The Midnight Club, or "Come for the Horror, Stay for the Enlightenment"

I have never recapped a Pike book, though I used to read his books almost as religiously as Fear Streets in the ‘90s. Pike is a philosopher king compared to R. L. Stine. Fear Street is all slasher-gore horror but doesn’t come with tons of depth (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) Pike, however, seems to start off down on your typical horror road, then it spins out into something extravagantly weird, like “but we were actually ancient pagan gods and live in another dimension” kind of stuff. Pike’s books were pretty trippy.

But my attention was caught by the Netflix series based on his book The Midnight Club. It looks scary, and I thought it might be something fun to recap, seeing as I’ve been enjoying recapping R. L.’s shows. With that in mind, I’ve read The Midnight Club. It is … not at all what I expected. Although perhaps I should have, since it is classic Pike. And now I’m even more curious about The Midnight Club series. Does it follow the same path as the book? Does it take a creepy concept (dying kids make a pact to reach out to others after death) and take it in a whole different direction? Let me know if you’d like to see the recaps of the show here! Also if you're looking for more horror, check out my new blog post on The Scariest Monsters in Literature.

On to the recap: Ilonka is dying of cancer. She lives in Rotterdam Hospice, a very fancy mansion that has been repurposed for children receiving end-of-life care – no treatments, only pain management and whatever comfort they can find in a cool old place and each other. It used to be the home of an oil tycoon, set on the Pacific Coast in Washington State. 

Ilonka has a remarkably upbeat attitude to keep on living life right to the end. Her roommate, Anya, feels otherwise. She lives in excruciating pain from her bone cancer and likes drugs and not much else. Her leg has been amputated and she can barely move for the pain. She reads the Bible by day and tells scary stories at night. She also tells hard truths, like the fact that Ilonka is obviously in love with Kevin, another guest at the hospice, which is super awkward since he has a devoted girlfriend.

Ilonka is aware of all this. She hates Kevin’s girlfriend, thinks she’s insipid. She loooooves Kevin and believes her connection to him has to do with the ancient past. Whoof, it didn’t take long to get to the esoteric stuff Pike loves so much!

She takes like 6 T3s to forget about the girlfriend and push the pain away. These kids take a lot of drugs. 

Ilonka is awoken by Sandra to make the next meeting of the Midnight Club. It’s a group of five kids who meet in the library at midnight to tell each other stories. Ilonka is happy she didn’t sleep through it because she has a tale to tell.

Spence is the fifth member of the club, and is a bit of an energetic trickster. He tells a bloody, gory story, which is typical of him. Then Anya tells a disturbing story about doppelgangers and deals with the devil.

Ilonka starts her story, about a past life – 20,000 years ago in Egypt. Delius is the follower of a divine Master and had a good friend, Shradna. It’s a sad story, because Shradna’s daughter dies, then Delius and Shradna fight and fall out. Also, Ilonka believes that she is Delius, and Kevin is Shradna, though she leaves that last part out.

Kevin goes next. He tells a story of an angel who falls in love with a human and becomes mortal to be with her. Ooh, what could this mean?

The next day, Kevin’s girlfriend Kathy comes to see him. Ilonka takes her aside and tells her Kevin is going to die, that’s why he’s in a hospice and she’s only hurting him by talking about their after because they’re not going to get an after. Kathy leaves in tears and Ilonka feels terrible. It’s the worst thing she’s ever done because she only did it because she wants Kevin so bad.

Ilonka has been eating only fruits and vegetables and taking lots of vitamins, so she doesn’t listen to her own advice that she’s in a hospice and there’s only one way out of a place like that. She thinks she’s getting better and demands to be taken to get an MRI to prove it. 

Before the next Midnight Club, Anya shares a story for only Ilonka. It’s a real story. She was in love with her boyfriend and thought it was too good to be true. She fucked it up because her love freaked her out so much, and gets caught cheating with another man. She had made a sculpture of two lovers together for her boyfriend, who threw it to the ground when he finds them. The woman’s leg breaks off, right where Anya’s is amputated. She wonders if it means anything, as she got sick not long after that.

