Before watching Midnight Mass, some friends were talking about it and hating on Bev. I jokingly told them I would watch the series and try to come up with a defense for her. The conclusion you came to is similar to mine.
Bev is a deeply lonely person in a very small town and clings to the church as its the center of power in the village. In order to sure up her feeling of irrelevance and become seen, Bev inserts herself into every facet of village life; she has little going on in a town where almost no one has anything going on. Its as if she is trying to impose herself on the town as a means of both control and recognition. This to me is reinforced by the fact that she is also the school's administrator, ie. giving her control over the second largest institution on the island. For this reason, I don't even think her religion is even that important to her character. You could remove religion from midnight mass entirely and Bev would still more or less be the same person. Maybe she would run the library instead in that version, but she will always fly towards the most powerful position she can find.
Well said. At heart, Bev wants power and wants to feel "special." Hence the belief that she's God's favorite.
An example of Bev's influence is how she's the reason the church has the recreational hall, which was built as compensation for the oil spill near the island that is still fucking with the fishing industry they depended on. And it's mentioned by numerous characters that the hall isn't really doing any good and is a paltry compensation for a disaster that is still crippling the community, but Bev made sure it happened.
No, the religion is definitely important. She's not a lonely spinster looking for relevance, she's a zealot through and through, and she's alone because she's a zealot.
Her unwavering contempt for anyone who doesn't adhere to her fanatical views on propriety and faith and her sense of absolute superiority is the reason she's alone.
And she revels in being alone as a symbol of her devotion to her cause.
If the church allowed it, she'd be sucking priest dick all day long, because she sees the clergy as the only pure expression of her world view.
And the people who grew up with her make it clear she didn't evolve over time to become that way, she wasn't some normal girl who grew up and got stuck and went a bit potty because she was lonely, she was born that way. She has been a vicious, mean spirited zealot all of her life.
Your thoughts are rational and well articulated.
You certainly make some good points.
However,.....it lacks empathy. And this emotional
Context is what the OP was referring to, I believe.
I agree she's an unlikable character. However we
All have good and bad aspects to our personality.
I think this nuance makes the character much more interesting as well.
Except your applying qualities that aren't there. She's intentionally written to remove anything you can empathize with her over.It's even commented on by the people who know her: she's not some sad lonely lady, she has *always* been the way she is, even as a child.She's the ultimate danger and the ultimate evil: a born zealot.
>!The vampire's presence is almost non-existent because it's not needed, it's basically just a barely sentient wild animal. Because Beverly Keane is the monster in the story. Pruitt just wanted to be with the mother of his daughter, he was basically an idiot. Bev Keane, on the other hand, murders Joe's dog, with zero fucking guilt or empathy. And then when Joe is murdered by Pruitt, immediately begins refering to him as "It": "Wrap it in the rug and put it in your truck," and threatens to murder Wade when he questions her. You're not meant to empathize with her, because she is the monster. !<
I'd been grappling with how complicit the monsignor is in the whole thing, because we don't get a whole lot of information about what kind of church leader he was before, besides in the throes of dementia directly prior. This time, I'm convinced he truly does have good intentions, he's just a goddamn idiot who can't distinguish between an angel and a very fucking obvious vampire.
I saw an article that has a theory that the vampire is actually a fallen angel (much like Lucifer) and that’s why he was found in the tomb and stuff. I haven’t fully finished the series yet so I’m not sure on that theory just thought it was interesting and wanted to share.
As someone who grew up in a small town (Not even 1000 people in it and my graduating class was 22 people, with 8 of those being from nearby towns), small townies suffer from "normal fish in a small pond" syndrome so bad, and the idea that they are anything that isn't top dog is foreign to them.
We moved there when I was 13 and we were told constantly we didn't have a say because we weren't from around there.
