Somewhere along the way, it feels like podcasts took over. There is a podcast for everything, and I do mean everything (if you don’t believe me, just google whatever obscure hobby plus the word podcast, and I promise you that something will come up). Just about anyone with basic software skills can buy a microphone or two and set up a hosting website for a pretty reasonable amount of money and boom, instant podcast. Podcasting has even become more elaborate as big companies have come in to create large productions of serialized storytelling. But the core of podcasting is still just the old fashioned act of people talking. Whether that’s telling stories, discussing and dissecting current events, behind-the-scenes workings of old TV shows, or just the rants and ravings of actors and celebrities, it’s all about that talk. It’s also something that Netflix’s new animated project, Midnight Gospel, encompasses in a surreal way that creates something that will either make you re-evaluate what a podcast can be, or decide it really is just the entertainment equivalent of two stoners talking Plato in a college dorm.
It’s hard to describe what Midnight Gospel is on paper. It is a sort of, kind of adaptation of The Duncan Trussell Family Hour, a podcast that began in 2013. While not quite as old as Joe Rogan’s long lasting Experience, which launched in 2009, it was one of those early entries in the format that helped form the foundation of what we think of when we think of that term ‘podcast.’ It features a litany of guests who come on and talk for an hour or so about just about anything, with a focus on ‘psychedelic’ topics such as death, rebirth, meditation and all that jazz.
Midnight Gospel takes interviews from various episodes, of which there is nearly 400, and animates them. Or… well, it kind of does? I think Midnight Gospel may be impossible to properly write about in the same way a lengthy podcast discussion can be impossible to break down and distil properly to someone who hasn’t sat down and listened to the whole thing. It has to be seen to really process, for better or worse.
The show follows Clancy (voiced by Trussell), a young man who lives in a fantasy world. He’s a space-caster, using advanced technology in his mobile home where he shoves his head in a vagina-shaped machine to go into various alternate worlds where he interviews people while taking the form of a variety of different avatars, such as a huge muscle man, a goblin, a milk ghost or a multi-penis hedonist orgy machine.
And that’s the normal part of the show.
Each episode sees Clancy meeting his interview subject after crashing into a new planet and having a discussion with topics ranging from drugs, sex, life, meditation, Buddhism, Power Rangers, and well… you get the idea. In that way, it feels at its most podcast-y. If you’re someone looking for concise storytelling through the spoken word and dialogue, this probably isn’t the show for you. While a loose narrative thread begins to form about halfway through, most of the show is long, rambling conversations that are free flowing and weave in and out of the topics they’re discussing. There’s also a lot of ‘Yeah,’ ‘Of course,’ ‘Wow,’ reactions from Trussell/Clancy as he listens to his guest talk in often long bursts.
I imagine for anyone who hates the free-flowing conversation that a lot of talk show styled podcasts have, most of this will drive you mad.
The conversations also don’t match the visuals most of the time. The first episode, for instance, sees Clancy interviewing the President of a world in the midst of a zombie apocalypse as humanity is on the brink of annihilation. But the whole talk is about how drugs are helpful and whether they should be legal or not. There’s a special bit of irony hearing this as the two run through a gauntlet of the undead.
I won’t go as far as to say the conversations should just be ignored, because if you’re interested in the subjects discussed, you may glean some neat tidbits here and there. In one episode, the talk is about the differences between western and eastern ideas of enlightenment, which I enjoy studying so that kept me engaged. But really only the talks in the last two episodes are relevant to what the show is really about: death.
It’s impossible to describe what happens in the background of this show without seeming like complete nonsense, from people getting into an elevator that eventually comes out a massive dog’s ass to a man with a fish-bowl head trading cats for a giant fist that melts through icebergs.
Clancy and his interview subjects are often in a world that’s in the process of death and rebirth. Midnight Gospel may not have much of a narrative per se, but through its visual language it builds up to a final episode that sneaks up on you in how it tugs at those heartstrings. I would say even if you find the actual talking in the show infuriating, just muting it and watching the wild psychedelic art play out would be worth it, though I’d implore you to at least turn the volume on for the final episode, where a mother and son effectively switch physical places in life and death in one of the realest, rawest moments I can recall watching in years.
While Midnight Gospel has garnered unanimous praise, I do find it a difficult show to out and out recommend. If you’re the type of person who just can’t get into the podcasting craze due to its often rambling and loose structure, I can’t imagine you’d enjoy what Midnight Gospel has to offer. But who knows, its surreal cartoon cocoon may be enough to suck you in. In the end, I think it’s a show that you just have to watch for yourself and see how you feel about. I would at least recommend trying the first episode, and if you don’t like it, skip straight to the last. I think the finale stands on its own.
Midnight Gospel is a show about death in a time when death is seemingly working overtime, and when anyone and everyone wants to buy a few microphones and broadcast talks with their buddies to everyone in the world. At the very least, what you can say about the show is that it has come in the heat of the current moment, but really, it’s one you have to listen to if you ever hope to understand watching.