PicoBlog

”I did my best…I did my best.”

As people in my everyday real world life can attest to, once I entered middle-age I suddenly became a human lawn sprinkler, crying over every little thing. That’s not to say that I was stoic before, but now I wear every emotion on my sleeve, plus a couple new emotions I never heard of previously. Even just recounting something I read or watched that was sad or heartfelt can bring tears to my eyes. On the one hand, I suppose it’s better than the alternative — I’ve never been impressed with people who think that there’s strength in restraining one’s emotions. On the other, it is a little embarrassing to spend much of one’s life recreating this scene from Anchorman.

This is my usual roundabout way of saying episode 5 of Midnight Mass broke me.

It’s a bold move to kill off a character carefully being set up as a flawed hero before the final “everything is out in the open” confrontation. At first, Riley (Zach Gilford) essentially committing suicide seems like the coward’s way out: he’s leaving Erin and everyone else to deal with whatever unholy thing is about to happen on Crockett Island by themselves. But it’s really a sacrifice: as he explains to Erin, he had to do something drastic to make her believe his utterly insane story, and it’s the only way he can stop himself from hurting anyone. He’s already seen what this “gift” has done to Monsignor Pruitt, a godly man he once looked up to, what hope is there for a struggling addict like Riley? There’s no other choice.

We’ll get to that utterly insane story in a minute. First, it’s announced that mass at St. Patrick’s will now be held at nighttime, and the parishioners agree to it without protest. As any good Catholic knows, you don’t miss the numerous church services in advance of Easter Sunday, and if mass is held at 3 in the morning, you’re going at 3 in the morning. It’s Good Friday, and Monsignor Pruitt (Hamish Linklater) gives an unusually passionate speech. He speaks not just of resurrection, but also of everyone in the church becoming soldiers in God’s war, that in that role they will be asked to do “horrible things,” and that casualties will be involved. It’s a strange, foreboding message for a season of rebirth and promise.

It’s unclear whether this is a metaphor or not (well, to the parishioners, we know he means it literally), but most of them look ready and willing for whatever battle Father Paul seems to be talking about. Maybe when he says “casualties,” he means the people in our lives who don’t share our faith, and thus will not ascend to Heaven, who knows? Looking a bit uneasy, however, are Riley’s parents Annie (Kristen Lehman) and Ed (Henry Thomas), and particularly Mildred (Alex Essoe), looking younger every day and feeling strong enough to attend mass for the first time in ages.

Mildred knows Father Paul’s secret at this point, and when he first begins to speak she practically has stars in his eyes. That quickly changes to concern and then to outright fear, as she all but sprints out of church afterward, ordering Dr. Sarah (Annabeth Gish) not to return and insisting “That is not my church, and that is not the man I knew.” There’s an interesting reflection here of the current state of Western Christianity: so much of it, particularly in the post-2016 election era, is so heavily steeped in hatred and division that it’s contributed to a record low in church attendance. The average person goes to church to find meaning and community in their lives, not to be told that they have enemies who must be vanquished, or that the holy gospel is “us vs. them.” The teachings of Jesus Christ are nowhere to be found.

“Have some courage. God chose you. And that guilt that you’re clinging to, you can let it go. God’s changed you already. Now it’s just on you to have courage.”

Pruitt’s Good Friday message rings with such confidence that he might as well be a motivational speaker. That confidence comes from now knowing for certain that he is not a fluke, that the angel’s gift can be fully bestowed on someone else. It’s kind of funny: initially, when he’s trying to bring Riley back to life, Pruitt is both excited and panicking. He’s uncertain if it’s going to work, or what will happen if it does. When Riley is fully conscious, and mostly healed from the broken neck he endured during the attack, Pruitt is casual, even chatty. Of course it would work, the voice that he’s been hearing assured him that that the gift can be freely offered, to those who are brave enough to accept it.

Riley (who, it must be said, is much calmer about all this than I would be) is unmoved by Pruitt’s assurance that dying and returning from the dead as a vampire will be the best thing that’s ever happened to him. It doesn’t seem so great, especially the excruciating hunger he feels, and the fact that he can never again go out in the sunlight. He does reluctantly admit that he envies Pruitt’s lack of guilt over Joe’s death. As Pruitt sees it, all things serve the Lord’s will, even the occasional accidental murder. Even Riley driving drunk and killing a teenage girl, in a roundabout way, was an act of God, because it eventually brought Riley back to Crockett Island, where he could receive the “gift.”