At the club, Spence is all kinds of mischievous and has wine for all of them. Ilonka takes only two small sips, thinking the wine tastes funny. Anya is in a remarkably good mood, maybe because of the wine and morphine mix. They talk about trying to reach out to each other when they’re gone, to show them there is an afterlife. Only this is not scary at all, but peaceful and sweet, a way to comfort each other. 

Spence has another bloody gory story that is short and entertaining. Ilonka goes next, and it’s another of her past lives, this time in India. She went against her caste to marry and has a child who will/did become a divine prophet called the Master, so that guy’s always mixed up with her lives. Pike always does spiritual stuff like that.

At this point, I am so curious what the show is actually like because we are ¾ of the way through the book and the only plot so far basically is: dying teens tell rambling stories.

Ilonka falls asleep hard that night and has more and more past-life dreams. In these, it appears she’s being led by Jesus, who speaks of God’s love, but she refers to him as Master. She begs him to bring back her dead husband, and she basically tells her she’s not very enlightened.

When she wakes Anya is dead. She wonders whether something happened to her (besides, you know, the bone cancer that was actively killing her). The doctors assure her of course her body had reached its end naturally and there would be no autopsy. 

Then a powerful rumour spreads through Rotterdam: one of the guests there has been misdiagnosed. One of them is not condemned.

Ilonka is sure it’s her because she had her MRI the other day. She’s happy and goes for a  walk with Kevin. He knows he was in her past lives, and he tells her the story about the angel was about them, too.

But then Ilonka sees Sandra packing her stuff.  Nobody packs their stuff here, that’s done for them after they’re gone. So Ilonka realizes it’s not her that gets to leave through the front doors. Her new diagnosis is much worse – she has maybe a couple of weeks.

Kevin finishes his story of the angel for her and it’s about love and acceptance and death. She tells him she loves him, he feels the same way, and they sleep together (though neither has the energy for actual sex, they’re together emotionally). She dreams of other past lives – one where she is a king, tempted by a woman who knows the secret of powerful addictive sex act called The Rapture.

Then in the next life she’s a poor, sick, bald milkmaid in Scandinavia, unloved and unlucky. She learns a different addictive sex act, called The Seedling, which forces others to be with her and she becomes promiscuous. A wizard gives her the power and now he wants her to use it to seduce and kill a count. She prays to be released from this and she is found by the young man she loved her whole life. He loves her too. They run away together but the wizard finds her and stabs her in the guts. Before she dies, the boy says he’ll find her again. She says she has many sins to pay for, but he says he’ll take them on as well so he might be with her.

Ilonka wakes up, her stomach burning with the same pain as from the other life and realizes this is the price she paid for wicked deeds before. But she wakes up in Kevin’s arms, so that’s okay. They kiss and tell each other they love each other, and he dies in her arms.

After that, it’s just her and Spence left. He admits to drugging Ilonka the night with the wine and then smothering Anya at her request. She asked him to do it because he believes he already killed someone, so his karma could take it. Spence is dying of AIDS, and he never told his partner he had it, though he hadn’t known he was infected when they first got together.

Ilonka tells him he’s forgiven, but if he would like, she’ll stay with him for the next life and share in whatever payment that comes with his sins, as Kevin did for her. 

She goes into the stars after that.

Wow. I mean, it’s a sweet story. There is nothing scary here. Even the kids who are dying are given the comfort of future lives to look forward to. It’s not Fear Street, that’s for sure. Essentially, it’s a story of divine love. I'm not sure how to rate this, but I'll go for 7 raptures out of 11.

The Treehouse: A Just Beyond Recap

 Song: Perfect World

The Treehouse is the highest-rated of all the Just Beyond episodes, so I was curious: was it sweeter, or was it scarier? Read to the end to find out!

Sam has just purchased a mint copy of a comic book – Commander Canada, with his maple syrup blaster. That is hilarious. Sam is kinda a nerdy kid with a great best friend, Mason, and they’re so excited about their new purchase. Then this mean kid Tommy grabs it from him and throws it in a puddle, so it’s no longer mint.

