Mike Flanagan’s latest limited series hit Netflix this weekend, and it’s already “Certified Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes. Midnight Mass currently has a 94% critics score and a 70% audience score on the site. ComicBook.com’s own Charlie Ridgely gave the show a 5 out of 5 and called it Flanagan’s “career-best work.” Flanagan often works with the same actors, which means you’ll see a few familiar faces from The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor in Midnight Mass. Kate Siegel, Henry Thomas, Annabeth Gish, and Rahul Kohli are just some of the faces you’ll recognize from Flanagan’s previous shows. However, there’s one Hill House and Bly Manor star who gave a stealth cameo in Midnight Mass that you may have missed.
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Towards the very beginning of the first episode, “Book I: Genesis,” Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) is sentenced to four years in prison by an unseen judge. However, if you listen closely, you’ll recognize the voice as Carla Gugino, who played Olivia Crain in Hill House and Older Jamie in Bly Manor. She also starred in Flanagan’s 2017 psychological horror-thriller Gerald’s Game. Earlier today, Flanagan confirmed on Twitter it is in fact Gugino’s voice at the beginning of Midnight Mass.
“@flanaganfilm did Carla Gugino voice the judge in Episode 1 of #MidnightMass,” @collinpemb asked. “Yep!,” Flanagan replied. You can check out the tweet below:
Midnight Mass stars Flanagan’s wife and frequent collaborator Kate Siegel (The Haunting of Hill House, Hush), Kristin Lehman (The Killing), Samantha Sloyan (Grey’s Anatomy), Rahul Kohli (iZombie, The Haunting of Bly Manor), Annabeth Gish (West Wing, The Haunting of Hill House), Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights), Hamish Linklater (The Big Short), Henry Thomas (E.T., The Haunting of Hill House), and more. You can check out a synopsis below:
“Midnight Mass tells the tale of a small, isolated island community whose existing divisions are amplified by the return of a disgraced young man (Gilford) and the arrival of a charismatic priest (Linklater). When Father Paul’s appearance on Crockett Island coincides with unexplained and seemingly miraculous events, a renewed religious fervor takes hold of the community – but do these miracles come at a price?”
“What I loved about it was the writing was such a support in that system, because even though I may not have the same beliefs as Erin, on the page, it was very clear that her belief made sense to her,” Siegel recently detailed to ComicBook.com when discussing Midnight Mass‘ heavy subject matter. “I wasn’t asked to make logical leaps that I didn’t understand or tap into some emotionality that didn’t exist. And so there’s this sense that there are these huge, epic questions, like ‘what’s the meaning of life? What happens when we die? Where were we before we were born?’ that everybody grapples with and everybody has a truly individual point of view on that. It’s rare to ever get to be able to express that, and so I was just, mostly, Christmas-morning joyful to get a chance to tap into the consciousness.”
Midnight Mass is now streaming on Netflix.
