‘The Midnight Gospel’ Creator Opens Up About That Heartbreaking Final Episode
The Midnight Gospel, the Netflix TV series, shows a podcaster named Clancy traveling to different simulations to find guests. It’s a wacky animated series, but it also gets deeply emotional. The show’s final episode gets really intense. Recently, the guy who voiced Clancy revealed what it was like to interview his actual mother — who later died of cancer — for the show.
‘The Midnight Gospel’ was created by comedian Duncan Trussell and animated show alum Pendleton Ward
IndieWire recently talked to Pendleton Ward (who created Adventure Time) and Duncan Trussell, who together created The Midnight Gospel.
“There was a method to the seeming madness of the show,” the publication reported. Ward told IndieWire:
With TV schedules, you gotta run with things a lot! Clancy’s arc came about organically. I don’t think we knew where the show would end up. For me, writing feels like playing ‘Dungeons & Dragons’… a lot of improvising in the moment and rarely planning too far ahead.
The final episode of ‘The Midnight Gospel’ was by far the most emotional
“But it all came together in the final episode, ‘Mouse of Silver,'” IndieWire reported. It’s “about death and spiritual transcendence.” In the episode, “Clancy encounters his mother (Trussell’s late mom, Deneen Fendig, from their podcast) and he reverts to a child as they begin to age.”
Trussell told the publication about The Midnight Gospel episode and his mother:
As long as I could remember, we’d have these deep philosophical conversations. They were like dinner table podcasts. She was authentically spiritual. Sadly, everyone loses their mother. I was crying and wasn’t sure I could handle being in the edits for this one, so that was a lot of phone conversations. When I finally saw it, it was one of the highlights of my life because I didn’t think I’d see my mom again. Suddenly, there she was in a psychedelic animated show.
Ward agrees.
“… the messages in it have helped me get a grip on how to approach life and death with some calmness,” he explained.
