Yasss, Queen, episode 9 of Midnight, Texas’ 2nd season, serves as both the season and the series finale. This season’s storylines are wrapped up in spectacular, over the top fashion. The producers are shopping the show to other networks, so it could get more seasons eventually, and the episode ends with set ups for the next season, but nothing that takes away from the satisfying conclusion that’s already been reached.
I’m hoping that Netflix will pick up the show, since it’s already filmed here in Albuquerque, where Netflix is creating its North American studio. Plus, Midnight would fit right in with Sabrina and Lucifer, which Netflix picked up after Fox dropped it.
Hulu is another possibility, since they currently have the streaming rights, but they don’t seem to actually want Midnight, and only made season 1 available to stream for a short time before season 2 began. It disappeared again before the new season even started. Midnight’s ratings might have improved if people could have caught up on season 1 in between episodes 1 and 2 of season 2, or whenever they got drawn into the season.
But for now, what we have are two wild seasons of supernatural fun with loveable, loyal characters who will do anything to protect each other and their town, and I do mean anything.
Meanwhile, dear Hypatia is bats–t crazy and loves to be the center of attention. The term drama queen might have been invented for her. She’ll do anything to get her brother back. So, let’s see how far each side is willing to go in episode 9.
Right now, she’s still laughing about having cut Manfred’s head off. The Midnighters are devastated. Joe says a prayer. As Patience tosses Manfred’s head aside, Fiji begins the incantation to attach Theophilus’ head to Manfred’s body. She stops to magically sew Joe’s mouth shut.
The vials of monster power are set up on an altar. Fiji turns the energy back into smoke, which she then directs into Theo’s head. The cage surrounding the head pops open. Patience picks up the head and presses their faces together.
You have to admit, it takes some devotion to put your face up against a nasty, 800 year old corpse head that looks like a demon. Patience is loyal to her brother in a world-ending, obsessive sort of way.
Now that the head is ready, Fiji makes the body kneel in front of Patience. She puts Theo’s head on Manfred’s neck and the two fuse together. Theo’s head comes back to life and returns to normal. Patience kisses him with joy, smearing her bright red lipstick on both their faces. The dark magic energy smoke entwines around them again as they regain their powers.
Fiji puts a white, gold-embroidered cape on Theo, to match Patience’s. The crowd cheers. This episode’s title card says “Patience, Texas” on the sign, instead of Midnight.
Fasten your seatbelts, kids. The King and Queen of Darkness are in charge.
There’s another parade, with prisoners pulling the king and queen’s carriage. A gold fountain in the likeness of Patience and Theo has been erected, and the bodies of those who oppose the king and queen are on public display.
Patience and Fiji have turned the hotel lobby into their personal spa. Patience is soaking in the reflecting pool/hot tub and complaining about the difficulties of conquering a town. She wishes she could get a massage from Kai, but Fiji is sure that he’s dead.
Olivia is forced into serving as Patience’s personal slave, and then magicked into a permanent smile. That’s truly evil. Fiji wonders why Patience doesn’t just kill the Midnighters. Patience explains that she has plans for world domination that require a witch army. She’ll use the Midnighters to help her procure her army.
Cut to an unconscious Joe, sitting on a pew in church, hooked up to an IV. Patience comes in to check on him. She’s drugging him with demon ash in the IV made from Chuy’s remains. Though he’s unconscious, she taunts him with the way God’s abandoned him to his fate. Then she offers to take away all of his pain and guilt. He doesn’t answer because he’s unconscious, but she decides to take it as a yes, and shoves her hands inside the wounds in his back from where he cut his wings off. Joe stiffens and groans in pain.
Home Cookin’ has been turned into a witch jail for the Delilahs. Patience is collecting them, then carving out their butterflies to get rid of their souls, turning them into dark witches.
Olivia stole a key from one of the hotel guards, who were slackers. She sneaks outside to do recon and sees Joe, who’s dressed all in black. She goes to talk to him. His eyes are demon black and so are his regrown wings. He’s a dark angel now.
