213 - Midnight Mass

Not all vampires are catholic. Twilight vampires are Mormons. Also, as someone who grew up non religious but has catechism classes in public school until I was 14yo and also was confirmed catholic, I can say that there’s a BIG difference between cradle Catholics and converts. Converts are weirdos.

After every episode like this one, I always feel like I learned something new about art appreciation and for that I'm thankful to these dudes.

I'm very happy yall felt the same way I did about the "forgiveness" at the end of the movie. In particular, I found Doc and her dad at the end especially galling. He's like "I'm so proud of you" and basically gives her permission to burn down the church, something she really didn't need from him. He was an absolute heinous monster and didn't acknowledge Sarah her entire life until he became a demented old man turned vampire. I was so hoping Sarah was just going to tell him to fuck off and burn, but instead we get a vapid parental bonding moment right before they shoot her.

So I grew up going to a very Catholic school in Wisconsin, and this show is teaching me just how much Catholicism in my area has been influenced by Protestantism and in particular Evangelicalism. Apparently the churches in my area use something called Charismatic Catholicism which borrows a lot from Pentecostalism. Which is exactly what watching this show felt like to me.

I agree that the monologues kind of overstay their welcome, but hell no, I loved that final one.

The scene where Lizza "forgives" Joe Collie feels so cruel, I hate it. "I hate you, but I forgive you without actually forgiving you, and also I'm better than you because I forgive you, and actually you just suck and are worse than me because of your fundamental failure to choose to be better". It embodies the underhanded moral superiority complex that Christianity preaches. You can feel like you're better than other people because you are morally superior, because you with your free will choose to be moral, and you have the power over them to forgive them even though you don't actually think they deserve it because clearly they didn't choose to be moral. It is not done out of love, but out of contempt. By doing it, you tell the person that they are worse than you, and that they are at your mercy literally, and that makes you feel powerful and better than them. Look at how the scene is shot. Lizza has all the power. She corners Joe. She makes him break down in tears and reopens the trauma he has experienced. But that doesn't matter, does it? The only pain and trauma that matters is Lizza's, and Joe only deserves contempt and "forgiveness", because his pain from the trauma of having done this terrible thing doesn't matter. And I'm not saying that Lizza's pain isn't genuine or valid, but choosing to feel better by taking it out on Joe is incredibly cruel, and that is the fundamental nature of Christianity. It is a religion of hatred taken out on others though making them feel like they're inferior to you morally.

Re. The catholic protestant thing. I also had the same thought that it would make more sense to me if the story had an evangelical setting. Cause of evangelicals usually being the most interested in like the dark spirituality stuff like deamons and armageddon! But then I can sort of see stylistically catholic churches are much more Gothic and spooky 👻 So in that sense i can see why they did it that way

I obviously grew up in a similar culture cause my first thought on hearing about this was also to think of the visitation!

As an (ex) catholic who wasn't super religious when I attended mass, I didn't recognize any hymn. If they had started up On Eagles Wings I would have noticed. In one episode there was an instrumental alleluia that I remembered from my church going days.

Funny how Obi Wan sounds exactly like Bette Davis

The timing of me taking a drink of coffee right before the line “I’m a wrist scientist” was unfortunate.

Sad they didn’t talk about Riley’s moms death

Very autistic moment that I could just rattle off the poem of all the bible books that I learned almost 20 years ago in religious studies in school and hated since then.

Yall seem like the perfect audience for Biz Barclay’s 3 hour long epic video essay on God’s not Dead and Midnight mass, it’s definitely worth checking out, comparing portrayals of what it means to be christian and christlike in both series, really good shit

This made me watch the whole goddamn show again. I don’t regret it.

unfamiliar but is this an actual "inspired by Octavia Butler" property or just kinda... stealing from her

Yet again requesting a Venture Bros episode

that is a truly low effort Chicago accent - check out "crime pays but botany doesn't" I'm from Chicago. 20 years living in the city, twenty years living in the suburbs before that with my father's entire family going back several generations of Chicago resident. crime pays has the best chicago accent I hear outside of a city worker over the age of sixty.

The whole vampires using the Eucharist to build a cult thing is a theme in the Dark Ages setting of Vampire The Masquerade.

