Midnight Mass Creator Reveals Scrapped Season 2 Plans Made One Fan-Favorite the Villain

The final episode of Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass offered audiences an exciting and fulfilling conclusion to his horror story, which has largely ruled out the likelihood of the series being continued, with Flanagan himself recently recalling how the series was originally developed with a different trajectory, one that would have allowed for a Season 2. Under that original narrative, the first season would have ended with Riley (Zach Gilford) becoming the antagonist, allowing Season 2 to more fully realize the character becoming a deadly threat. With the finale that audiences ended up getting, this not only ruled out that possible outcome but any other type of adventure for Season 2.

“It took years for me to realize that [Riley] had to get out of the way. That really broke things open in a huge way,” Flanagan explained to the Script Apart podcast, per Empire Magazine. “We had done hints about a potential second season of the show, where Riley fights with the angel at the end, and you see him get his throat ripped open. You never see him die on screen. He came back as the antagonist of the second season, as this traveling preacher with a Southern Baptist revival tent. It was Warren and Leeza chasing him across America, trying to kill Riley, because he was now the villain of the story.”

Over the years, Flanagan delivered Netflix Gerald’s Game, The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Midnight Club, and the upcoming The Fall of the House of Usher. After all of these partnerships, Flanagan has since announced a partnership with Prime Video, which is another reason why a Season 2 won’t be happening.

“We had all that stuff drawn out, and we threw it all away with Erin [becoming the protagonist],” the filmmaker recalled. “Once we decided this was actually Erin Greene’s story and she was our hero, it made it okay for me to do something else I was reluctant to do, which was to kill the island. Initially, about half the population was wiped out, and the others lived to pick up the pieces and learn their lessons.” 

He continued, “All of that, and them singing ‘Nearer My God to Thee,’ all of my favorite things about the end, never would have happened with Riley [living to the end], where we would have made a show about the triumph of atheism, which is not the show I wanted to make. It’s the show I thought I wanted to make when I was in my 20s, but it wasn’t.”

Stay tuned for updates on future Flanagan projects.

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