Midnight Mass: Who killed Joe Collie’s dog, Pike? contains major spoilers. You can check out our spoiler-free season review by clicking these words.
Joe Collie is only a supporting character in Midnight Mass. He’s the town’s boorish alcoholic who is also, through his own hubris, responsible for the paralysis of the mayor’s daughter, Leeza Scarborough. Joe hates himself, and most of the townsfolk hate him in return, so he has largely sequestered himself away in a trailer. He does have one ally, though, in the form of Pike, an exceptionally good boy who accompanies him everywhere, at least until he’s fatally poisoned at the Crock Pot Luck Easter Festival. This death is actually one of the first we see in the series, and it’s an awful one for any animal lovers. Joe is heartbroken, but also furious since he and basically everyone else knows exactly who is responsible.
Who killed Joe Collie’s dog, Pike?
Predictably, the culprit was the town’s local busybody and religious fanatic, Bev Keane. Since Pike had the good sense to ferociously bark at her whenever she was nearby, she took the opportunity to poison the mutt using chemicals taken from the school’s storage that she claimed were to combat a rat infestation.
Honestly, I don’t recall if it’s ever explicitly confirmed that Bev is guilty, but the show makes it so obvious that it’s pointless speculating. It also serves a functional role in the plot. It was Bev who, following the oil spill that decimated the island’s fishing industry, used religious rhetoric to convince people to take the settlements that were offered. Knowing everyone on the island was pious, Bev also knew they’d tithe most of that settlement money away, and since Monsignor Pruitt was, at the time, in the grip of dementia, she pocketed most of that money for herself. This shows the power Bev has over the people of Crockett Island, and so too does the fact that nobody, even Erin, confronts her about poisoning Pike, even though it’s obvious she did. She receives no comeuppance for the act — her eventual fate comes much later — because she has so much social influence. Joe, an outsider, couldn’t possibly have convinced anyone to stand against her, except perhaps Sheriff Hassan, a fellow outsider, who remained his staunchest ally.