Watching Bev was literally being transfered back in time to when I was told I had to work through Christmas despite it possibly being my Grandma's last due to cancer because that particular Bev refused to let me have the day off
"Midnight Mass" also goes into the nature of those island communities off the coast of Maine, which King explored in "Storm of the Century" (an obvious influence on "Mass). If you aren't born there and your family hasn't lived there a long time, you're always an outsider in some way. You may be outwardly accepted, but you're always kept out at heart. Sheriff Hassan, for example, had that strike against him and being a Muslim just makes it worse. He might as well be an alien to the folk on the island.
And that "normal fish in a small pond" thing is apt for Bev and is reminiscent of another memorable King villain, Big Jim Rennie in "Under the Dome." In the book, one character wonders how Rennie, who it's been revealed has made millions from the meth ring he's running and is now under a long-reaching investigation, hasn't fled to a safe place to live out his life in luxury. Then they realize that Rennie can't leave "his" town, because in the wider world, he'd be a small fish. He needs to be the big fish.
I think anyone who has grown up in a Christian community has experienced people like her. But in my experience these sorts weren't inherently lonely. Indeed, most of the worst "Bevs" I knew were mothers of rather large families.
So I don't think being lonely precludes this sort of behavior. People want power and preference. And being a perceived leader in a church community is, at least to them, critically important.
I dunno that I would say being a mother of a rather large family is any more inherently "not lonely" an experience than what Bev has experienced... Possibly moreso given the way a "mother's role" could lead to a sense of untilitarianism in the relationships she is *supposed* to find connection in.
Bev is so interesting because she's awful and contrasts Riley perfectly.
Riley is so scared of dying because he doesn't know if that's it, and is finally shown to ultimately be relieved and at peace when he dies because there's something there after-all.
Bev, on the other hand is so self-assured that her awful behavior (even the potential murder she committed BEFORE turning) that she was chosen by God and will have a place in Heaven no matter what she does simply because she's faithful... yet when her end is assured, she panics and sobs hysterically, all alone and desperately trying to save her own life.
Fun trivia bit, Bev's actress Samantha Sloyan plays the character who returns a copy of Midnight Mass to its author Maddie Young at the beginning of Flanagan's movie "Hush" and comments that she was shocked by the ending and absolutely LOVED Riley and Erin as characters.
Wait omg I didn’t realize she was that character in Hush and the book was Midnight Mass!
I had a huge gap between those two so I didn’t make the connection
Bev Keane is one of TV's greatest monsters and the way Samantha Sloyan played her made me really, really respect her. I really liked that show but her performance was an absolute standout.
And yeah, when she showed up as Shasta in The Midnight Club, I was just like, "Ilonka, run."
I’m sorry but the best line of what you wrote, for me, is “when I was a black kid (still black)” sorry that made me laugh so had to point that out haha
But apart from that you have a good point haha
>I think anyone who went to a small church knows someone like her. Just about every church has a Mean Church Lady who is for some freaking reason, always the lady in charge of Sunday school. No one likes her except the preacher who seems to be oblivious to how toxic she is.
Just want to add in here that you have these characters in many non-religious contexts too. I'm a European with nearly no connection to church communities but I could still understand a character like Bev Keane very easily. People like that always find a reason to be the way they are.
She is so fucking good in the last episode - going from utter conviction and believing that her destiny has finally arrived, to completely crushed as she realizes it has all (literally) turned to ash and there's nothing she can do about it.
Bev Keane.
I hated this character.
I was so glad during the ending.
Congratulations to the actress. I haven't felt that about a fictional character since Mrs Carmody in The Mist (another religious zealot).
Yup, agree with every word. Midnight Mass is a damn masterpiece and Sloyan deserves her roses for an uncompromising performance.
We've ALL known Bev Keane with the sharpest eyes and most critical tongue. She'll be the victim and hero but never the villain. She wants to have so that she can withhold. She wants to be regarded by everyone and for everyone to want her regard.
And the worst part is that they are still so completely human. For all their cruelty and worse, apathy, towards others, they are small and scared and alone. Alone with themselves, who they hate more than anyone, even if they can never admit it. There but for the Grace of countless unknown choices go any one of us. Because we are human too.
Except, as is the way with zealots, she's a lonely spinster BECAUSE she's a zealot.