Mason is sweet, tells Sam he knows what that comic would have meant to his dad, but Sam doesn’t want to talk about it. He goes home to his mom, who tells him they need to move on and have a normal life again, but Sam doesn’t want to – he doesn’t want to forget his dad died. Oh, my heart just broke.

Sam goes out to the treehouse he made with his dad before he died, and reads comics, but a vicious storm blows in and the treehouse is struck by lightning and collapses.

He wakes up in bed, but it’s not his bed or his room. It’s beautiful and huge. He’s in sports photos with town bully Tommy and it appears they are best friends. Downstairs, he realizes he’s in a mansion, and the people calling him son aren’t his mom and dad. They’re concerned that he doesn’t know them, but not too worried because he had a soccer injury that apparently could lead to memory loss.

Sam runs the hell away from his Stepford fake family to his real house. His mom is there, but she has no idea who he is. And then – biggest heartbreaker yet – his dad is there. In this reality he’s alive, and he doesn’t know Sam. They’re talking about calling the police, but nicely, so Sam runs away.

Oh, but in this new reality, he keeps flashing to a grisly wasteland that sort of overrides the lovely neighbourhoods around him, so you get the sense that if things aren’t put back into place, things are going to get apocalyptic. So Sam goes to Mason to get his help. But it turns out new Sam is actually a total bully and Mason hates him.

But Sam tells him a bunch of weird stuff about him he shouldn’t know and tells Mason to trust him. Since Mason of this world is also still into comic books and other dimensions, he’s easy to convince. He tells Sam the fact that he’s glitching isn’t good, and if he doesn’t get out of new reality he’ll end up being stuck in the wasteland. How to get out of this reality? He’ll have to get a new treehouse from his old dad.

So Sam also tells his dad weird stuff he shouldn’t know – and this dad in the new reality begins to be convinced a little bit too. 

The world glitches again, and it’s really creepy. Sam goes back to his fake house and wonders if he’ll just wake up and everything will be normal. But then he thinks, he’ll never be able to see his dad again, and I have a lump in my throat.

Sam wakes up in the alternate dimension. He goes to his real dad’s and they start talking treehouses. He’s so kind. The mom thinks they’re both crazy, but dad figures – if Sam is right then he’s helping his kid get home and if he’s wrong, then he’s helping out a lonely kid. Besides, he’s always wanted a treehouse, and he and his wife start to think about maybe having kids. She might be starting to believe him a little bit too. They go as a family to a diner and a lumber yard, and I love this family bonding. I do wonder what his fake family is thinking, like “Sam has a head injury and has completely disappeared – shrug.” Sam is better off with these awesome human beings.

Tommy the bully wonders what’s up with him, and Sam gives him an excellent burn. He’s having so much fun being with his complete family again. But then he glitches in the backyard and he sees the wasteland – where the treehouse is collapsed and his mother is screaming for him. Creepy.

So they’ve made an amazing treehouse in like a day – I’m impressed. A crazy storm is blowing in and Sam knows this is his chance. The three of them carve their initials into the ladder. He says goodbye to his mom and goes into the treehouse. His dad waits with him. His dad says he’ll see him in another life. Sam breaks down and tells him he’s not in the other reality, he died, and he doesn’t want to go back to a place where he’s gone. Dad doesn’t want to know how it happens but tells him he needs to go back to be with his mom. Sam tells his dad he loves him and they hug and his dad is so so kind.

Are you kidding me with this? I’m not crying, you’re … no, I’m definitely crying. Just Beyond has made me openly cry. A lightning flash.

Sam wakes up in the hospital, his real mom is there waiting for him. He’s been out since the treehouse collapsed. He tells his mom he saw his dad and he helped him find his way back, and there I go again. This is so sad and sweet. 

Sam inspects the wreckage of the treehouse later, and he finds the initials that his alternate family carved into the ladder. 

