Mike Flanagan’s latest Netflix horror series Midnight Mass offers many hints of what’s to come, and the fate of island residents was one of the first.
Mike Flanagan's limited series Midnight Mass on Netflix foreshadowed the demise of everyone on the island long before it happened. The newest horror series from the creative team behind The Haunting of Hill House provided more than its fair share of hints to what was to come. Most of those teasers came during the sermons of Father Paul, a mysterious priest played by Hamish Linklater (Tell Me Your Secrets). However, one specific moment was more significant than the rest.
Early in Midnight Mass Father Paul arrives at Crockett Island - an isolated community with less than 200 residents - to assume ministerial duties for St. Patrick Catholic Church's regular priest, Monsignor Pruitt. The official story for Pruitt's absence suggested he fell seriously ill while traveling to holy sites overseas. In reality, Father Paul was the rejuvenated Monsignor, made young again by a vampiric-like angel whose blood heals and restores in mysterious ways. Although the angel has the power to bring about regeneration, it also inflicts a terrible curse on anyone that comes into contact. It is this that ultimately causes Crockett Island's residents to perish.
Father Paul's interactions with the townspeople feature several dramatic moments foreshadowing things to come. For instance, Annabeth Gish's Dr. Sarah Gunning tells her partner that Father Pruitt used to look at them in the same way as the new Father Paul, hinting at a connection between the two characters and setting up the revelation that Paul/Pruitt was secretly Sarah's father. However, the crucial moment for the community at large comes in episode 2, "Book II: Psalms." During the episode, Father Paul reminds the parish that they came from dust and will, inevitably, return to it. This foreshadows most of the population's fate during the show's dramatic climax.
To prevent the resurrected townspeople from spreading their vampiric infection to the mainland, Sarah, Erin (Kate Siegel), and Sheriff Hassan (Rahul Kohli) burned all available boats, following Bev's decision to burn all the island's buildings. With nowhere left to seek shelter when the sun rose, most of the turned residents gathered in the town square to await their inevitable fate. Singing hymns of praise as the first rays of daylight broke over the ocean's horizon; they disintegrated into ashes. This made Paul's inadvertent prophecy come true, bringing the narrative full circle.
Despite being initially hidden behind the traditional ceremonies of Ash Wednesday, Father Paul's words take on new meaning as Midnight Mass's story evolves. In fact, Riley (Zach Gilford) even uses them against Paul when he writes a note to the priest just before he turns himself to dust at sunrise. Riley's sacrifice not only embodies the foreshadowed return to dust but incites the very events that led to it en masse for the rest of the population.
In the end, Crockett Island residents became what Father Paul said they would: dust. This fate was made even more unsettling by the fact the island's only two survivors - teenagers Warren (Igby Rigney) and Leeza (Annarah Cymone) - watch from the safety of their boat while it happens. However, despite the haunting imagery, the clever signposting throughout Midnight Mass means that this conclusion makes total sense in the context of the series. It might be a gruesome demise but, as Father Paul's secret message reveals, it is in many ways an inevitable fate for everyone.
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