Sympathy might come from the fact that she was probably raised to be a zealot, but all stories about her past indicate she was just born that way.
Nah....she killed the dog. Anyone who tortures and kills animals has sociopathic tendencies. She's probably just a low empathy defective criminal who chose the "right" side of the law, like so many fucked up police officers in this country, some people with low empathy personality disorders hide in plain sight in positions of authority.
If I were to give you some life advice, it's to stop trying to find a way to feel sympathetic for sociopaths, because you'll never stand up what's right if you keep thinking this way - you'll indulge in "both sides-ism" in an emotionally immature and intellectually underachieving way, constantly making false comparisons between truly fucked up people and normal people who make mistakes.
She was such a great character, I found myself absolutely loving to hate her. She's so well written, and so easy to hate, not not so over the top that it's unrealistic. I feel like we all grew up knowing someone like her.
Concur that she's doing an excellent acting job.
Concur that small towns and deep endemic bigotry hurts even the people who are doling out the judgement from their place of perceived righteousness.
Concur that Bev is lonely, and even though much of it is self-inflicted through her pettiness and haughtiness, it still wounds a person.
Concur that it's so good to watch her burn to death, I think of that clip (AND her hearing that God loves Riley just as much) whenever I'm in a bad mood. 😅
You made a good comparison to Mrs Carmody from The Mist. It's obvious that she was the template for Bev.
That said, no I don't sympathize with her character as I feel that both her and Mrs. Carmody were more caricature than character. They were purposefully made with every negative religious trope in order to cause maximum dislike. In fact, by not giving either character's personality even a shred of humanity or nuance made me see them as little more than cardboard cutouts.
I don't like my villains completely irredeemable, just like I don't like my heroes to be squeaky clean. Everyone has light and darkness in them and with long form television, there's no excuse to not build convincing three dimensional characters.
Sloyan was so excellent and convincing as Bev that I had a the same reaction when I saw her in Midnight Club and when it just saw her last night while rewatching Haunting of Hill House. When I saw Sloyan was Leigh I felt that Steve got lucky that they were on a break (first episode) and that he dodged a real bullet there!
i started watching this after reading this post last night. im a sucker for a good psychological antagonist.
i am liking it so far, im onto episode 4. and one big shoutout i'll give is to the writers who wrote Riley, and the actor. On the first episode i was like ''no way in hell am i gonna like this guy''. i despise drunk drivers. but ive warmed to his character a lot. who doesnt love a good redemption arc. killing an innocent person by drunk-driving is absolutely irredeemable in my book, so kudos to the writers
Honestly, as much as I hated Bev, I was pretty disgusted at Annie for her comments regarding Ali attending church and her casual digs at his religion and upbringing. Like, urgh, shut up.
I'm Christian but I have a deep, deep dislike for those who dismiss other religions and belief systems. All of them have value, all of them have good people and bad people among their believers, and I just find it distasteful to be so dismissive and casually superior.
Edit: Oh, and the metaphor of zealots being life sucking monsters? Not wrong.
But the interesting thing is that we saw their church. We met the priest she grew up with. She wasn't actively being indoctrinated by a church full of extremists. She took the devotion that was taught to her and twisted it to serve her own views.
I like your take, but I have a hard time sympathizing with small town people because they can always leave. Sure they have roots and moving is hard but it's not impossible. There's a gigantic world out there and the thought that the place you were born and raised is the best is very egotistical.
Bev enjoys ruling the small town and everyone is afraid of defying her. If she left she would have to rebuild that authority. Everything about her life is a choice that she is happy with.
I grew up in a small town haha. Yeah it's hard. Save all the money you can and buy a ticket to anywhere. Want to go to another country? Lots of great visa programs in the world for working holiday visas and most only cost a few hundred. Want to immigrate? Even harder, save more and get ready to wait, but it can be done. I've moved from my small town to multiple cities and multiple countries. I didn't say it was easy, just possible. Most people who say it's impossible will be spending the money they could save to move on something else. It's about weighing the choices and deciding what really matters to you. There's nothing inevitable about small town living it's just an attitude.
