An introspective psychedelic rollercoaster that’s informative, eye-opening, hilarious, and even emotional.
Every once in a while there comes a show that dares to change the way you think about life and perceive reality. It makes you question the world, causes you to look internally at yourself and the environment around you, and the way you treat other people, as well as the ones closest to you. Netflix’s The Midnight Gospel is one of those shows.
Podcaster Duncan Trussell teams up with Pendleton Ward (Adventure Time) and Mike L. Mayfield (Big Mouth) to create a brand new Netflix animated show and introduce the character of Clancy, the spacecaster. Clancy is a being from another universe where people (or should I say aliens?) use multiverse simulators to harvest and sell the technology inside of them. Yes, it’s very bizarre. You just have to go with it. Clancy’s simulator doesn’t work properly; instead of harvesting technology from other universes, it simulates worlds that are going through apocalyptic chaos. So what does Clancy decide to do? Well, he decides to start a “spacecast” and interview the beings from those worlds, of course. There’s not much in terms of actual story, but it’s not necessarily about that. It’s not about where Clancy is going and what his destination may be. It’s about his journey and how he grows as a character through all of these interactions.
Duncan Trussell and the rest of the crew managed to merge the interviews from The Duncan Trussell Family Hour (Duncan’s podcast) with a vibrant animated environment that connects with the conversations taking place in the podcasts. Whatever the discussion from the podcast is about, the animators created a background around the characters to symbolize it. The worlds they created range from those ravaged by zombies, planets with clowns, and even one where beings are stuck in a soul prison and can’t escape.
To put it simply, the show is about life and the circumstances most of us go through. At first glance, it may seem like a crazy and convoluted mess that will appeal only to stoner audiences, but it’s surprisingly so much more underneath. Clancy and his guests touch on subjects concerning the seemingly foreign concept we’ve come to identify as love, psychedelics and meditation, the path to enlightenment, magic, and finally: death. The show makes you come face to face with touchy subjects that most of us aren’t fond of discussing. Existential dread and the negative aspects of what clinging on to hope can do to us, and how we all will inevitably suffer the burden of losing people we love. Yes, the pink animated alien from a different universe talks about all of these things. The creators were able to flawlessly bring to life Duncan’s final podcast with his mother (who was dying from stage 4 metastatic breast cancer) and symbolize what their last conversation was about, the cycle of life and death and our place in the universe, in animated form. She talks about how opening your heart will also cause you to feel pain as well, and how if you try to fight that river of pain it will only make it worse, because there is no point in trying to stop that current. We’re only mortal humans, after all. Without delving too deep into spoiler territory, it’s incredibly touching and the strongest episode of the season.
This show will make you go from “huh, that’s pretty funny and interesting”, to “wow, that was kind of mind-blowing, I never thought about that before”, to contemplating your life at 3am. The world can be a crazy and intense mess, and sometimes life can get hard for many of us. What this show teaches you is to not dwell on the past or worry about what the future will hold. Just be here and be present in the moment.