Oh man, this show legit made me cry, and not just because I miss my dad, or maybe exactly for that reason. I loved it. 9 broken-hearted alternate realities out of 9.

Standing Up For Yourself: A Just Beyond Recap

Song: Break My Stride (honestly this video could not possibly be more '80s, it has to be seen to be believed)

Welcome to Larkinville, the best small town in the world. Except for Trevor. Trevor’s kind of a dick. No, scratch that, a major dick. Not only is he the worst, but everyone is scared of him. He’s only a teenager, but adults are cringing away from him, letting him get away with whatever he wants. Why? Oh, because he’s Trevor Larkin, and his daddy owns the town. Basically entirely – he employs everyone, and is everybody’s landlord. And he is like King Dick, so Trevor comes by it honestly.

At high school, all the kids are essentially his servants or toadies – the nerdy kids do all his work. Anything that isn’t perfect for him, he’ll hit someone. So, Trevor is a psycho. He breaks a kid’s nose in dodgeball, and the mother of the child is out for blood. But he can’t be expelled because … they would all be fired. Principal warns the mom not to do anything – not only will she be fired, her family will be evicted.

A new kid comes to town. He’s like bully-fodder – he is slight and seems nerdy, he has a fake leg and his name is Burger. Trevor is delighted and immediately starts to harass him. The other kids warn the new kid, Evan, to just do what he says. “Welcome to the resistance.”

Trevor demands Evan empty his backpack, but turns out new kid has a spine, and says no. Trevor threatens him, but Evan warns him he’s making a mistake. He gets fully pummelled by Trevor.

A few hours later, Evan is brought to Trevor’s house by his grandmother, who doesn’t really speak English but demands an apology. Nobody is surprised when Trevor is a dick to her, too. The grandma starts chanting – that’s never a good sign. I’m getting Beauty and the Beast vibes here. Everything goes dark and Trevor is actually spooked. A new wind blows through Larkinville, and everyone looks up for a moment. 

That night, Trevor has dinner with his dad, who is unsurprisingly horrible. He laughs about how he did in fact fire and evict the mom whose son’s nose Trevor had broken. Trevor’s mom (stepmom because she’s pretty young?) seems scared of her husband and feels sorry for the family they just destroyed. Is she nice? But then she’s super inappropriate at the dinner table with her husband, and both Trevor and I are horrified. She does offer that Trevor shouldn’t be so aggressive, but the Larkin men agree that if you’re not stomping on others, they’ll be stomping at you. A spooky wind blows things against the window. 

When Trevor wakes up the next day, he’s a little kid! He goes into town and the townspeople aren’t scared of him anymore, he’s not getting away with anything. Then they realize it’s him because of a scar on his face, and they’re even less scared. In fact, there are several adults who are looking for a little payback. This is kinda scary, actually, and Trevor runs away. He’s literally being chased by townspeople and dogs, and kinda deserves it.

Oops, none of the kids in school are scared of him either. Nor are the teachers or the principal. It looks like he’s going to be actually ripped apart but new kid Evan stops them. He says if they continue, then they are as bad as Trevor is.

Trevor escapes and goes to the old lady’s house, the witch who put this spell on him. He begs her for forgiveness, and she tells him: Love others and you love yourself. Hurt others and you hurt yourself. He says he understands, and she says when he wakes up, the world will be as it should. He has the chance at a new life.

Oh no, Trevor, listen to her language! But he goes home to bed, and when he wakes up, he’s back to his massive bullying self. Has he learned a lesson? Of course not! He storms out of bed in the mood for some payback.

But as he tramples the flowerbed like he always does, the gardener speaks out against him – oh, and it’s his dad! The world really has changed overnight. Evan and his family live in his old mansion and they own the town now. 

Only Evan is kind. And the world is a much better place now.

Aww, loved this ending. I felt Trevor shouldn’t have gotten off too easy, and he didn’t. Now he’ll have to work in this new life to be better. Perfect. The message we learned? I’ll repeat the witch: Love others and you love yourself. Hurt others and you hurt yourself. An excellent way to live life, no matter who you are. 

