Editor’s Note: The following contains The Midnight Club spoilers.Mike Flanagan’s latest Netflix horror ventureThe Midnight Clubtackles death even more head-on than his previous limited series on the streamer. Unlike his previous series, however,The Midnight Clubis designed for a multi-season run, leaving plenty of questions unanswered and certain bombs uncropped until the final moments of the season.After the finale, audiences' heads are left spinningto understand what exactly the implications of some of its cliffhangers are. One of those involves the mysterious past of Dr. Georgina Stanton (Heather Langenkamp) and just how tied she is to Brightcliffe Hospice.
Dr. Stanton Is an Empathetic Authority Figure
Stanton exists on the show as an empathetic voice of authority, even though there’s just a hint of Nurse Ratched lingering in the air when she leaves the room. However, she seems to be quite opposite of the famous nurse character, continuously attempting to give the teenagers at Brightcliffe agency. Unfortunately, the teens tend to push her boundaries, typical for characters of this age, even moreso when considering their terminal illnesses. Many mysteries are introduced throughout the first season ofThe Midnight Club, and the possible mystery behind Dr. Stanton is mostly forgotten by the end of the finale, until the final moments of the episode where just a taste of her past is revealed.
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What Do We Learn About Dr. Stanton?
As the doctor is returning to her office, conceivably late at night, the camera zooms in on a framed 1898 news clipping on the wall which describes the completion of the Freelan estate, the property that later becomes Brightcliffe Hospice. The owners, Vera and Stanley, appear hauntingly similar to the man and woman that residents Ilonka (Iman Benson) and Kevin (Igby Rigney) had been having visions of. The camera only stays on the clipping long enough for the audience to briefly pause the show, and after, it follows Dr. Stanton to her vanity mirror with an older song accompanying the show’s final moments. Here, surprisingly she removes her wig, and as the score becomes creepily more ominous, the camera pans across her backside, revealing theParagon culttattoo. There are several possibilities what that could mean for Dr. Stanton’s origins, but using the context clues from previous episodes, we can come to a reasonable conclusion about her allegiances and history.
While the news clipping shown right before this reveal appears to be connected to the doctor’s identity, it is more likely this conveniently placed exposition plays into her beliefs or exists solely as a red herring to throw the viewer off. More likely, she’s indeed connected to the Paragon cult started by Regina Ballard (Katie Parker). Her story is told through her daughter Athena’s (Emma Tremblay) journal (narrated by Ilonka) in Episode 5, “See You Later.” In flashbacks, we see that both mother and daughter have their cult tattoos on the back of their neck, unlike the other acolytes who have theirs on their wrists. Through another flashback that depicts a young Julia Jayne (Larsen Thompson) meeting with Regina, we find that Athena is still vehemently against the cult and estranged from her mother, setting up a likely candidate for Dr. Stanton in Athena. Her purchasing the property could be a way for her to protect the manor against the cult, her stake personal in the matter.
With lore that allows Stanton to be Regina after a successful ceremony or Athena detesting the cult by protecting the Freeman manor, there are still many missing puzzle pieces that leave the true intentions of Dr. Stanton still not yet revealed. The revelation of her tattoo and baldness help narrow down her identity a lot, however, her roots tracing back to the leadership of Paragon directly. To dive deeper, it’s up to Netflix to renew this haunting and touching series.
