Mike Flanagan has made a name for himself at Netflix with a cadre of prestigious horror limited series–from The Haunting of Hill House to Midnight Mass. He seems to have perfected the art of telling a 10-episode story that wraps up (however bleakly) the arcs of every character involved. So, it may come as a surprise to learn that his latest, The Midnight Club, is actually designed to be anything but. This new show is, pending renewal by Netflix which Flanagan says is still up in the air, designed to continue.
“This was designed to be ongoing,” Flanagan confirmed to a group of journalists at Netflix’s offices in New York City. “I don’t know if it will. We’ll see how it goes, and we probably won’t know for another month or so what Netflix wants to do, but this was very much designed to continue. [Christopher] Pike has 80 books, so we have a lot of incredible material to pull from.”
Flanagan’s long-time production partner, Trevor Macy, then confirmed that they’ve got a couple ideas already in the works for Season 2–but declined to share because he doesn’t want to jinx the potential opportunity to get to actually do them.
Flanagan continued, confirming that some of the season’s biggest questions are left unanswered on purpose. “Those answers exist, but were meant to be for the next season. If there isn’t one, don’t worry, I’ll put them up on Twitter or something. And then at least we’ll all be able to talk about it!”
Even if you have yet to binge the show, this might come as a surprise–least of all because it breaks Flanagan’s format and most of all because of the nature of the story. Based on the novels of Christopher Pike, The Midnight Club centers on a hospice for teenagers–meaning that each and every one of the show’s main characters are, in fact, terminally ill. The specter of death looms so large in the show it would be impossible to ignore, so it’s anything but a spoiler to say that these characters are going to die. They may not die right away, or even in a second season, but there are ticking clocks for all of them.
How, then, will the show keep going if its cast has an expiration date? Flanagan has an answer for that, too, emphasizing that the structure of the show will allow for new cast members to enter Brightcliffe Hospice while characters that have passed away can still return to act either as themselves or as different characters in the stories the members of the club tell to one another.
The Midnight Club is on Netflix now.
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