Not the scariest of shows by a long shot, but gosh darn it I’m being swayed by all this good messaging. Am I becoming a better person? 8 angry mobs out of 10.

We've Got Spirit: A Just Beyond Recap

Listen to: Dancing Under the Stars

Get your jazz hands ready for this one! I honestly wasn’t expecting to enjoy Just Beyond as much as I did. I certainly wasn’t expecting them to be so heartwarming; this one could be enjoyed with a cup of cocoa. Or maybe some popcorn, as it takes place in the theatre.

Ella, a surly teen is on her way to school. She’s having a hard time there, as her best friend Zoe ditched her last year and she’s having trouble getting over how much that hurt. They are both in performance class together, where the teacher demands they all lay their souls bare, which Ella is clearly not in the mood to do.

They take a field trip to the Fox Theater, housed in a beautiful turn-of-the-century building. I had to look up this place, and it turns out Just Beyond was mainly filmed in Atlanta, and the Fox Theatre is a real place there (and also might be for real haunted!) Booking ghost tour in Atlanta immediately.

The fictional Fox Theater is also supposed to be haunted, as it burned down in ’38, taking with it the lives of the theatre troupe rehearsing at the time. The tour director plays it up, staging a bit of a haunted moment where the lights go on and off, and the script of the play they were rehearsing appears on the table (Unfinished Business – a little on the nose!). Ella is overwhelmed in this space, and her former friend Zoe isn’t helping – what a bitch! She runs away from the field trip to avoid having to perform, and ends up falling asleep on the couch in a tucked-away room.

First rule in horror shows: one should never go off alone in creepy haunted theatres. But unfortunately for Ella, she gets left behind and locked in the building. She wakes up to a dead phone and barred doors, and wow is she taking this better than I would!

The chandeliers sway in a ghostly breeze and everything is v. creepy – good job on giving me the chills. Just when everything goes quiet again, doors open and slam on their own and a ghost swishes right by her. Ella is about ready to faint, and the whole ghostly theatre troupe appears in front of her. They look her over and say they want to transform her.

Don’t worry, though, they don’t want her as a ghost, they want her to be an actress! They’ve been looking for someone to help them rehearse a play because they’re down an actor. They’re dead, but they’re not scary – so they say. They’re sweet and sassy, straight from the dirty thirties. And they demand that Ella get over her stage fright right away.

She doesn’t have anything better to do so she tries to run lines with them, but Ella sucks. One of the ghosts possesses her to show her how it’s done, and good job actress for the dual body stuff, very cool. She’s angry about the possession, but just then a terrifying ghost skull shows up to attack them. They warn her to run – apparently, even ghosts are scared of some things. This skull used to show up a lot, but hasn’t happened in a long time. They figure it’s because Ella is there, and they need to get her out.

She goes upstairs to a room that has the blueprints of the theatre and smashes the case – Quiet Ella feels frocking awesome about smashing things up! Girl needs to come out of her shell. One of the ghosts gives her the backstory about the overbearing actress who possessed her – she had been fighting with a young actress the night of the fire, Dolores, who ran away before the fire. Just after he shares this, the ghosts disappears and the slurpee machine in the concession oozes over the top. The ghostly tension builds up, until a ghostly hand grabs Ella, holding it over her mouth. She dashes for the door to the basement, but it’s been bricked over. Ghostly writing appears on the bricks: Please stop.

Damn. That was scary. Now she’s exploring the theatre with a young ghost her age who appears to have a crush on her, it’s adorable. She tells him her story about her friend Zoe, how they used to sing and songwrite together, but then Zoe didn’t want to hang out anymore. She wrote a song for her, telling her how much she missed her, and sent it to her. Zoe, that bitch, shared with the whole school and everyone laughed at her. Ella hasn’t been able to perform since Zoe did that, and I kinda can’t blame her. She says she feels like she’s stuck in limbo, and ghost can agree with that. She sings for him, and he gives her the keys to get out. He had them the whole time, he just wanted to hang with her for a bit.

