![]() ![]() Kevin’s story is well-done, but one can tell it’s not quite Kevin’s story-it's a writer/creator getting clever. Taking other Pike works and embedding them in this one may be smart, but I sometimes wanted tales that felt more organically like they were coming from the lives of characters like Kevin and Anya. Kevin’s arc is apparently based on another Pike work titled The Wicked Heart, while another tale stems from Road to Nowhere. ![]() Standouts include Kevin ( Igby Rigney), a potential love interest who tells a multi-episode story about a serial killer that gives the show some of its most striking imagery, and Anya ( Ruth Codd), Ilonka’s bitter but fierce roommate. There are eight members of The Midnight Club, and the season’s over-long, ten-episode structure allows us to get to know all of them to various degrees. And how these stories specifically say more about the person telling them than anything else. Foundationally, the show becomes about how and why we tell stories to process the real world. And so each episode alternates between Ilonka’s discoveries at the center and a story being told by one of her friends. Meanwhile, Ilonka uncovers evidence that the hospice and its mysterious manager ( Heather Langenkamp of “ A Nightmare on Elm Street” fame) are hiding a secret that could save her life. They gather every night in the library and tell scary stories, trying to process what’s going to happen to them through their fiction. There, she finds an eccentric crew of teens who give the show its title. She ends up at a seaside Hill House stand-in named Brightcliffe, an old mansion being used as a hospice center for young people. Ilonka (an effectively vulnerable Iman Benson) seems to have everything when it’s all derailed by a terminal cancer diagnosis. Think of this as a gateway drug for potential new horror fans, young people thinking about death in a new way for maybe the first time. Still, fans looking for something as accomplished as “ Midnight Mass” or “The Haunting of Hill House” may be a little surprised by the times this show drags in comparison or simply fumbles some of the bigger emotional beats. And so every time that “The Midnight Club” felt a little rough around the edges, I was reminded of the swirl of adolescent emotion that intensifies around issues as serious as death, more than being upset about any artistic failings. Teenagers are supposed to be unrefined, uncertain, and unguarded. It can be a little clunky in its messaging, but that’s forgivable given this is a show about young people that’s largely for a YA audience too (despite some wickedly intense imagery and the occasional f-bomb). This is a show that’s not about death as much as it is about the things around the end of life, and what can’t be taken away: memories, stories, and love. Please refer to the ingredient list on the product package you receive for the most up to date list of ingredients.“Love doesn’t die, people do.” Ilonka quotes that Merrit Malloy passage in Netflix’s “The Midnight Club,” and it’s really at the beating heart of Mike Flanagan and Leah Fong's ten-episode adaptation of the work of Christopher Pike in that it’s not just about trying to understand the end of life but using poetry and prose to do so. Please be aware that ingredient lists may change or vary from time to time. Ingredients: Alcohol Denat., Water\Aqua\Eau, Fragrance (Parfum), Aquilaria Agallocha Oil, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Citronellol, Geraniol, Limonene, Cinnamal, Benzyl Benzoate, Eugenol, Linalool, Citral, Farnesol, Benzyl Alcohol ![]() To experience The Night before purchasing, please contact your nearest boutique to arrange for a scented card to be sent to you. Oz (Refill format for our iconic travel case available separately here)Īll sales of items from The Night line are final. ![]()
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