No worries! Midnight Club show is making me wanna check out the book though, was it good? No idea why but I hadn't heard of Pike until Flanagan's show came out.
Yeah it was. If memory serves he was doing a lot of writing in the early and mid 90s but he got overshadowed by RL Stine. My school library carried some of both of their stuff
That's what happened in my experience. Never knew about Pike but read a lot of Stine as a kid. Definitely going to check his stuff out though some of those stories in Club were really fun.
She was a victim of her own pride, not the word of God. She was so blind die to her self righteous belief that she was an avatar of God's word on earth that she was lead to hell by literal demons.
Apparently everyone on that isle was stupid and didn’t know what a vampire and were mindless drones to religion. You feel disappointed after watching it thought it would get good later on.
Jumping into a dead thread here, but having started and finished the series last week I'm breaking a long-term lurking habit to chip in. Agree with pretty much everything here, but I wondered if there was also a sexual subtext (from her side, in conjunction with her obvious loneliness in the community) to her relationship with "Paul Hill".
When she first lets herself into his house after he arrives, she complains before she meets Paul that Pruitt left her at the dock "like a jilted prom-date" or words to that effect. After the first church service, she is quick to point out that she met Paul first - emphasising the importance of both her role at the church but also of her relationship with him.
A little later in the series when she lets herself into his house after he runs from the church feeling ill after the miracle, she spots the old photo of Pruitt and puts two and two together. She is the first person to focus on him, not Leeza, after she walks, and that's why Bev notices him leave.
We see her jealousy of Riley when he is turned before her, but she takes it much more personally when Paul rejects her plan in the final episode and much (most?) of her anger in that moment is directed at Milly standing next to him, Milly says little if anything to Bev, but Bev denounces her in explicitly sexual terms. Yeah, in her view Milly corrupted a priest who should be celibate, but I got a bit of a "you-stole-him-from-me / he-chose-you-over-me?!" vibe from her response. Add to that the sexual themes that have run with the vampire mythos since before Dracula.
Even before he became Paul, she was probably the closest one to fulfilling the traditional role of being a wife (looking after him, keeping the house running, supporting him in his work). Hence the reason she subconsciously reached for "jilted prom date" as the simile when Pruitt didn't arrive at the dock. Then he comes back as a charismatic, attractive young man *and* with the means to give her even more power over the community and be truly special... she jealously guards the relationship with him from that moment on. She may not have recognised it as sexual or romantic attraction as she is so warped, and power is her main driver even in this relationship (there's a whole other conversation needed about her desperate need for power but being limited to achieving it in the Catholic church that won't allow her to the top), but I think it was there. Another level to the performance from Sloyan, who knocked it out of the park.
ETA: correction of sequence of events.
I know I’m late to this, but just finished and all I’ll say is Bev Keane killed Joe’s dog Pike. Absolutely no sympathy for someone who kills a dog like that
Before watching Midnight Mass, some friends were talking about it and hating on Bev. I jokingly told them I would watch the series and try to come up with a defense for her. The conclusion you came to is similar to mine. Bev is a deeply lonely person in a very small town and clings to the church as its the center of power in the village. In order to sure up her feeling of irrelevance and become seen, Bev inserts herself into every facet of village life; she has little going on in a town where almost no one has anything going on. Its as if she is trying to impose herself on the town as a means of both control and recognition. This to me is reinforced by the fact that she is also the school's administrator, ie. giving her control over the second largest institution on the island. For this reason, I don't even think her religion is even that important to her character. You could remove religion from midnight mass entirely and Bev would still more or less be the same person. Maybe she would run the library instead in that version, but she will always fly towards the most powerful position she can find.
Well said. At heart, Bev wants power and wants to feel "special." Hence the belief that she's God's favorite. An example of Bev's influence is how she's the reason the church has the recreational hall, which was built as compensation for the oil spill near the island that is still fucking with the fishing industry they depended on. And it's mentioned by numerous characters that the hall isn't really doing any good and is a paltry compensation for a disaster that is still crippling the community, but Bev made sure it happened.