She thanks the whole troupe and is about to leave when a message from Dolores appears and the horrible skull appears and chases the ghosts away. Ella makes a decision and goes after the actors. She has figured out that Dolores is the demon skull – that she never left the theatre and was caught in the fire same as them. Ella speaks to the skull, understanding how it feels to be cast out, felt like nobody wants them. They make the mean actress apologize to the skull, but the demon ghost is still angry. So Ella tells her (nicely) that she just has to get over it.

Then skull becomes Dolores again, and she says it’s good to let go of the anger she’d been holding for nearly a century. The cast puts on their show, finally, for Ella. As they bow, they then ascend into the light. Their unfinished business was finally completed.

Ella’s parents come to rescue her and she gets out of the theatre. Next time she’s in performance class, Ella gets up and bares her soul, getting her whole class into her song. Even Zoe starts to groove to it (I’ll still be mad – don’t you dare, Zoe). Ella’s moved on, and it’s very moving.

Points for being both cute and at times kinda scary. The message we learned: We need to let go of our anger and move on from things that have hurt us. I’ll give that a standing ovation. 5 demon ghost skulls out of 6.

Unfiltered, a Just Beyond recap

Unfiltered caused some rage to build up in me, so just be warned I might get kind of ranty here! Also, for lovers of all things lit and horror, I'm written a blog post on immortality in literature, and whether it's a blessing or a curse (spoiler alert: for me, immortality will always fall under the horror genre). Check it out at cordeliakelly.

Listen to: Picture Perfect, Sedona

Lily is crazy smart and awesome and as we watch her through the day, we see she’s confident and so full of potential. But, like many teenage girls, she’s also obsessed with selfies and influencers, judging her self-worth based on her looks. She hates her nose, and her glasses, and sometimes wishes she wasn’t a nerd. She confesses to her equally nerdy friend that she wants to be hot, not smart, just once, and go to a party with cute boys. As she says, she wants to be just a touch closer to perfect.

A new crazy-hot teacher breezes into the art class, being all awesome and beautiful as she tells them all to just paint something. Lily’s crush approaches her and she gets her hopes up as he tells her about this party he’s having … and he wants her to tutor him because if he fails his upcoming test, his parents will make him cancel. Lily is crushed that he only sees her as a nerd.

New hot teacher overhears, and tells Lily that it’s hard being pretty too. Okay, no one asked you, hot lady, and I’m offended for Lily that she’s getting involved. Ooh, but now she’s sharing this awesome new beauty app that’s invite-only and I’m realizing that hot teacher is in fact very, very sketchy.

Lily is skeptical, but the beauty app works. As in, it changes her actual face. So she gives herself the nose job of her dream and her face is now perfect.

When she comes to school the next day, she’s just like one of the cute girls.  (Except, let’s just get into this here right now: she could have always worn cute clothes and like, brushed her hair. Self-grooming is okay. Nerds don’t have to only wear oversized flannel.) But whatever, changing her nose and putting on makeup has allowed her to become a changed person. 

Unfortunately, she’s actually a changed person, because as she’s talking to her very smart friend, it’s clear she’s gotten dumber. She looks at the app, that’s flashing a warning sign that side effects include permanent changes in personality.

Except, except, being pretty, wearing make-up or clothes that you like doesn’t actually make you dumb. It’s not an either/or concept, and I’m not loving that this is how it’s being portrayed. It’s a little heavy-handed.

So she ditches her sweet friend to go hang with the popular girls who are into her now that she’s wearing contacts and a crop top. And now she’s chatting with her crush and her real friend is genuinely crushed. The popular girls are kind of mean, though, and they tell Lily she couldn’t land her crush and needed to manage her expectations.

So Lily takes things even further with the app until she doesn’t even look like herself anymore. She also turns into a flaky bitch. She completely fails at the quiz bowl she’d been studying before she got popular, and her friend calls her basic. She will not be accepting calls anymore.

