There's A Haunting Easter Egg You Probs Missed In Midnight Mass
This cameo calls for a rewatch.
While it may be a long wait for a potential third season of Netflix’s Haunting series, fans of Mike Flanagan’s terrifying tales have a new horrific tale to help satisfy their spooky cravings. Midnight Mass technically isn’t a part of the Haunting of Hill House or Haunting of Bly Manor stories, but a ton of familiar faces from those two shows do pop up in Flanagan’s latest release. Most of the Haunting actors’ roles in the new show are obvious, but Carla Gugino’s Midnight Mass cameo is a Haunting easter egg that even superfans might not catch.
As all Haunting fans know, there is a group of actors Flanagan loves to feature in nearly all of his projects. For example, The Haunting of Bly Manor featured a big chunk of the Haunting of Hill House stars in new roles. Although Midnight Mass isn’t part of that anthology series, it still stars a ton of Flanagan faves. Most notably, Haunting star Kate Siegel (who is also married to Flanagan IRL) plays pregnant schoolteacher Erin Greene in the new show, Henry Thomas plays main character Riley’s conflicted father, and Haunting of Bly Manor breakout Rahul Kohli has another big role as Crockett Island’s beleaguered sheriff.
But there’s another major Haunting star who pops up in Midnight Mass in a much more subtle way. Carla Gugino is in nearly every Flanagan project; she starred in The Haunting of Hill House as the Crain family’s doomed mother Olivia and then made a huge reveal in the Haunting of Bly Manor finale as the series’ narrator.
Although viewers never see Gugino in Midnight Mass, she still has a role. In fact, she’s one of the very first voices fans hear at the beginning of the show. Gugino voices the judge who sentences Riley to four years in jail as a result of his deadly car crash. Since the judge never appears on screen, it’s easy to miss this little detail, but it serves as a nice little callback to Gugino’s extensive voice work without much actual screentime in The Haunting of Bly Manor.
There are a few other fun references for Haunting fans scattered throughout Midnight Mass (like Father Paul Hill’s last name), so keep your eyes peeled and your ears open as you dive into the series.