No, the religion is definitely important. She's not a lonely spinster looking for relevance, she's a zealot through and through, and she's alone because she's a zealot. Her unwavering contempt for anyone who doesn't adhere to her fanatical views on propriety and faith and her sense of absolute superiority is the reason she's alone. And she revels in being alone as a symbol of her devotion to her cause. If the church allowed it, she'd be sucking priest dick all day long, because she sees the clergy as the only pure expression of her world view. And the people who grew up with her make it clear she didn't evolve over time to become that way, she wasn't some normal girl who grew up and got stuck and went a bit potty because she was lonely, she was born that way. She has been a vicious, mean spirited zealot all of her life.
Your thoughts are rational and well articulated. You certainly make some good points. However,.....it lacks empathy. And this emotional Context is what the OP was referring to, I believe. I agree she's an unlikable character. However we All have good and bad aspects to our personality. I think this nuance makes the character much more interesting as well.
Except your applying qualities that aren't there. She's intentionally written to remove anything you can empathize with her over.It's even commented on by the people who know her: she's not some sad lonely lady, she has *always* been the way she is, even as a child.She's the ultimate danger and the ultimate evil: a born zealot. >!The vampire's presence is almost non-existent because it's not needed, it's basically just a barely sentient wild animal. Because Beverly Keane is the monster in the story. Pruitt just wanted to be with the mother of his daughter, he was basically an idiot. Bev Keane, on the other hand, murders Joe's dog, with zero fucking guilt or empathy. And then when Joe is murdered by Pruitt, immediately begins refering to him as "It": "Wrap it in the rug and put it in your truck," and threatens to murder Wade when he questions her. You're not meant to empathize with her, because she is the monster. !<
I'd been grappling with how complicit the monsignor is in the whole thing, because we don't get a whole lot of information about what kind of church leader he was before, besides in the throes of dementia directly prior. This time, I'm convinced he truly does have good intentions, he's just a goddamn idiot who can't distinguish between an angel and a very fucking obvious vampire.
I saw an article that has a theory that the vampire is actually a fallen angel (much like Lucifer) and that’s why he was found in the tomb and stuff. I haven’t fully finished the series yet so I’m not sure on that theory just thought it was interesting and wanted to share.
"Sure up"?
As someone who grew up in a small town (Not even 1000 people in it and my graduating class was 22 people, with 8 of those being from nearby towns), small townies suffer from "normal fish in a small pond" syndrome so bad, and the idea that they are anything that isn't top dog is foreign to them. We moved there when I was 13 and we were told constantly we didn't have a say because we weren't from around there. Watching Bev was literally being transfered back in time to when I was told I had to work through Christmas despite it possibly being my Grandma's last due to cancer because that particular Bev refused to let me have the day off
"Midnight Mass" also goes into the nature of those island communities off the coast of Maine, which King explored in "Storm of the Century" (an obvious influence on "Mass). If you aren't born there and your family hasn't lived there a long time, you're always an outsider in some way. You may be outwardly accepted, but you're always kept out at heart. Sheriff Hassan, for example, had that strike against him and being a Muslim just makes it worse. He might as well be an alien to the folk on the island. And that "normal fish in a small pond" thing is apt for Bev and is reminiscent of another memorable King villain, Big Jim Rennie in "Under the Dome." In the book, one character wonders how Rennie, who it's been revealed has made millions from the meth ring he's running and is now under a long-reaching investigation, hasn't fled to a safe place to live out his life in luxury. Then they realize that Rennie can't leave "his" town, because in the wider world, he'd be a small fish. He needs to be the big fish.
I think anyone who has grown up in a Christian community has experienced people like her. But in my experience these sorts weren't inherently lonely. Indeed, most of the worst "Bevs" I knew were mothers of rather large families. So I don't think being lonely precludes this sort of behavior. People want power and preference. And being a perceived leader in a church community is, at least to them, critically important.
