Here's how Netflix's 'The Midnight Club' Season 2 would have played out

Netflix officially cancelled The Midnight Club after just one season on Thursday, December 1, 2022.

However, series creator, Mike Flanagan spilled all the details of Season 2 and the plans that he had for it, via Entertainment Weekly.

“I'm very disappointed that Netflix has decided not to pursue a second season of The Midnight Club,” Flanagan wrote in a blog post published to Tumblr.

“My biggest disappointment is that we left so many story threads open, holding them back for the hypothetical second season, which is always a gamble. So, I'm writing this blog as our official second season, so you can know what might have been, learn the fates of your favourite characters, and know the answers to those dangling story threads from the first season.”

The series is based on the various works of author Christopher Pike, The Midnight Club. The series starred Iman Benson, Igby Rigney, Ruth Codd, Annarah Cymone, Chris Sumpter, Adia, Aya Furukawa, Sauriyan Sapkota, Matt Biedel, Samantha Sloyan, with Zach Gilford and Heather Langenkamp.

Flanagan revealed a glimpse at what the story would have been. By the end of Season 2, Amesh, Natsuki, Kevin and Ilonka would die. There would also have been a new patient to join Brightcliffe Hospice, and Spence would have benefitted from medical advancements regarding HIV treatment to no longer be considered terminal.

What was the inspiration behind Season 2?

Flanagan shared that one of the stories told in the next installment would have been Christopher Pike’s Remember Me. The story, which Flanagan called “one of my all-time favorite Pike books,” tells the story of a teenage ghost who is trying to solve her own murder after being pushed off a balcony.

“We were going to use it as a vehicle for Ilonka to try to come to terms with the fact that she is going to die, and to begin to trying to wrap her head around being a ghost,” he wrote, adding that the main character would have been played by Anya, who died in Season 1, to enforce the idea that “even if a character dies, as long as they’re remembered by members of the club, they live on in their stories.”

Who were the Mirror Man and the Cataract Woman?

They were Stanley Oscar Freelan and his wife, who built Brightcliffe (fun trivia, he is named after the real-life Freelan Oscar Stanley, who built my favourite hotel in America - the Stanley Hotel. The Stanley is also the inspiration for The Shining!).

What is up with Dr. Stanton's tattoo and bald head?

First, Dr. Stanton is actually the daughter of the original Paragon cult leader, Aceso. Her nickname was Athena, she wrote the Paragon journal that Ilonka found in S1. She turned on her mother and helped the kids escape, but because she was part of the cult in her teenage years, she had the tattoo.

It was her initials that Ilonka found carved into the tree in season 1 (her maiden name was Georgina Ballard, hence the G.B. that Ilonka finds carved in the tree).

What about the Living Shadow? It's Death, right?

No. At the end of the season, Kevin will die... followed shortly by Ilonka. And as she is dying, two things will happen. First, she'll find herself talking to the Janitor, played by Robert Longstreet... and she'll make a discovery. HE is Death.

Then what was the Shadow?

This is an idea we take directly from the book Remember Me and we'll see it play out in the final moments of Ilona's final tale. In Pike's book, Shari is pursued by a dark entity called The Shadow. When it finally catches her, though, it turns out it is not a bad thing at all.

The Shadow is THEMSELVES. It's the Unknown. As it engulfs someone, in the last moment of their life, it takes them through a place of understanding and catharsis, preparing them for the next step.

How would the series end?

The series would end with Cheri telling this story to a whole new table of patients, including our new series leads. Most of our original cast now would exist as stories, a story told to the next "class" of storytellers at the table, all of whom we will have met by the end of the season. A story called The Midnight Club.