Unsurprisingly, it was Bev (Samantha Sloyan) who encouraged Pruitt to accept Joe’s death as “God’s will,” and it’s clear from the minute she walks into the rec room that she didn’t expect that to extend to Riley. In fact, she’s quietly seething that Riley was chosen (strictly by chance, but what does it matter) to receive the blessing, let alone that he isn’t immediately on board with it. Bev is one of those “grace for me but not for thee” Christians, who think that the concept of God loving everyone should come with a disclaimer, an asterisk that reads “some restrictions may apply.” With breathtaking arrogance, she’s offended by Riley’s reluctance to accept the blessing, while at the same time questioning why he received it in the first place.

Meanwhile, while Riley has been spending all day in the rec center resurrecting from a violent death and trying to process what Pruitt tells him, his parents and Erin (Kate Siegel) are concerned about his disappearance. How nearly everyone handles it is a saddening reflection of how people, in general, tend to treat recovering addicts, by immediately assuming the worst of them if they just suddenly stop showing up somewhere. Though any number of things could have happened to Riley, Ed (Henry Thomas) and Sheriff Hassan (Rahul Kohli) both immediately deduce that he’s off on a bender somewhere, and that no effort to find out for sure if he’s okay is needed.

It really hammers it home that we talk a good game about forgiveness and second chances, but an addict is always an addict. They can’t really be trusted, and the minute they’re out of our sight they’ll go back to their old ways. It’s understandable: we’ve all been let down by an addict. My own mother chose drugs over me time and time again, and because even after she was clean I didn’t believe it would last, I eventually cut myself off from her altogether. I don’t know what it really means to “forgive” someone who’s caused you so much pain. So I don’t blame Ed for jumping to conclusions. I get his anger, his palpable disappointment. But it doesn’t make it any less saddening.

“I want you to take this boat and row to the mainland and leave this place, and never look back. But I knew you wouldn't do that. I knew you wouldn't believe any of this unless you saw. I want you to run. But I believe you're going to row back there and do everything you can to try and save them. I'm just sorry you have to see this.”

But Erin, who quite likely knows Riley better than anyone else has in his entire life, she knows something else is going on, that he wouldn’t just leave without saying goodbye. And indeed, he has been on the island the whole time, released after dark from the rec center and wandering around wondering what he’s supposed to do next, since Pruitt didn’t exactly make that clear.

He was right about one thing, though: the world does burn brighter, even at night, and the air seems to hum with energy. Riley wanders around, his eyes eerily reflecting the light, as if it’s his first night on Earth. In the shimmering darkness, even a fading, depressed little village like Crockett Island looks strangely beautiful. I know I’d be tempted to see how the rest of the world looks, experiences sights and sounds beyond what the island holds.

But, instead, after looking in on his sleeping parents and brother for what he knows will be the last time, he goes to Erin’s house, and asks her to join him for a late night boat ride.

I wonder, sometimes, if I was in Riley’s shoes, who would be the person I’d choose for that ride.

I don’t think that, even the first time I watched Midnight Mass, I ever thought Riley would hurt Erin. Despite his terrible mistake, Riley is a fundamentally decent man, and no amount of reassurances from Pruitt about what is and isn’t God’s will could ever convince him that death is forgivable in service of the miracle. But he also knows that, given the way he lunged at Bev Keane out of hunger, what he’s capable of, and this is the only solution.

That the last thing Riley saw before he died was Tara Beth, whole again and smiling, finally offering the forgiveness he most needed but couldn’t get in life, was merely Mike Flanagan rubbing salt in the wound. I was already a wreck after Riley’s tearful, exhausted last words.

“I did my best…I did my best.”

There’s so much weight in those words. He did his best in trying to make up for what he did. He did his best to be a good son, a good friend, a good soulmate for Erin. He did his best to fight his addictions. And he’s so tired, and so heavy with sorrow, and the only paths he can take are the darkness of this “gift” that’s been forced upon him, or letting the daylight take him. So he chooses the daylight, and it’s so very hot, but then he’s gone in an instant, as Erin screams, in disbelief, in shock, in sorrow, as what they could have had together is gone too.

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