some caption text
Ilonka digs deeper into Brightcliffe's mysteries - and receives an unexpected gift. Amesh gathers everyone on the beach for his "Death Day" party, and tells a story about second chances and the dangers that come from obsessively trying to fix past mistakes.Tropes in this episode.
- Ancient Grome: Kevin jokingly asks if Ilonka wants to put on some togas and do an ancient Greek ritual in the basement, after hearing the story of the Paragon. Ilonka corrects him: togas aren't Greek.
- Attending Your Own Funeral: The club throws Amesh a "Death Day" Party, to celebrate the fact that he has officially outlived the year his doctors gave him to live, and style it like a funeral. They even bury the suit that Amesh's parents had originally bought specifically for him to be buried in.
- Back Story: We get the first reliable explanation of the Paragon's backstory, handwritten from a former member named "Athena" (an alias). The Paragon was founded by Athena's mother, a woman named Regina Ballard, who renamed herself Aceso after the Greek Goddess of the same name. After her husband and son both died, she became obsessed with mysticism and the five sisters of Greek mythology: Panacea, Iaso, Hygieia, Aceso (her namesake), Meditrina, and Aglaea. She founded the Paragon in 1931 and setup the cult in Brightcliffe, originally as a new age health philosophy. She chose the hourglass as a symbol of the group because it represented time that could be continually extended. The group began digging into the god and goddess worship of the ancient world, performing the various rituals, which eventually turned into blood sacrifices, which caused Athena to become disillusioned with her mother's ideas. One night when she was 16, Athena she fled Brightcliffe, rescuing all the Paragon members' children with her, and alerted the police. The police discovered Aceso in the secret basement, seemingly having performed a new variation of the ritual, surrounded by the rest of other members, who had all died. She insisted this was just an accident and she had simply gotten the herb dosage in their teas incorrect, but Athena suspected that she had sacrificed the other members as part of the ritual. Aceso dropped off the radar afterwards, and Athena resumed using her birth name, which she kept a secret from the diary. Julia Jayne later found the diary after Stanton bought Brightcliffe and 1966 and turned it into a hospice. Julia discovered the hidden basement from the diary's contents, and founded the Midnight Club. Then she hid the diary in the library, and left the clues to its location in art therapy drawings.
- Bald of Evil: When the police found Aceso after Athena alerted them, she was completely bald save for her eyebrows, with the hourglass tattooed on at the base of her skull.
- Blatant Lies: Several:
- Anya denies to Ilonka that she saw the same shadow that Rachel saw before she died, despite being resuscitated and immediately screaming at the top of her lungs about it.
- Cheri tricks Ilonka into getting close to her, allowing the former quickly measure the circumference of the latter's head, and when Ilonka confusedly asks her why, she just grins, says "Nothing!" and shuts her door in Ilonka's face. She later reveals she was taking measurements to get a wig sized for Ilonka.
- In the backstory, Aceso claimed the other cult members' deaths were an accident, but Athena claimed that they were obviously deliberate as she had claimed a huge blood sacrifice was coming.
- Call-Back: Several:
- Ilonka repeats what Anya had previously told her about her deceased roommate, Rachel, describing seeing the shadow coming towards her.
- Spence describes hearing the voice on the intercom.
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Averted. The episode opens with Ilonka giving Anya chest compressions after finding her collapsed in their room. Anya eventually resuscitates and promptly vomits. Ilonka and Kevin also immediately summon Mark to get Anya help, and the combination of CPR and Mark's swift medical intervention ultimately save Anya's life.
- Decade-Themed Filter: Ilonka has another waking vision of Brightcliff's past, complete with sepia filter, old music, and flickering brightness and imperfections to the image, as if she is living in a Silent Era film.
- Emotionless Girl: Natsuki describes how she has experienced episodes of emotional numbness in the past, which Stanton has diagnosed as symptoms of her depression.
- Everybody Must Get Stoned: All the club members partake in weed brownies during Amesh's Death Day party.
- Flash Back: Ilonka reading the book she found in the library (Athena's diary) is presented this way, complete with old-timey music and a sepia filter.
- Foreshadowing: Spence wonders aloud if Dr. Stanton smokes weed, and Cheri guesses yes, because she must have some sort of outlet from the daly sadness of Brightcliffe.
- Friendship Moment: Two big ones:
- Cheri takes Ilonka's previous statement about missing her hair to heart, and uses her connections to surprise Ilonka with a wig designed to mimic her natural hair, for no other reason than to be nice.
- Cheri also used her unseen connections to nearly miraculously procure a Playstation for Amesh, which he had previously mentioned was one of the things he was most sad about not getting to live to experience.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: Amesh approaches Natsuki, causing her to warn him not too because she probably smells bad, which he dismisses. He immediately backpedals once he actually sits next to her and admits that yes, she does smell bad, but he has smelled worse.
- Internal Reveal: A few:
- Spence reveals to the club his possible encounter with a voice from beyond in the recovery room.
- Irony: Much the the club's amusement, Sandra falls asleep during Amesh's story, and thus misses the fact that it also ends with "angel porn", just like she loves to end her stories with. Kevin comments that she'll be very disappointed when she learns this.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Natsuki wonders while high if Stanton is secretly evil and started Brightcliffe just to watch people suffer and/or siphon the life-force of the dying. These are exactly the types of theories that many fans had at the start of the series.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Dr. Stanton reveals that at least part of the reason Anya collapsed and saw the shadow was because she overdosed on her morphine. Anya later clings to this claim, despite seeing the shadow previously before she overdosed.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Two from Cheri, and one from Mark.