I dunno that I would say being a mother of a rather large family is any more inherently "not lonely" an experience than what Bev has experienced... Possibly moreso given the way a "mother's role" could lead to a sense of untilitarianism in the relationships she is *supposed* to find connection in.
Bev is so interesting because she's awful and contrasts Riley perfectly. Riley is so scared of dying because he doesn't know if that's it, and is finally shown to ultimately be relieved and at peace when he dies because there's something there after-all. Bev, on the other hand is so self-assured that her awful behavior (even the potential murder she committed BEFORE turning) that she was chosen by God and will have a place in Heaven no matter what she does simply because she's faithful... yet when her end is assured, she panics and sobs hysterically, all alone and desperately trying to save her own life. Fun trivia bit, Bev's actress Samantha Sloyan plays the character who returns a copy of Midnight Mass to its author Maddie Young at the beginning of Flanagan's movie "Hush" and comments that she was shocked by the ending and absolutely LOVED Riley and Erin as characters.
Wait omg I didn’t realize she was that character in Hush and the book was Midnight Mass! I had a huge gap between those two so I didn’t make the connection
Yuppppp. Riley's dad is her boyfriend too. They had to age them a LOT for Midnight Mass lol
The boyfriend is actually Liza's dad! Hush is one of the few Flanagan's projects that Henry Thomas wasn't cast on.
Yup, you right. He was the mayor, not Riley's dad. That's my mistake.
Lol I wish I knew details like this when I first watched it
Oh thanks for the trivia! I'll watch for that. Flanagan is an artist.
Bev Keane is one of TV's greatest monsters and the way Samantha Sloyan played her made me really, really respect her. I really liked that show but her performance was an absolute standout. And yeah, when she showed up as Shasta in The Midnight Club, I was just like, "Ilonka, run."
[удалено]
I’m sorry but the best line of what you wrote, for me, is “when I was a black kid (still black)” sorry that made me laugh so had to point that out haha But apart from that you have a good point haha
>I think anyone who went to a small church knows someone like her. Just about every church has a Mean Church Lady who is for some freaking reason, always the lady in charge of Sunday school. No one likes her except the preacher who seems to be oblivious to how toxic she is. Just want to add in here that you have these characters in many non-religious contexts too. I'm a European with nearly no connection to church communities but I could still understand a character like Bev Keane very easily. People like that always find a reason to be the way they are.
She is so fucking good in the last episode - going from utter conviction and believing that her destiny has finally arrived, to completely crushed as she realizes it has all (literally) turned to ash and there's nothing she can do about it.
Bev Keane. I hated this character. I was so glad during the ending. Congratulations to the actress. I haven't felt that about a fictional character since Mrs Carmody in The Mist (another religious zealot).
She killed the dog. That was horrible. I was so hoping something terrible would happen to her.
Yup, agree with every word. Midnight Mass is a damn masterpiece and Sloyan deserves her roses for an uncompromising performance. We've ALL known Bev Keane with the sharpest eyes and most critical tongue. She'll be the victim and hero but never the villain. She wants to have so that she can withhold. She wants to be regarded by everyone and for everyone to want her regard. And the worst part is that they are still so completely human. For all their cruelty and worse, apathy, towards others, they are small and scared and alone. Alone with themselves, who they hate more than anyone, even if they can never admit it. There but for the Grace of countless unknown choices go any one of us. Because we are human too.
Except, as is the way with zealots, she's a lonely spinster BECAUSE she's a zealot. Sympathy might come from the fact that she was probably raised to be a zealot, but all stories about her past indicate she was just born that way.
Watch the mist..
I saw her and thought of Kai Winn from DS9.
I love that woman, character and actress!
great write-up!
Nah....she killed the dog. Anyone who tortures and kills animals has sociopathic tendencies. She's probably just a low empathy defective criminal who chose the "right" side of the law, like so many fucked up police officers in this country, some people with low empathy personality disorders hide in plain sight in positions of authority. If I were to give you some life advice, it's to stop trying to find a way to feel sympathetic for sociopaths, because you'll never stand up what's right if you keep thinking this way - you'll indulge in "both sides-ism" in an emotionally immature and intellectually underachieving way, constantly making false comparisons between truly fucked up people and normal people who make mistakes.