Joe captures Olivia and takes her to Patience, who tortures her with enthusiasm. It’s all part of her “Make Midnight Great Again” program. When Olivia spits blood in her face, Patience puts down her drill, in order to grab the pliers to use on Olivia’s hands.
Theo stops her, reminding her that they need to save their energy for bigger things, like building the army. He wants her to kill Olivia and be done with it.
The scene changes to Walker’s van pulling up in front of a rural building, far away from Midnight. He gets out and goes into his apartment. Holy cow, he’s not completely homeless.
Walker turns on the light and tells MANFRED (!!), “It’s real bad.” Manfred turns toward the camera and glowers.
He’s alive! Alive!
Manfred asks how bad things are in Midnight. I will give Walker credit, he at least pronounces the word nuclear correctly- nu-cle-ar. It’s been driving me crazy, on a certain other show I recap, that many of the characters say nuc-u-lar. 😱
Anywho, Walker explains how dire Patience Midnight has become. He finishes by saying, “Sorry, Manfred, plan didn’t work.”
Flashback to episode 8, when Kai and Manfred argued over who should drink the vial of Everard’s powers, then try to free Delilah from the painting, but also risk becoming Theo’s body:
Just as Manfred was about to put the vial to his mouth, Kai stopped him, saying that he should take it. He explains that with Everard’s powers, he could cast a spell so that he’d look like Manfred, and that way Patience would capture him instead of Manfred if things go wrong. Only Manfred’s body is strong enough to withstand the 7 times 70 monster powers, so when Patience went to attach Theo’s head to Kai’s body, the spell wouldn’t work and the head would be rejected. Then Manfred would still be alive to keep fighting Patience.
Kai tells Manfred that if he hadn’t helped Patience collect the vials of powers, she wouldn’t be so close to breaking the spell. And he doesn’t have any family. But Manfred does. He needs to stay alive for his people.
That last part gets to Manfred. He can’t bear the thought of leaving his family unprotected. Kai takes the vial from Manfred’s hand and prepares to drink it. Manfred tells Kai, “I was wrong about you.” Kai replies, “Oh, I know.”
He drinks the vial, then shifts to look like Manfred. Theophilus’ necklace flies from Manfred’s neck to Kai’s.
In Walker’s apartment, Manfred laments that Kai’s body was strong enough to handle Theo’s head and the monster power after all. He died for nothing. Walker insists that Kai didn’t die for nothing. He died a hero.
Walker is so young. Everyone will be better off when he figures out that sometimes it’s better to live to fight another day.
Manfred decides to head back to Midnight. He’ll figure out a way to free Delilah so she can help him stop the twins. Walker joins him, since Joe saved his life, and because he loves a good suicide mission.
Fiji has Bobo brought to her house for some Netflix and chill instead of sex. She’s in her fluffy bunny slippers and pink pajamas with sheep on them, which is an odd contrast with her bad girl demeanor. She tells Bobo that even dark witches need to relax and chill.
Bobo sits on the couch with her, but spends the time lecturing her on her evil ways, totally ruining her show. Fiji tells him, “Guilt’s a useless emotion. Now, rub my calves.” He tosses her legs off of his lap.
I really thought he’d make a better slave boy than this.
Fiji sits up. Bobo leans in and gives her the emotional, “This isn’t really you,” speech. Fiji looks like it’s affecting her, and as he’s begging her to come back to him, she looks like she might even kiss him. But, instead, she bursts out laughing. She tells him he’s dumber than she thought if he believed that would work.
Patience and Theo have taken up a new hobby together, removing the Delilahs’ butterflies. You have to admire their commitment to spending time with each other, even after all these years. They crush the butterflies as soon as they’re removed.
Theo’s having some issues with dental hygiene, though, as in his teeth are falling out. Patience wonders if he needs a dentist or a new body. The question is answered before long, when the seam between his neck and body begins to deteriorate.