- She managed to get Amesh a Playstation console, a full year before it was going to be released.
- Crossing more into creepiness than awesome, depending on your interpretation. Cheri casually reveals to Ilonka that she snuck into her room and stole some photographs of her, so that she could have an accurate image for the wigmaker.
- Mark swiftly came to Anya's aid after Ilonka gave her CPR, and got her immediate medical attention for her overdose, which saved her life.
- The Pig-Pen: Natsuki spent the past week as a shut-in with poor hygiene, and warns Amesh that she smells bad when he approaches her.
- The Reveal: Multiple:
- Athena's diary reveals a more detailed history of the founding and downfall of the Paragon.
- Anya reveals her backstory to Ilonka, which is a non-fantastical version of the story she told the club in the second episode.
- Natsuki isn't just sick from her cancer. She is also dealing with Clinical Depression.
- Shout-Out: Multiple in this episode.
- Kevin compares Amesh favorably to James Cameron.
- Salt-N-Pepa's "Whatta Man" plays over the beginning of the "party" portion of Amesh's Death Day Party.
- Asceso poisoning all members of the Paragon except herself is very reminiscent of the Jonestown Massacre, except on a much smaller scale.
- Sandra wonders while high if Stanton is really like a cross between Hansel & Gretel and Sweeney Todd, and is planning to eventually bake the patients into pies.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In the backstory reveal, Athena realized her mother had gone off the deep end when she started performing blood sacrifices, and eventually fled Brightcliffe with the children of the cult members.
- Shameful Strip: Inverted. Amesh pridefully and joyously strips off his suit as a sign of a small victory over his disease, having outlived his original prognosis.
- The Shut-In: Natsuki spent the majority of the time skip in her room, to the point that Amesh is visibly overjoyed to see that she came out to his party. Her personal hygiene has suffered because of it. She explains to Amesh that the urge to shut herself away is one of the symptoms of her depression.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Anya's habit of messing with the dosages of her morphine bit her in the ass when she overdosed. Despite having a DNR on file, Dr. Stanton congratulates Ilonka for resuscitating Anya, as said document does not mean that Brightcliffe will in any way refuse to treat her. A DNR in reality does not always apply in cases of possible suicide attempts, and at least some doctors ere on the side of caution when choosing to do CPR in overdose cases with existing DNR on file.
- Time Skip: Not emphasized, but following Anya's overdose, the narrative skips ahead about a week, enough time for Anya to recover enough to be mobile, Natsuki to briefly become a shut-in, and Cheri to get a wig mailed to Brightcliffe.
- Title Drop: Amesh says the episodes title to his funeral suit just before he buries it on the beach.
- The Topic of Cancer: Ever present since the beginning of the series, but re-emphasized here, as Amesh stripping off his shirt reveals he still has his chemotherapy port installed in his chest.
- Voiceover Letter: Well, voiceover diary. Ilonka reading Athena's diary is presented this way, but with Ilonka describing the contents rather than the audience hearing Athena's voice firsthand.
Tropes in Amesh's story:
"See You Later"
Based On: See You Later by Christopher Pike.
- The Ace: Vincent Beggs is described this way in the narration, or more specifically a "coder, designer, hotshot, mysterious, genius, rockstar, recluse."
- Adaptational Name Change: Mark in the book becomes Luke in the show.
- Anachronism Stew: Luke enjoys looking at the ISS through his telescope, but in 1995 when Amesh is telling the story, the ISS wouldn't be launched for another three years, and lacked a crew until 2000.
- And You Were There: Amesh casts himself as the protagonist, Luke, and Natsuki as Becky.
- Big Fancy House: Vincent's workspace for designing his new game, "Decision", is a large, ultra-modern (rented) beach house.
- Fake Brit: In-universe. Vincent puts on a charming English accent when interacting with Luke, but reverts to an American accident when being interrogated. For added fun, this is the opposite of Vincent's actor, Rahul Kohli, who is really British putting on an American accent here.
- Future Self Reveal: Vincent and Kara are really really time traveling versions older versions of Luke and Becky.
- Informed Attribute: The game "Decision" is described as having numerous advanced game mechanics, and even referring to it as "complex" is an understatement. However, the most we see are a few animations of nuclear missiles destroying the planet, which look cool on a 1995 computer, but don't show anything described.
-
Reclusive Artist: Vincent Beggs is introduced as one, to the point that no one in the gaming community knows what he looks like. This makes it easy for future-Luke to impersonate him to past-Luke. - Ret-Gone: Becky's death by car causes Kara to vanish into thin air, as Becky now never lived long enough to become her.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The adult Becky and Luke travel back in time to prevent nuclear armageddon.
- Shout-Out: Multiple:
- Luke purchases a copy of Space Empires from Becky's store near the beginning.
- A meta one. Luke mentions to Becky that he is currently designing a strategy-based video game called "Starlight Crystal", which Ilonka had mentioned was the name of a story told by a previous member of the Midnight Club in the 1960s, as detailed in the log book, implying Amesh liked the name and added it to his story. However, on another level, it's the name of another book by author Christopher Pike. So it's a shout out to a story title that is a shout out to another story title.
- Vincent describes the game his is developing, "Decision" as basically '"'Risk'' on steroids".
- Teen Genius: A relatively realistic example. Luke is a high school student who codes and designs strategy-based video games on the side. Not impossible in the mid-1990s, but difficult and time consuming. Vincent recruits him because of his coding abilities (or so he claims).