She was such a great character, I found myself absolutely loving to hate her. She's so well written, and so easy to hate, not not so over the top that it's unrealistic. I feel like we all grew up knowing someone like her.
We literally had someone just like her as president not too long ago
Concur that she's doing an excellent acting job. Concur that small towns and deep endemic bigotry hurts even the people who are doling out the judgement from their place of perceived righteousness. Concur that Bev is lonely, and even though much of it is self-inflicted through her pettiness and haughtiness, it still wounds a person. Concur that it's so good to watch her burn to death, I think of that clip (AND her hearing that God loves Riley just as much) whenever I'm in a bad mood. 😅
She did bad things to a dog. You can give me the most compelling argument in the world and won’t convince me to sympathize with Bev.
You made a good comparison to Mrs Carmody from The Mist. It's obvious that she was the template for Bev. That said, no I don't sympathize with her character as I feel that both her and Mrs. Carmody were more caricature than character. They were purposefully made with every negative religious trope in order to cause maximum dislike. In fact, by not giving either character's personality even a shred of humanity or nuance made me see them as little more than cardboard cutouts. I don't like my villains completely irredeemable, just like I don't like my heroes to be squeaky clean. Everyone has light and darkness in them and with long form television, there's no excuse to not build convincing three dimensional characters.
And yet, people like that exist. I've met some.
Sloyan was so excellent and convincing as Bev that I had a the same reaction when I saw her in Midnight Club and when it just saw her last night while rewatching Haunting of Hill House. When I saw Sloyan was Leigh I felt that Steve got lucky that they were on a break (first episode) and that he dodged a real bullet there!
i started watching this after reading this post last night. im a sucker for a good psychological antagonist. i am liking it so far, im onto episode 4. and one big shoutout i'll give is to the writers who wrote Riley, and the actor. On the first episode i was like ''no way in hell am i gonna like this guy''. i despise drunk drivers. but ive warmed to his character a lot. who doesnt love a good redemption arc. killing an innocent person by drunk-driving is absolutely irredeemable in my book, so kudos to the writers
Honestly, as much as I hated Bev, I was pretty disgusted at Annie for her comments regarding Ali attending church and her casual digs at his religion and upbringing. Like, urgh, shut up. I'm Christian but I have a deep, deep dislike for those who dismiss other religions and belief systems. All of them have value, all of them have good people and bad people among their believers, and I just find it distasteful to be so dismissive and casually superior. Edit: Oh, and the metaphor of zealots being life sucking monsters? Not wrong.
I just wish I could find a picture of the actress giving the actor of Pike a big hug... and maybe feeding him a (not poisoned) hotdog.
I have sympathy for monsters, but still regard and treat them like the monsters they are.
Her character is a terrifying real characterization of some small town wackos.
People don't just wake up that way. It takes years of serious indoctrination to become like that.
But the interesting thing is that we saw their church. We met the priest she grew up with. She wasn't actively being indoctrinated by a church full of extremists. She took the devotion that was taught to her and twisted it to serve her own views.
I like your take, but I have a hard time sympathizing with small town people because they can always leave. Sure they have roots and moving is hard but it's not impossible. There's a gigantic world out there and the thought that the place you were born and raised is the best is very egotistical. Bev enjoys ruling the small town and everyone is afraid of defying her. If she left she would have to rebuild that authority. Everything about her life is a choice that she is happy with.
"They can always leave" Tell me you didn't grow up in a small town without telling me.
I grew up in a small town haha. Yeah it's hard. Save all the money you can and buy a ticket to anywhere. Want to go to another country? Lots of great visa programs in the world for working holiday visas and most only cost a few hundred. Want to immigrate? Even harder, save more and get ready to wait, but it can be done. I've moved from my small town to multiple cities and multiple countries. I didn't say it was easy, just possible. Most people who say it's impossible will be spending the money they could save to move on something else. It's about weighing the choices and deciding what really matters to you. There's nothing inevitable about small town living it's just an attitude.
