What To Know About That Creepy Cult In The Midnight Club
There's so much to unpack.
It isn’t just ghosts haunting Brightcliffe Hospice on The Midnight Club. The real terror actually comes from a creepy cult that once set up residence within the building... and may still be lurking around in the shadows. If you’re still mulling over what the cult was really up to in The Midnight Club, here’s everything you need to know about the Paragon and their ancient rituals.
Spoiler alert: This post contains spoilers from throughout The Midnight Club. Ilonka actually knew about the Paragon before she entered Brightcliffe. In her research, she learned that the hospice was once home to the cult back in the 1940s. It wasn’t until she began digging into the dark secrets at Brightcliffe, though, that she realized how intrinsically connected to the building this cult was. Upon discovering the journal of Athena, the daughter of the Paragon’s leader, Aceso, Ilonka learned that the Paragon was a cult obsessed with health, healing, and ancient Greek mythology.
Driven to achieve eternal life, Aceso performed a ritual in Brightcliffe’s basement, sacrificing her followers to the Five Sisters, ancient Greek goddesses of healing: Iaso, Hygieia, Panacea, Aegle, and Aceso (whom the cult leader named herself after). Aceso convinced her followers to drink a poisoned tea, but the ritual was incomplete after her daughter Athena refused to drink.
With Aceso taken into custody after the ritual was brought to the authorities, it seemed like the Paragon was done for good. But the final episodes of The Midnight Club revealed the Paragon was still around, albeit in a new form. The crunchy healer Ilonka met in the woods, Shasta, confirmed she was actually Julia Jayne, a Brightcliffe patient who was miraculously cured of her cancer in the ‘60s. However, Julia’s dark secret was that she was also Aceso’s pupil, having been mentored in the ways of the Paragon after discovering Athena’s journal and tracking the cult leader down.
After gaining Ilonka’s trust, Shasta/Julia attempted the same ritual Aceso performed half a century earlier, but once again, it was left incomplete when Dr. Stanton stopped Ilonka from drinking the poison.
It’s unclear if The Midnight Club will continue with another season or if this is simply the end of the story. But if there is more in the future, it’s important to remember that Shasta/Julia managed to escape arrest after Ilonka’s brush with the ritual, so the Paragon could very well return for another bloody ritual in the future.
The Midnight Club is streaming on Netflix.
