Thus far in his television career, Mike Flanagan has been allergic to sequels. Rather than follow-up The Haunting of Hill House with a second season, he swerved and focused on a new haunted house in The Haunting of Bly Manor. And in his latest project, Midnight Mass, he goes full scorched earth in the end, making a second season of the show almost impossible to pull off.
Still, Flanagan does leave the door ever so slightly open for a Midnight Mass Season 2. The series creator has gone on record saying that the show, which is billed as a limited series, is his most personal project to date. As he explained to Entertainment Weekly, "I don't know how long I could have gone without writing it. There's a very natural thing that happens where, if you're writing anything that tiptoes into a personal place, you find yourself vomiting up all sorts of things into it. It's happened to me with Hill House in a pretty big way. It happened with [The Haunting of Bly Manor]. This one, though, was the story I always wanted to tell."
Given how long Flanagan has been fighting to get this project made — the title is even referenced in his 2016 film Hush — it seems likely that he made sure he said everything he wanted to say in the seven episodes of Season 1. Still, if inspiration strikes, there are a couple of different ways the series could continue.
Leeza & Warren Are The Only Survivors
The biggest roadblock standing between viewers and Midnight Mass Season 2 is that nearly every single character is dead by the time the credits roll. After the majority of Crockett Island's residents become vampires, they're turned to dust by the sunrise in the final scene. Meanwhile, the few people who didn't drink from the vampire blood-spiked communion cup — namely Sheriff Hassan and Sarah — are both shot and killed over the course of the night.
In the end, only teens Leeza and Warren make it off the island alive, with the series ending just as Leeza notes the effects of the vampire blood that restored her ability to use her legs seems to have worn off. Theoretically, a second season could follow these two characters as they process their trauma together. The show never explicitly shows the so-called angel dying, so there is a possibility that it is still out there somewhere.
And if it is, Leeza and Warren are in a unique position to stop it from wreaking havoc on the rest of the world. However, a teenage vampire hunting series seems a bit outside of Flanagan's wheelhouse, so I wouldn't bet on the teens being the primary focus of a potential second season.
The Angel Has Centuries Of History To Explore
If Hill House is anything to go by, Flanagan seems to be more open to creating anthologies than ongoing series. The good news is Midnight Mass is a perfect candidate for the anthology treatment. Rather than focus on Leeza and Warren, the natural entry point for a second season is to explore the history surrounding the angel (who is actually a vampire).
How did the creature end up in a cave in Syria? Who put it there and why? And what community did it previously wreak havoc on? Flanagan is far more interested in delving into matters of faith, hysteria, and community in Midnight Mass than he is in expanding on the mythos of the vampire. But there's no denying he's created a compelling picture of a monster that tends to be sparkly or sexy in pop culture these days.
I for one would love to see him tackle vampires from another angle, much in the way Bly Manor allowed him to revisit the theme of a haunting through the lens of a love story. At the end of the day, the mythology hinted at in Midnight Mass is rich enough to sustain a second season in some form, now it's up to Flanagan to decide whether or not there's still a story he wants to tell in this universe.
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Images: Netflix