How A Cartoon Show Changed Me Forever
How The Literal F**k Did A Cartoon Make ME Have An Existential Crisis
I never imagined that one of the pieces of art - and yes, what I witnessed was definitely art, would make me rethink my way of seeing the world and my principles. A tall order for an animated Netflix series.
In 2020, the world's largest streaming platform premiered its transgressive and experimental show The Midnight Gospel. At first, it just seemed like one more animated show with pretty psychedelic and trippy visuals. Within a few weeks of its release, my social media was full of people talking about how amazing The Midnight Gospel is and that everyone should watch it, so I gave it a shot.
At first, it took me a bit of work to understand what I was watching, like in a general picture, not just the visuals. If you thought that series like Rick and Morty or Futurama were freaky animated shows, wait until you see THIS show. The concept is brilliantly simple, it's a show based on real interviews that were carried out on a podcast, some describe it as an animated podcast and ... that's pretty spot on actually.
The crazy geniuses behind this madness are Duncan Trussell and Pendleton Ward. If the first of these two names ring a bell, it's from the famous Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast, from which, you guessed it, the interviews from the show were drawn. As for Ward, he is the mind behind the acclaimed animated show Adventure Time. Once I learnt a little more about these two individuals, you understand why The Midnight Gospel is what it is.
And what is The Midnight Gospel? Hmm, it's pretty difficult to put into words, but I will do my best. Here we go!
Listen with your ears and with your eyes
In eight episodes we follow the adventures of Clancy, a space podcaster (a spacecaster) with a universe simulator that he uses to travel to different planets to find guests for his podcast. Trussell voices Clancy, who becomes a narrator and protagonist. I mean seriously, what a fucking cool premise.
The interviewees are real personalities who are personified by different beings, like a fish in a fish tank to the Grim Reaper himself. We will find people like Dr. Drew, a famous addiction specialist and internet personality, whose avatar is a president zombie slayer talking about drug use and Damien Echols, one of the falsely accused and sentenced to death of the West Memphis Three. that tells us about the Magick (with K) and the occult. And that's just the first three episodes, we're just getting started. Are you ready?
Basically what we will hear are interviews between Trussell and his guests who are as real as you and me, sometimes they even break up the characters and call each other by their real names. Each episode revolves around a theme and attempts to give Clancy and us a chance to learn more about spirituality, enlightenment, meditation, death, grief, mental illness, and loneliness.
As we listen to the deep and introspective talks, the characters have their own adventure that unfolds through animation. It's like being told two stories at the same time, Trussell through his voice and Ward through his visuals. More than likely you'll have to watch each episode twice, you WANT to watch each episode twice because it's that GOOD. Each conversation and animation is loaded with details, teachings and interpretations.
In the second episode, for example, Clancy meets a giant dog-doe, Duncan Trusell interviews Anne Lammot, an American novelist and essayist, speaking of her real experiences about Christianity, illness and death. Visually, we find ourselves on a hellish road to a futuristic slaughterhouse. In the interview, a conversation about cancer that the writer overcame as we see how the characters are mutilated and processed as food.
It is chaotically beautiful.
The path to enlightenment
I'm not someone who uses drugs, at least not the kind that makes you hallucinate, but The Midnight Gospel feels like a trip on different substances. Even when the topics are completely unfamiliar to me, it is inevitable to make connections with the stories and lives of the interviewees with my personal experiences. In one episode they talk about concepts from Tibetian Buddhism and I ended up reflecting on the way I handled my last breakup.
I'm NOT a stoner, I already told you!
It's particularly hard not to empathize with Clancy, sheltering in his trailer, deliberately ignoring his family trying to contact him. When a problem is in sight, his reaction is to bury his head in a universe simulator and travel to different realities.
The season progresses in a way where we learn more about Clancy as we learn about ourselves with each interview. Our protagonist has his own story and as this unfolds we see how he puts into practice the teachings of his guests slash spiritual guides.
Spiritual but not religious, existential but not hopeless
There are two things that are certainly not coincidences here: 1) the concept of the entire show involves space and the universe, 2) that it was released on 4/20.
I see what you did there, Netflix.
It is inevitable to feel insignificant when we deconstruct our own existence, in an infinite and vast universe where our decisions hardly matter. The guests have experienced mental illness, life-threatening illness, grief, addictions and have suffered deeply. But still, each episode ends with an inexplicably hopeful undertone.
The importance of mindfulness, of being present, of living by your own principles, of knowing how to cry and suffer, of taking advantage of pain and making something beautiful out of it. When we talk about life, existence and spirituality, it is impossible not to talk about hundreds of topics. Understanding all this is, I found, incredibly helpful to know that we are part of something bigger, that it is not all for nought. That we still find ourselves, as I did then, doing what the oldest religions and civilizations have tried to do, trying to figure out the answers to the questions that we still ask ourselves today. WTF am I doing here?
There is no easy answer, but there is no reason not to make the question meaningful and pure.
The précis of the show takes place in the last episode, where the guest is Deneen Fendig, the mother of Duncan Trussell and Clancy. I had never cried so much watching a television show, let alone an animated one.
The audio is a conversation Duncan had with his mother in 2013, three weeks before she passed away. On an emotional and heartbreaking journey, they discuss death and grief. Again, these conversations are as real as I am writing this.
No, I’m not crying, YOU'RE crying!
I'll never be the same
I can go on talking for hours about The Midnight Gospel and the analysis and theories of each episode, but I will end by saying that I am definitely not the same person as I was before I watched the show.
At the end of each episode, I felt morally obliged to Google the guests and the concepts that were presented, which I am grateful for today.
I have new perspectives on my life and the world and above all, I am hungry to know and learn more about other religions, philosophies and cultures. That's more than all my school years accomplished!
It's confusing, it's trippy, it's deep, it's silly, it's hopeful and it's heartbreaking. You may like it or not, but I assure you, you will not be the same after watching The Midnight Gospel.
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Mindsmatter is written by Bola Kwame, Mauro Herrera, Emma Buryd and Jack Graves. De-stigmatizing mental illness one day at a time.
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