The Midnight Gospel Season 1, Episode 6 recap: Vulture with Honor

Episode 6 of Netflix’s The Midnight Gospel is about seeing reality.

The previous episode of Netflix’s The Midnight Gospel was about a soul prison. This episode’s a little bit different, as it’s significantly less philosophical overall, choosing instead to focus more on some bizarre, hard-to-explain action. Still, there are some fundamental elements of philosophy as it pertains to meditation. What are the goals of meditation, or should there be any?

The episode begins with Clancy (Duncan Trussell) racing some snails, but Clancy gets interrupted by a phone call from his sister, Sarah (Christina Pazsitzky), who starts lecturing him on his need to change, causing him to tune her out. After avoiding her points, he heads back to his place where he learns almost all planets in his universe simulator are “x’d out” due to operator error.

The Midnight Gospel: Meet Blithfreyus and Captain Bryce!

More from Netflix

• Snap your fingers, Mattel to release Wednesday dolls and collector sets in 2024!
• Show Snob’s Premiere Review: Watch, Pass, Wait and See (December 4, 2023)
• Show Snob’s Premiere Review: Watch, Pass, Wait and See (November 27, 2023)
• 5 TV Show Advent Calendars you’ll want this holiday season (2023)!
• Miss Face Off? 2 seasons are available to watch on Netflix!

Because of his malfunctioning equipment, the Pie Messiah he bakes actually becomes an “Eye Messiah,” and it threatens to have deadly consequences (there is no way to make this plot somewhat less perplexing, to be honest), so Clancy heads out seeking solutions.

We soon are introduced to Clancy’s neighbor, Blithfreyus (Stephen Root), and his kids, Shanefreyus (Dante Pereira-Olson) and Stephreyus (Savannah Judy).

After seeing a “maggot pig” sleeping in the artifact pit, we then learn that Clancy hasn’t been treating his universe simulator right, which is why it’s malfunctioning. Basically, he hasn’t been rubbing the simulator down with “green oil.”
rub green oil on broken down simulators

A repairman named Captain Bryce (Steve Little) shows up to assess the problem. After Bryce gets killed by the Eye Messiah, he, fortunately, gets revived by Clancy’s magic plant. Perhaps in exchange for the plant’s life-saving properties, Captain Bryce assures Clancy that he’ll keep the plant and other stolen artifacts a secret. He also reveals that Clancy definitely needs green oil to prevent his machine from “apocalypticizing.”

Getting wobbly

In their quest to acquire green oil from a lantern creature, Bryce takes Clancy through a deadly area full of different “wobbles.” Each separate wobble zone has its own bizarre set of rules, often linked to behavior patterns required for different colors. For better or worse, Captain Bryce gets swallowed up by a wobble, leaving Clancy to improvise: He steals some green oil from Blithfreyus, leaving Bryce to his fate (what a swell guy!).

This is where The Midnight Gospel gets back into philosophy regarding meditation, with Clancy entering a new universe (as an “octopus sheriff”) to talk with David (David Nichtern), some kind of meditation master. They discuss the three principles of silence, stillness, and spaciousness. Of course, The Midnight Gospel has to keep it weird, so Clancy gets distracted by a monkey and must work to untangle himself (most likely a moment of symbolic meaning regarding meditation).

Final lessons?

While less overtly philosophical than previous episodes, there are some traceable final lessons. These include accepting where you are, making space for yourself (and for others), and not to “cork” yourself up. Basically, you should understand that you’re not quite connecting to everything (which, obviously, doesn’t match everything we hear from new-age gurus).

Of course, none of this quite explains what happened to Captain Bryce, who ended up a living skeleton trapped in the Jello-like wobble, but we just have to roll with the experience.

What are your thoughts on The Midnight Gospel? Let us know in the comments!