But, things are going Lily’s way because her crush invites her to his party, and I cannot even handle her lips. How does one even speak out of those? I also can’t handle her new, seriously mean attitude. She’s so shallow even her crush can’t handle her, so she frantically goes to upgrade her face again. But she goes too far. She’s turned into one of those weird plastic surgery cat-ladies, it’s a horrifying mess. The whole party goes silent at her face.

She runs to the hot teacher’s house, the one that got her into this hot mess in the first place. It’s weirdly empty and ominous, so obviously she just lets herself in. Hanging in the room are mirrors, where living people are trapped. 

Hot teacher finds her there and gets mad. By now we all know she’s a witch (but not an adorable one) and explains that the people’s spirits are trapped there. They traded their souls to be pretty, because when they have the choice, people will choose outer beauty over inner beauty every time. And she calls Lily out for being shallow.

Lily gets mad and starts smashing the mirrors, realizing that it hurts the witch. She smashes all the mirrors and the souls are released. The witch turns old and ugly, and Lily gets her old face and her old personality back.

First stop, Lily makes up with her friend, who at first plays she’ll never forgive her, but takes her back readily enough. And they walk away with the knowledge that inner beauty is the best. But also apparently that nerds must never think of their appearance because we are only allowed to have one dominant personality trait, and if you want to be smart, that’s it.

Let me finish my rant that wearing makeup doesn’t make women evil? And that wanting to look your best doesn’t actually detract from your other qualities? I get not overdoing it, I get not being swayed by influencers and apps that make it seem like we should all be perfect, but for me, Unfiltered did not hit that mark. 3 hot lips out of 7.

Just Beyond: Leave Them Kids Alone

 Just Beyond

I just can't get enough of R. L. Stine. I was so happy when Disney+ same out with a new series, Just Beyond, based on R. L.'s graphic novels by the same name. I wasn't the only one - I know some of you are into these recaps.

The most tragic thing about me finding these graphic novels is, it wasn't me but my son eagerly reading them. I am now the mother of a horror-loving middle grader and my work writing middle grade horror is making me feel old. Or maybe just that the cycle of horror continues.

Just Beyond is closer to Goosebumps than Fear Street. Unlike Netflix's movie trilogy released in 2021 (you can find my recaps here: 1994, 1978, 1666), this series did not manage to give me the chills. There was no gore, no deaths and no obsessive stalkers. Despite this, I was happy to dive into recapping these shows because they are mainly sweet and usually made me laugh. Every show is its own contained storyline, and each of them has a message with heart (unlike Fear Street, which never really had a message beyond "your boyfriend wants to kill you" or "all twins are at least half evil.") But these messages are relevant to kids of the now.

Hilariously, I often found my life perfectly related to the characters in the show - as the lame parents, obviously. Thank you, Just Beyond, for making me feel both loved and irrelevant at the same time.

Leave Them Kids Alone

Listen to: Green Day Give me Novocaine/She's a Rebel

We start the very first episode of Just Beyond, “Leave Them Kids Alone,” wandering through your typical high school. There are all kinds of kids doing all kinds of things, listening to all kinds of music. I enjoyed the concept of basically “music as personality.” The pink-haired punk queen is listening to punk riffs, the track-suited guy with oversized beats is listening to rap. For the nerdy flannel guy, a podcast on botany. For the dude in a trucker hat, country.

Then we pan to Veronica, being hauled into the office, as Green Day’s Give Me Novacaine/She’s a Rebel plays. She interrupts a girl bubbling to her about texting a guy she likes in the best way possible: “Robin, our planet is dying. Get your head in the game.”

I already love Veronica, she’s giving me major Anna Kendrick vibes. We find out she’s a good girl gone “bad” because she’s interested in climate change. This time she’s suspended for calling for a protest on hamburger day. “One person can make a difference.” Unfortunately, her parents aren’t down with saving the world and they send their activist daughter to a boarding school.