Patience has Lem brought in so that they can use his vampire blood to heal Theo. Lem refuses, unless they let him see Olivia. There’s some back and forth, but Patience agrees. The vampire blood appears to work.
Lem demands to see his wife. Theos informs him that he can say goodbye to Olivia when he visits her. They’re burning her at the stake tonight, as part of their ongoing program of intimidating dissenters.
Lem comforts Olivia, saying that he can still get her out of there. Olivia tells Lem that she loves him, but she thinks it’s time to stop fighting. She’d rather die than live in Patience, Texas. “You have to learn to admit when you’ve lost.”
When the witch comes to get Lem, they are still kissing.
Bobo and Addie the IT witch are imprisoned in the same cell in Home Cookin’. Basil the trickster demigod stops by to deliver a pizza, so Bobo flags him down. Basil says that he couldn’t resist coming back to town to watch the show, but he thought the Midnighters would put up more of a fight. Bobo tries to convince Basil to help them out a bit.
Basil says that he’s not powerful enough to take on Patience and Theo. Bobo asks for help getting Fiji a new soul, but Basil says there are a fixed number of souls in the world. He can’t create a new one. He’d have to steal one from someone else. Bobo offers his, but Basil will only give Fiji a soul from someone they haven’t met. Addie warns Bobo against making the deal. Basil leaves them with a flyer and tells Bobo to order a margarita pizza with extra Basil if he changes his mind.
Basil’s offer is like the quintessential deal with the devil.
It’s time for the witches to burn a human! And since the witches ironically wear white, they put Olivia in a dirty little shift dress, to symbolize her helplessness and lack of purity. Bravo, witches! They also went all in when they collected the firewood. They must have wandered 20 miles out to find that much wood to burn.
Theo makes an announcement to get the party started, but it turns out that Manfred has taken the place of the executioner, wearing a grim reaper robe and carrying the torch. He pulls off his hood and tells Patience that she’s not his queen and she didn’t get his body. Patience practically stamps her foot in anger. These Midnighters are just no fun.
Walker somehow surrounded the dark witches with brick dust, which evil can’t cross, so they’re trapped. Fiji sends some kind of “Be gone” spell toward the Midnighters, which Addie redirects to the dark witches. They disappear.
Walker breaks the Midnighters chains to set them free, then runs to get the van. Fiji sets the wood under Olivia on fire. She screams. Everyone but Lem panics. He calmly watches her. In flashback, we see the rest of his visit to her in her cell.
After she says that you have to admit when you’ve lost, she tells Lem that she isn’t giving up, and that there is a way out. Lem bites her neck and turns her into a vampire.
She frees herself from the fire and rushes over to Fiji. Taking her by surprise, Olivia tosses Fiji to Lem, who drains her energy until she’s unconscious. Walker pulls up with the van, and the gang jumps in, including Addie. Manfred asks how Walker got past Joe. Walker says that iron works on him, now that he’s a dark angel.
Theo is rapidly deteriorating and figures out that he’s using Kai’s body instead of Manfred’s. Patience is distraught. Theo tries to convince her that he’s getting better, but his face melts in half, so he’s not very convincing.
The Midnighters take refuge at the Cartoon Saloon. Lem now has a psychic connection with Theo (because he gave Theo his blood) and can tell that he’s in bad shape. Fiji is contained by some kind of spell, but angry.
Addie tries to break Delilah out of the painting but the spell is too powerful for one witch to break by herself. Bobo calls Basil for a margarita pizza and a soul. Basil and Bobo shake hands on the deal, and Basil releases a butterfly for Fiji. She returns to her normal self.
Fiji cries and is sorry and guilty and can’t look at anyone and doesn’t deserve to live and yada, yada, yada. Manfred tells her to snap out of it. She tried to do a good thing and ended up almost killing everyone. They’ve literally all been there before. Right now, they need to jailbreak a painting.
Addie and Fiji work together to break the spell.
