn in Midnight Mass.

The central story of the Midnight Club involves a group of terminally ill teenagers who have chosen to live out their final days/ weeks/ months in Brightcliff manor, a hospice somewhere in the green forests of Washington state. Our main character is Ilonka, who has thyroid cancer that has metastasized to her lungs, and has come to Brightcliff because she found a story online about a girl from the 1960’s with her same cancer who came to Brightcliff with a terminal diagnosis, but later walked out of the place healed. Ilonka is determined to cheat death in the same way as this mysterious girl.

We meet the other kids living (and dying) in Brightcliff, and the show really shines here with excellent casting and writing for their stories and interactions. The characters are interesting, funny, and full of hope for whatever time they have left – yet also grapple with the reality of their mortality in very poignant and touching ways.

The titular “Midnight Club” is a club formed by the current residents of Brightcliff, passed down throughout the decades by the previous residents. The club meets every night at midnight in the library, and each night it is someone’s turn to tell the group a ghost story. The club has also taken a vow that whoever is next to die is supposed to do everything they can to send the others a sign from the afterlife.

Each episode of the Midnight Club features one of these ghost stories, narrated by one of the kids, and acted out and presented to the viewers as sort of a mini-movie starring all the Brightcliff residents as the various characters in each other’s stories. Outside of their nightly meetings and stories there are various storylines of mysteries going on – Ilonka’s visions (premonitions?) of Brightcliff before ever arriving there, the girl who was mysteriously cured, the visions of an elderly man and woman haunting Ilonka and at least one other resident, the black shadow that follows kids who are close to death, the woman in the woods making health tinctures, the cult who occupied the mansion before it was a hospice, the creepy hidden basement, the identity behind the woman running the hospice, etc etc. In short there was a LOT dangled in front of our noses to keep us engrossed and watching.

And while each episode offers us bits of info about these various mysteries, it is usually just at the beginning and end of each episode. The majority of each episode consists of the Midnight Club’s story of the night. And while enjoyable in their own right, none of these stories seem to have any real connection to the rest of the plot or the various mysteries. Nor do they seem to serve any real purpose at all.

It turns out each mini story is actually based on an entire different Christopher Pike novel, which explains why they are so good, but also unconnected to the overall plot of the Midnight Club.

If you have watched his previous series, you know the only thing Mike Flanagan loves more than creating insane mysteries is wrapping everything up in a neat little bow for the viewer at the end. So even if you still truly have no idea what is happening at the time, you can rest assured all your questions will eventually be answered and all dangling plot threads tied together in a very satisfying little bow in the end.

I patiently watched all 10 episodes of Midnight Club with the same expectation. And it did not pay off. The show is wonderful. Each episode and ghost story told by the kids is truly masterful. The mysteries that we are teased with are truly intriguing. But in the end, there is no payoff. Almost nothing is answered. There is no real climax. We are left totally flat and wanting. A huge buildup with no payoff.

Apparently this is the first Flanaverse installment that is intended to have a second season, something I did not know while watching. Which does explain the lack of answers, but if you want people to come back for more you have to give them SOMETHING, even if you don’t give them everything, to compensate for the 10 hours of their lives they gave to your show.

The Midnight Club is good. Really good. I could not stop watching and finished the show in a day and a half. But that just makes the ending extra disappointing given all the potential. All Mike Flanagan had to do was use the entire 10th episode to give us some real action and wrap up (at least some of) our unanswered questions. But he did none of that. In fact he had the audacity to spend the almost entire last episode on another lengthy mini ghost story, and then end the entire series not with answers, but by dropping yet another mystery in our laps.

I will obviously watch a Season 2, if it ever happens. But I am legit mad at how this season ended and I am not sure whether I recommend watching at all, which is sad because the writing and characters are wonderful. But if you are someone who needs at least some answers by the end of a show, you will be just as frustrated as me. If you are more of a “it’s not the destination but the journey” type, you will love this show.

2.75 stars.

P.S. Apparently Mike Flanagan’s energies have been primarily focused elsewhere, which also explains the very unsatisfying conclusion to Midnight Club. His next true Flanaverse installment, the Fall of the House of Usher, is currently in post-production and will come to Netflix sometime next year. Unlike Midnight Club this is wholly written and directed by Mike Flanagan, and also unlike Midnight Club it will star the full cast of regulars from all his first three shows.