The Midnight Club – Season 1 Episode 7 “Anya” Recap & Review

Anya

Episode 7 of The Midnight Club begins with Anya awakening to a brand new reality. She works an uneventful job as a cashier at a supermarket, she has her own apartment and she eats microwave meals. At night, she’s awoken by her neighbour’s baby upstairs. Does she have any goals in life? Well, she still wants to be a ballerina but of course, that’s easier said than done given her situation.

Anya attempts to ring her old buddy Rhett, having found his number in the phonebook. He’s pretty frosty toward her though, as Anya pleads with him to try and tell her that everything will be okay. Teary-eyed, she tells him that he should have come and found her to help her out rather than vanishing. Rhett hangs up.

Interestingly, Anya’s radio keeps going off at midnight. Every time, a voice seems to be crackling through whispering something around static. On one time, we hear Spence’s voice. Apparently these are all ghosts of the past though, as Anya attends therapy and admits that all of her friends (from Brightcliffe) are dead and have been for about a year now.

Interestingly, the stories from Midnight Club all seem to mesh together, as Anya realizes there’s something really wrong. This reality completely implodes, eventually leading to Anya being shot in the head, falling backwards and landing on her bed. That shadow from before materializes into a baby on the ceiling, which grows to a skeletal creature, reaching out for her through the ceiling.

With everything looking bleak, Anya receives a glimmer of hope in the form of the Midnight Club. They speak through the intercom, where Anya happens to be on the other side. She appears to be comatose though as she hears it indirectly inside her fantasy. The story this time is very different, sweetly depicting a perfect reality if the ritual is a success.

After, Ilonka promises that she’s not alone, and that they’re always there for her. She promises that everything will be okay, and as Anya shuts her eyes, we cut back to Brightcliffe. Anya has passed away. Ilonka is given Anya’s belongings.

Dr Stanton is not happy though. She questions Ilonka, demanding to know exactly what she was doing in the basement. She’s seriously considering throwing her out of Brightcliffe. Instead, Ilonka heads over to see Shasta, telling her that the ritual didn’t work. Apparently the symbol is a reference for “as above, so below” and it’s ancient. Apparently her group are gentle as kittens and they only get violent “when they have to.”

The Midnight Club join again and this time, Dr Stanton shows up. She reveals that she’s known about their group for years. They’ve heard their voices through the walls and besides, who supplies all the fresh firewood? She’s been lenient until now but they went way too far with their ritual and for now, she’s breaking up the group until she can decide what to do.

While most of the kids want to go back to their rooms, they instead head down to the water to pay their respects and give Anya a proper send-off. They scatter her ashes in the water, with Cheri playing them off. Ilonka and Kevin both hug it out, but when the former tries to kiss Kevin, he pulls away.

Back inside Brightcliffe, Ilonka overhears Stanton on the phone. She talks about the kids and how one of them will be going home. One among them is not terminal and it seems like the ritual was actually a success. Which one though? Was it really a success? When Ilonka heads back to her room, that old lady from before is there, creeping up and whispering that she’s hungry. Ilonka locks herself in the bathroom and eventually passes out.

The Episode Review

After the teasing glimpse of what could be at the end of the last episode, we instead get 20 minutes of Anya off in this dream world before seeing the final moments of her perfect life. This is, of course, a throwback to Big Fish but this time there’s far less emotional weight behind it. I still think this could have been handled much better with Anya actually living her best life and then realizing at the end that it was all a dream, only to then continue on with her passing away.

It’s a sad loss for the Midnight Club and given the amount of time this show has taken building her character up, it’s going to be a massive blow. We’ve now got 3 episodes to go and as I sad before, half of these kids have been severely underdeveloped in the process. Will we get to see some of them step up and out of the shadows? We’ll have to wait and see.