The painting emits several bright flashes and begins to develop a tear in the canvas. The spell is working, but it attracts dark angel Joe. He captures Manfred and the painting and brings them to Patience and Theophilus, who are now in the hotel lobby.
Patience tells Manfred that he’s going to die, whether or not Theo can use his body. She prepares to decapitate him, again. The painting glows with a blinding light, then Delilah appears from it. Patience lowers the sword and yells, “You have got to be kidding me!!”
All she wanted was to get her dear brother back and take over the world. Was that too much to ask for, people, really?
Delilah uses magic to draw the sword to her hand and says, “Looks like things are finally coming to a head!”
Delilah had 800 years to plan what she’d say to Patience the next time she saw her, and she went with the gloating pun. Well played. 😎
Out in the street, Olivia and Bobo pretend to have captured Fiji in order to lure Joe out to help her. He takes the bait and has to fight the whole gang. Addie is killed when she gets caught in the crossfire of his angel light, when he was aiming at Fiji.
Delilah and Patience argue about who’s had it worse for the last 800 years and throw balls of magic at each other. Patience: “Try smuggling a head in a cage through TSA!” Eating nothing but possum for nearly a millennium still wins, in my book.
Theo goes after Manfred with the sword, yelling at him to give Theo his body. Theo is weak, so Manfred is easily able to get behind him and manually remove his head.
Manfred throws Theo’s head in the reflecting pool, because it needed to have a bloody swan song in the finale, for closure on its story arc. Patience jumps in after it, screaming, “NOOOO!” She cradles the head as it dies again.
Walker manages to loop an iron cable around Joe and tie him to the stake. He’s holding on tight to the cable so that Joe doesn’t get away. He tells the rest of the Midnighters that this is between him and Joe, so they should go help Manfred. He tells Joe that he loves him, and Joe knows what it’s like to have to kill someone you love. “Don’t you dare make me have to do that to you.”
Patience notices all of the monster powers draining out of the head and into the reflecting pool. She soaks in the pool to absorb the powers and becomes a strange mixture of several supernaturals, with red eyes, claws, fangs, a banshee’s scream and super strength. She’s too much for the gang. Delilah is knocked out for a few minutes.
Manfred goes to Kai’s body and asks his ghost to help, if it hasn’t moved on yet. Kai appears and possesses Manfred. He sucks all of Patience’s powers out of her, then Delilah, who’s woken up, curses her to live in the painting for all eternity. Theophilus’ head goes with her. It’s now a painting of Hypatia holding Theo’s head in a cage.
Kai releases the powers into the fire in the fireplace, so that they burn and can’t be reused, then comes back out of Manfred. Manfred thanks Kai, and Kai says, “Be at peace, brother.” Kai already seems at peace. Manfred sends him on to the next plane.
By the next day, the rest of the town is back at Home Cookin’ as if nothing ever happened. Fiji shares that she did an amnesia spell on everyone but the gang. Delilah left town to catch some butterflies. Bobo owns Home Cookin’ now, and has designs on owning the rest of the town.
There’s so, so much wrong with that paragraph.
Joe, Manfred, Olivia, Lem, Fiji and Bobo sit down to dinner. They toast their friends who can’t be there.
Goodbye Chuy, Rev, Creek, Patience and Kai. Addie, you coulda been a great addition to the town. Your ghost didn’t even get a goodbye.
Walker enters the room, hat in hand, looking sheepish. Joe stands and waves Walker in. Olivia welcomes him to Midnight.
Later, Olivia and Lem get ready for bed and discuss her new craving for blood and new schedule as a vampire. She confides that she’s not scared of eternity any more.
Manfred stops by to check on Joe and finds him packing for a trip. Joe is leaving town so that he can redeem himself in the eyes of God for killing Addie. He asks Manfred to watch over Midnight for him. Manfred has saved the town twice now and is its true protector.