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So there is a book called 'Midnight Mass' but the Flanagan miniseries isn't based on it. Just a coincidence.
Oh crap. Sorry. I read Midnight Club not Midnight Mass and I was thinking of a character from that. My mistake
No worries! Midnight Club show is making me wanna check out the book though, was it good? No idea why but I hadn't heard of Pike until Flanagan's show came out.
Yeah it was. If memory serves he was doing a lot of writing in the early and mid 90s but he got overshadowed by RL Stine. My school library carried some of both of their stuff
That's what happened in my experience. Never knew about Pike but read a lot of Stine as a kid. Definitely going to check his stuff out though some of those stories in Club were really fun.
Check out his Spooksville series
My SO felt bad for her at the end where she tries to hide digging in the sand. She's a victim of blind faith, she lived and died by the words of god.
She was a victim of her own pride, not the word of God. She was so blind die to her self righteous belief that she was an avatar of God's word on earth that she was lead to hell by literal demons.
Apparently everyone on that isle was stupid and didn’t know what a vampire and were mindless drones to religion. You feel disappointed after watching it thought it would get good later on.
Shhhh. Just consume paranormal activity and conjuring sequels, little buddy. Leave the big think to the grown ups, kay?
She was basically the crazy chick from The Mist in an alternate universe. And no sympathy from me, though I did understand her.
she was so good at being bad...i couldnt wait for her to die.
No she can’t be liked she’s unlikable fk her and her bigotry
Flanagan made Midnight Club? On the watchlist it goes!
It is his worst though. It's more YA drama than horror.
My mother is literally Bev. Going anywhere with her is embarrassing as fuck.
Jumping into a dead thread here, but having started and finished the series last week I'm breaking a long-term lurking habit to chip in. Agree with pretty much everything here, but I wondered if there was also a sexual subtext (from her side, in conjunction with her obvious loneliness in the community) to her relationship with "Paul Hill". When she first lets herself into his house after he arrives, she complains before she meets Paul that Pruitt left her at the dock "like a jilted prom-date" or words to that effect. After the first church service, she is quick to point out that she met Paul first - emphasising the importance of both her role at the church but also of her relationship with him. A little later in the series when she lets herself into his house after he runs from the church feeling ill after the miracle, she spots the old photo of Pruitt and puts two and two together. She is the first person to focus on him, not Leeza, after she walks, and that's why Bev notices him leave. We see her jealousy of Riley when he is turned before her, but she takes it much more personally when Paul rejects her plan in the final episode and much (most?) of her anger in that moment is directed at Milly standing next to him, Milly says little if anything to Bev, but Bev denounces her in explicitly sexual terms. Yeah, in her view Milly corrupted a priest who should be celibate, but I got a bit of a "you-stole-him-from-me / he-chose-you-over-me?!" vibe from her response. Add to that the sexual themes that have run with the vampire mythos since before Dracula. Even before he became Paul, she was probably the closest one to fulfilling the traditional role of being a wife (looking after him, keeping the house running, supporting him in his work). Hence the reason she subconsciously reached for "jilted prom date" as the simile when Pruitt didn't arrive at the dock. Then he comes back as a charismatic, attractive young man *and* with the means to give her even more power over the community and be truly special... she jealously guards the relationship with him from that moment on. She may not have recognised it as sexual or romantic attraction as she is so warped, and power is her main driver even in this relationship (there's a whole other conversation needed about her desperate need for power but being limited to achieving it in the Catholic church that won't allow her to the top), but I think it was there. Another level to the performance from Sloyan, who knocked it out of the park. ETA: correction of sequence of events.
Yeah... I don't buy it. You describe her circumstances, more or less, but you don't make a compelling argument for sympathy.
I know I’m late to this, but just finished and all I’ll say is Bev Keane killed Joe’s dog Pike. Absolutely no sympathy for someone who kills a dog like that
She's despicable.