Summary
An emotional party brings the brutal reality of the teens’ situation to the forefront once more. There’s comedy and tears mixed in with the biting horror. This is a series that will have a special place in a lot of fans’ hearts.
This recap of the Netflix series The Midnight Club season 1, episode 5, “See You Later,” contains spoilers.
It’s easy to forget that the Midnight Club members are terminally ill teenagers, what with all the ghostly goings on and all those cult secrets to explore. But “See You Later” redirects our focus, hammering home the uncertainty of these patients’ future endeavors, in heart-wrenching detail. Amesh takes the central role in episode five as the gang celebrate his ‘death day’ and the video game nerd tells his own sci-fi themed story.
The Midnight Club season 1, episode 5 recap
The episode commences with Ilonka and Kevin returning to find Anya passed out on her bedroom floor. Ilonka performs CPR and her roommate vomits back to life. On waking, Anya instantly spies that shadowy figure in the corner of her room once again and screams hysterically at its looming presence. It’s a heart-racing opener to this, the halfway point in the series.
Dr. Stanton informs Ilonka about Anya’s ordeal. She believes Anya has overdosed after self-medicating and even though she had a ‘do not resuscitate’ order, Stanton is pleased that Ilonka intervened. Ilonka is annoyed she wasn’t properly informed of her roommate’s wishes and pays her a visit in the recovery room. Anya downplays her hysterics and denies seeing anything otherworldly, reiterating that she was high at the time on her meds.
Ilonka reads from the mysterious book she found in the library. It is a member of The Paragon’s diary, explaining the history of this unusual cult. In 1931, Regina Ballard formed the group, which was supposed to be a new age health philosophy. The group slowly morphed into a cult and Regina took on a new name, Aceso. Her love for Greek mythology and obsession with immortality quickly turned her stark raving mad and she ended up making fatal blood sacrifices. Daughter Athena brought in the cops, but it was too late, all the adults were poisoned by Aceso in the hopes of her achieving immortality.
Kevin is brought up to date on the cult’s history as they prepare for Amesh’s party. Ilonka believes that everything is linked, the cult, Julia Jayne and the Midnight Club. She thinks Julia read about the cult and launched the club in the basement originally, where The Paragon performed their blood sacrifices. Somehow, Julia left the hospice cured thanks to all these intermingled events. Ilonka wants to figure out exactly how everything is linked though.
Cheri gifts Ilonka with a brand-new wig and the gang gather for Amesh’s death day party. This is the exact day that doctors predicted he would die on, but he has thankfully survived and surpassed it. Spencer delivers a heartfelt speech and Amesh takes off his funeral clothes, symbolically burying them in the sand. There are more gifts at the party, with Cheri presenting Amesh with his treasured, new video game console. They all partake in some naughty brownies and talk of their own suspicions about Stanton.
Before Amesh delivers his spooky tale, the members start to confess to some of the strange activities that they have witnessed over the last few days. Ilonka starts off proceedings, stating how she saw a ghostly woman looming above Anya and recounts the old music she heard in a drowsy state. Then Spence recalls the incident outside Tristan’s room.
Amesh decides to lighten the mood with his own tale. “See You Later” is a more sci-fi tinged offering than normal. His story involves a geeky student called Luke (played by Amesh), who is in love with a girl called Becky (played by Natsuki). This of course mirrors real life events. In the story a famous video game designer called Vincent (Rahul Kohli) offers Luke the opportunity to play a new, state-of-the-art video game. Luke struggles to complete this difficult game that seems to have real-world consequences. He manages to save the world in the very end, but can’t win over the girl.
The ending
In private, Natsuki discusses the story in more detail with Amesh. She says how she didn’t like the ending and wanted the couple to get together. This is quite an ironic observation as these two have been skirting around their romance for weeks now and almost kissed at the death day party earlier. Amesh ignores all the obvious hints from Natsuki and she is the one who has to initiate that special, first kiss. Fans will rejoice that these two have finally declared their love for one another, hopefully their relationship continues to blossom.
Anyone feeling all warm and fuzzy inside will be abruptly brought back to reality as the episode draws to an end. Ilonka returns to find Anya has wet the bed. She helps her roommate with this awkward predicament and Anya confesses to killing her parents. This is a little hyperbolic, but Anya explains how the ballet story was all based on fact and that she moved to America to pursue a career. Her parents were unaware of her drug habit and went searching for her one night, dying in a car crash along the way. Anya blamed herself and moved onto harder drugs before her diagnosis. She believes that this shadowy entity is death coming for her, then she breaks down, saying that she doesn’t want to die. It’s a poignant ending that brings an urgency to the storyline whilst addressing our age old fears of death.
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