Miss Genevieve’s School for Difficult Girls specializes in girls who “think” and “have ideas.” (how dare they). The school itself is a gothic institutional monstrosity and, unsurprisingly, Veronica doesn’t like it. All the girls walk around with the same sunshiney attitude, and they are all dressed identically in matching pinafores. Everyone’s hair is flipped out 50’s style. 

Veronica shows her rebellious nature with gum – go girl! She’s not going to conform. But the headmistress is ominously sure she’ll be able to break her spirit. She says there’s no girl she can’t bring around to their way of thinking.

Her roommate is amazingly creepy in a Stepford way, which makes me wonder. Are they all robots? She is definitely not okay with Veronica’s rebellious tunes “Music is strictly forbidden.” 

Further forbidding elements in the school – they eat tons of meat and nobody knows what vegan means. And her history teacher is super into girls being put on trial for witchcraft if they are disobedient. When Veronica speaks up about oppression, the other girls in her class get nervous but the teacher just chuckles, saying she hasn’t had her hair appointment yet. Ooh, creepy, a flipped bob is definitely something bad here, and Veronica is just figuring that out.

She tries sneaking out that night, and runs into a mysterious girl who, despite her hair, still looks like she has thoughts. Claire knows her way around the school and shows Veronica how to travel through the vents. She takes her to the hair treatment area and they watch as another girl gets a “hair treatment.” At first she’s tied down and screaming, but by the end of the process, her personality is gone. The struggling “bad” girl is quite suddenly docile, brainwashed.

Claire explains how it is. Parents know what happens at Miss Genevieve’s, but they don’t question it. They send their daughters there because they’re scared. Their little girls are growing up, they’ve stopped listening to them and they don’t want to deal with it. Parents can’t deal with the issues of the world, or their children pointing them out to them, so they prefer to pretend everything is okay. Very on point.

Claire came to the school because her sister is there, only she’s been brainwashed and doesn’t know her. Claire pretends to be the same in order to keep herself intact - she wasn't brainwashed because she has a plate in her head. Veronica suggests maybe the salon could give her personality back, but Claire is worried – what if it makes her worse? But V comes back with what’s worse than not knowing who you are?

Next morning V looks over the sheep around her and starts to whistle the Twilight Zone, which is pretty funny, but she draws the ire of Miss Genevieve herself, and is hauled into her office. Miss G is uber creepy and talks about breaking all the little brats. After this, V runs into Claire, and it’s clear she was caught and brainwashed the night before. She talks about how everything feels so clear, so light now.

Veronica gives up. She starts to think it might be nice to be brainwashed. She asks her roommate what it’s like not to care about anything. She’s starting to crave the clarity, the thought that the world is a great place she used to have when she was younger. Ready to be brainwashed, she gives her roommate her stereo as a farewell gift. 

But roommate seems to be fighting something, and slowly pressed the music on. “She’s a Rebel” blasts out and roommate screams in agony. V turns it off but the damage has been done. Her roommate is changed – she’s back. She doesn’t know what happened and is horrified by her hair. 

V goes to the office, with a plan. She tells Miss G she’s ready to be brainwashed, calling her out on the whole plan. Miss G smirks and tells her no parent’s ever complained about her methods. Their choices are taken away from them, and V thinks it’s because the grown-ups are scared. Miss G tells her today’s children are lazy and full of themselves. 

V gestures to the office, where roommate has snuck in, and starts playing She’s a Rebel over the loudspeaker. All the girls screech in agony, then look around in disbelief. V has given them their personalities back.

The last shot is all these bobbed, pinafored girls running through the field. Let the rebellion begin.

Loved it. Was Leave Them Kids Alone scary? Well, obviously the concept of grown up trying to control the thoughts of their children because they don’t like what they have to say is insanely creepy, there were no jump scares. Will Miss G perhaps sneak her way into my nightmares? Very possibly.

Message learnt: Be true to yourself and your personality, and never stop asking the hard questions. I give Leave Them Kids Alone 6 bobbed personality-less hairstyles out of 7, for being charming and essentially heartwarming.

She’s a rebel, she’s a rebel, she’s a rebel,
and she’s dangerous