I’m so sorry but as a former Sword Drill Champion ™ I’m having an aneurysm listening to AJ try to name books of the Bible. Do Catholics not have a fun song to memorize them? I guess all the fun memorization for them goes into like catechism and prayers (more aesthetic and cool)

From my (Jewish) understanding of Catholicism, I thought there was a general acknowledgement of which apostle was the best at fisting (and presumably wristing): Thomas. The whole “Thomas touching the side wound of Christ” thing is super homoerotic, yeah? The last book I read about the Byzantines had a whole chapter specifically about extremely erotic Byzantine depictions of Thomas fingering Christ’s side wound. Gotta get in there and touch your buddy J.C.’s holes, y’know, for spiritual purposes. Huge fan of the episode, especially the bit where Brian forces AJ to list the books of the Bible. Always love TWoAPW PvP.

I did not catch the pride & prejudice “no money no prospects” ref when I watched the first time

And this is what happens when you don’t go to vampire school. All the ones that did are having quite enjoyable lives working at blood banks and helping their fellow man.

In Catholic churches there is always an older lady, usually called Mary, who is in charge of organising everything. Sometimes there is a nun in that role and everyone just calls her Sister, and she will know everything about everyone! I once went to a new church and by the second time I went to mass, the Sister knew my name!!

Squareheads is a slur against Swedes not the Dutch

I'm surprised that the three of you didn't pick up on one of the major theme of this show. Death. A lot of people are scared of dying. Its a perfectly reasonable fear to have. Christians tend to cover that fear with the belief that they will go to heaven and live and eternal life. The father is spreading a lie to crocket that you will live forever after you die via vamprism as an allegory for Heaven. Riley as an athiest has accepted his mortality and reminds the father of his own with the note that had the prayer from Ash service day were everyone acknowledges their own mortality. In the ending all the vampires and humans all realize that eternal life is a myth and accept their death willingly except for maybe Bev, but she dies anyway.

There was a map of coupeville one of the Whidbey Island in the sheriff's office. I heard someone about a say it in the recording and I wanted to put that out there.

I think the Cullens are Protestant vampires 🤔

Happy to keep living. Excited to be a different person. Maybe one day I can be the worst of all possible Alices

Hey, I too love Wham City enough to drop quick references in my day to day life. They were also known for Unedited Footage of a Bear, which we all know what to do with a bear. 🪇🪇

Good use of the trailer music for the interstitial.

The preaching also reminded me a bit of the sermon we hear in the very haunted church at the start of Moby Dick

Wasn't the original thing about Dracula making you drink his blood to turn you into a vampire intentionally supposed to be a reverse evil version of Communion?

I appreciate the attempted "Hey Jude" joke by AJ

Suffering accomplishes nothing positive. All attempts to create meaning out of suffering are just coping mechanisms to try and justify something that is meaninglessly terrible, and to try and justify continuing to live a life that is full of suffering. But it's not positive or meaningful. It just sucks.

I didn't know anything about this show except that it has vampires pretending to be angels, so when you mentioned that they have a bunch of young actors playing old characters I was immediately able to intuit the plot.

always love a dono interstitial

Fitting that the intro was about body parts as I am now the proud owner of legs. Legs! Also, I missed Scrub Father. Glad he's ok.

Im dutch and last week met a californian in the train. Some old guy (50s?) going up to Groninging (the north) to "visit the old country." Felt really weird, as the netherlands just suck. And also was kinda funny, he was just going up to go to basically just a wet, cold, bog in the rain.

i need to watch this now

love this episode, love this show (in spite of its notable flaws) -- but now i really, really want to hear the TWOAPW take on The Leftovers. i know it's a much longer show but i'm dying to hear y'alls take on it.

I loooove at the very end of Erin's last monolog when it cuts back to Riley and he's just beaming with pride for her. That more than any other part of the show always gets me.

AJ, thanks again for making me cry with an interstitial. Best homily I’ve ever heard, and I needed to hear a good homily today. Bless you comrade.

Hints of bloodlines episode???

Incredibly minor correction the denomination that does snake handling is the church of Jesus Christ with signs following not primitive baptists

YES I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS

VANCOUVER REPRESENT FUCK YEAH!!!!!!

my partner is a physicist and i’m an engineer and we work in similar subfields. we’ve been asked things shockingly close to “so which one of you is the scientist?”

Oh, I've been waiting for you to do this one forever. Catholic I Cant Believe It's Not Stephen King is right on track

We’re so up

OH MY GOD LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOO

LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOO

I CLICKED SO FAST