Midnight, Texas: Who Killed Creek? Could It Be Fiji?

 

In the shocking ending of  Midnight, Texas, season 2, episode 6, No More Mr Nice Kai, Manfred discovered that his once and possibly future girlfriend, Creek Lovell, was dead. Creek left town at the end of season 2, episode 1, Head Games, in order to go to college and find the peace of mind and personal safety that eluded her in Midnight. She came back to Midnight in episode 6 because she thought Manfred needed her and she missed him. Instead of being allowed to return to her new life, she was murdered.

The last time we saw Creek alive, Kai discovered her in the hotel, searching for Manfred. The next time we saw her, she was a ghost. She was able to speak to Manfred, but she quickly burned up and was forced to move on to the next plane of existence. The fire started in her throat, probably to stop her from speaking.

The normal way that ghosts move on to the next plane is to disappear. They become gray smoke, which then vanishes. This is how Lyric moved on. We saw it frequently in season 1. The only other ghosts who’ve disappeared in fire, the way that Creek did, were Bruce and Carolyn, the married couple who’d owned the hotel in the 50’s, who we met in episode 2. Fiji used an ancient spell to send them on their way, which required the bones of the dead, sage, and a goat’s heart. The flames burned the ghosts in the same order that they burned their bones. In the case of Bruce and Carolyn, that was bottom to top. Carolyn was able to give Manfred a message, “There are secrets behind the woods,” because her head and neck were the last parts to go.

Patience, Fiji and Manfred were in the room for the spellwork. Unless Manfred’s demon cancer has come back, we can rule him out as a suspect. I don’t think we can rule out either Patience or Fiji as Creek’s murderer though, as both have secrets to protect, both can see Manfred’s porch from their homes, both now have the ability to use immense powers, and both have hurt loved ones without remorse. (Patience has never shown any regret for cheating on Kai, even when he was hurt deeply by the discovery.)

Someone else, such as Kai, Chuy or Deus ex Basil, could have killed Creek, and either Patience or Fiji disposed of the body for them. The first thing Basil did was bring Creek to town, and he was admittedly a giant sadist. His day may not have been complete without a death. He specifically went to Manfred before he left and mentioned a dumpster fire. Creek could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and may have been randomly attacked by common criminals after Kai scared her out of the hotel. Then either Patience or Fiji disposed of the body after someone found it, in order to hide Kai/the hotel’s complicity in her death.

Creek has ligature strangulation marks on her neck in the photo above, suggesting that she was garroted using a wire or thin cord rather than killed using magic. This doesn’t necessarily narrow down the suspect list, but it does mean there might be a murder weapon with Creek’s blood on it that Manfred can search for.

Creek could have gotten caught in the Chuy/Joe/Walker crossfire. Walker made a big deal about the slaughter he’d stopped. Maybe Walker killed someone (Creek), to prove his point, or maybe Chuy did accidentally kill someone. The entire Joe/Chuy arc this season has felt like they’re working up to the breakup of the couple and writing Chuy off the show. If Chuy accidentally killed Creek when Joe drove him out of the hotel, he’ll either think he deserves to die or be sure that he doesn’t deserve Joe any more. And it would fit with this season’s pattern of killing and discrediting the people of color, while proving the white people (men) are superior.

After Kai discovered Creek searching for Manfred, he went out to the lobby and practically cursed the town, especially Manfred. He has good reason to be angry with all of them. His reflecting pool alone has suffered serious damage on a regular basis. But Manfred has messed with his wife, his livelihood and his demon head, while pretending to be his friend, after Kai saved Manfred’s life. If you look at it from Kai’s point of view, Manfred is a jerk. Revenge, in the form of taking away someone important to Manfred, might be appealing.

Kai is an obvious suspect, but the writers might go for the obvious.

Patience also has obvious reasons for wanting to be rid of Creek, from the way that Creek led her to believe that she and Manfred were getting back together, to whatever Creek may have accidentally seen as she wandered the hotel.

Creek may have caught Fiji performing some dark magic or Theophilus may have required a blood sacrifice from his newest convert. There doesn’t seem to be much of Fiji left in her body, just a vessel that’s possessed by a demon. Since she’s now the witch equivalent of Basil, she’s unpredictable and sadistic, living to enjoy whatever pleasure or pain she can feed from in the moment. If she felt like killing Creek on a whim, for any reason, she’d do it.

Early in the episode, the writers paid lip service to the idea that a woman/witch could be powerful and control both the light and the dark, then quickly dismissed it. Even though Chuy has controlled his demon energy for 1,000 years, outside of a few crises, we’ve been shown that there’s no way the witches can handle darkness. They are consumed and killed by it. There’s even a special H*ll for them because of it.

I hate having to write about a witch through such a Judeo-Christian filter, but that’s what Midnight is using. In season 1, Fiji had to serve as Eve falling from Eden to save Midnight. She’s now Lilith, who expected to be equal to Adam and was destroyed by it, becoming an origin story for monsters.

Fiji’s family curse ensures that the witches can’t have their practice and a loving, equal relationship. They have to choose love or a career, like women were forced to do for so long. If they try to do both, not only will they fail spectacularly, they become evil incarnate.

So, let’s review the throughline of Fiji’s history: She killed her first lover during sex, and her sexual history is frequently connected with demons and death. Her lack of belief in herself gave way to a growth in self-confidence, which coincided with the growth in her power. But she’s not taken seriously, and has to keep proving herself, because she’s too “nice”, which is code for also being too feminine.

As it turns out, even though she was so strong that a demon wanted her virginity, she can’t break a sex curse because sex is evil. Now she’s performed a ritual dedicating herself to an evil male entity, which led to her self-confidence, her power and her sexuality all being strong but pure evil.

I think having that all culminate with Fiji killing one of her friends, while under the influence of demonic magic, after she didn’t listen to Bobo’s warning, would fit right in with where this show is taking her. Fiji disappeared for a long period of time in the second half of the episode, as did Creek. She didn’t follow Basil into the hotel lobby to watch the grand finale of his machinations, after she’d enjoyed watching with him all evening.

So where was she? Certainly not up to anything good.

Besides the murder weapon, Manfred should probably be looking for the remains of a goat with no heart. We didn’t see how the goat’s heart played into the ghost removal spell when Fiji used it on Carolyn and Bruce, but that’s a specific, bloody item for the writers to throw into the ingredients. Chances are it’ll come up soon.

 

A quick lesson on Lilith, for anyone who wants it:

Lilith is Adam’s first wife, created at the same time as him and in the same way, while Eve is created later, after Lilith leaves Adam. Lilith and Adam fight a lot because Lilith sees herself as equal to her husband. She becomes an immortal demon and flies away.

Lilith’s story was passed on through Jewish oral tradition, but banned from being included in written canon, other than fragments that appear in Genesis. Lilith was also associated with sex demons called succubae and Sumerian female vampires called Lillu. Yup, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, women who aren’t submissive are literally monsters. That horror story correlation is at the very roots of our culture. And, of course, they found they couldn’t control Eve either, and have used her story to raise women to feel guilty and self-loathing for millennia.

(Borrowed from my recap of Castle Rock Season 1, Episode 8: Past Perfect.)

 

Image courtesy of NBC.