Fiji shows Bobo her positive pregnancy test result. They’re both thrilled. Fiji says “I know we’ve never met him or her yet, but I am already in love.” Bobo figures out who Basil got the soul from. Oops.
Manfred is woken up in the middle of the night by someone pounding on the door. It’s the ghost of his grandmother, Xylda. She’s come to warn him that the unkillable black knight escaped from Delilah’s painting, and is in Midnight.
“You’re really in trouble now, Manny.”
The black knight walks down the center of Main St, dragging his sword behind him on the pavement, just as Manfred did in episode 1 of this season.
Let’s remember that in the books, Madonna runs Home Cookin’ for the entire series, and nobody gives the town amnesia. Chuy is alive and well through all 3 books. There are living elderly people in the books, with important speaking roles. The witches follow their own religion. They aren’t subject to or motivated by a Judeo-Christian god.
I don’t care if the series follows the books. Season 1 veered away from the books as well, but stuck to the spirit of Charlaine Harris’ world. It was much less problematic than this season. Unlike season 1, season 2 ended with nearly every character who wasn’t young and white having left town, one way or another. They kept a light-skinned multiracial female and got rid of the black female with darker skin. And they kept the black male best friend to everyone, Lem, but got rid of all of the Latinos and any Asians who passed through town.
The one new addition is a young white man, Walker, who is a problematic character. Bobo, scion of a conservative Christian, white supremacist family, is well on his way to his declared goal of owning the whole town. How progressive of the show, to have the rich white man own everything. Bobo may have left some of his family’s beliefs behind, but, given his expectation that Dark Fiji would fall into line and follow his orders like a good girl, he’s still steeped in patriarchal beliefs.
These issues are coming from the showrunners, not Charlaine Harris. If Midnight gets picked up by someone, I hope they hire new showrunners. I’d rather it be original, but if Midnight is going to copy something, it should be a spin off of Charlaine Harris’ True Blood, as it is in the books, not Supernatural 2, which is what these showrunners are doing.
Okay, let’s just say what we’re all thinking. Dark angel Joe was super hot. Could he keep the black wings and outfit? He’s in mourning anyway. Just let his eyes be normal.
The town is sad over Chuy, but Joe should be devastated to lose his partner of 1,000 years. He should be leaving town over Chuy, not over Addie, or at least in addition to Addie. Speaking of, does this mean that if the show gets picked up by another provider, Walker will be replacing Joe? I’m not ok with that. I love Joe, but Walker is self-absorbed and generally terrible. He makes everything about himself.
Fiji’s dark witch story line gave such mixed messages. She set out on a hero’s journey to achieve a goal, saving Bobo from her curse, and once she’d achieved that goal, she realized that the journey had changed her so much that she didn’t want the same things from life that she wanted when she started. This is not an uncommon realization at the end of a hero’s journey. It’s how Luke Skywalker goes from being an unhappy farmhand to a budding Jedi knight. It’s how Samwise Gamgee goes from being the gardener to becoming mayor.
Becoming a dark witch did some good things for Fiji. She became more confident, more honest and straightforward, stronger, she explored her sexuality, and she made a close female friend or two. But, as so often happens with women who make the journey to independence, we were told that these changes made her cold, evil and uncaring, that they caused her to abandon her friends and family, that she couldn’t devote herself to both her family and her work, and that her new friends were leading her astray.
We’re told that the answer is for her to give up all of the growth and learning she accomplished this season, and return to the weaker state she was in at the start of the season, the softer, more compliant state that makes Bobo happy. Why couldn’t she end up someplace in between? Why couldn’t she retain some of her confidence and powers, and want to explore her bisexuality further?
Instead, she doesn’t just revert to her pre-hero’s journey state. Symbolically, she ends up an ultra compliant, ultra feminized woman by getting pregnant, but she still needs to be punished, so her sins will be visited upon her child. She’s Eve, having given in to temptation and brought Bobo/Adam down with her, so now they and their child are forced out of Paradise.
Images courtesy of NBC.
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