Episodes 01

“The Final Chapter”

In the mid-1990s, teenager Ilonka has terminal thyroid cancer. Following visions she’s been having, Ilonka decides to go to Brightcliffe Hospice Care for Teenagers, where decades prior a teenager named Julia Jayne was supposedly cured of thyroid cancer. At Brightcliffe, Ilonka gets to know the teenagers already there; she bonds with Kevin, who has leukemia, but has trouble with her roommate, Anya. On the first night close to midnight, Ilonka follows Anya to the library, where the teens have gathered for a secret meeting of “the Midnight Club”. In this club, they share scary stories and agree to a pact that whoever dies first, will try to come back to tell the others if there is an afterlife. As part of her initiation to the club, Ilonka tells a semi-fictionalized story about Julia Jayne.

Episodes 02

“The Two Danas”

Ilonka tries to investigate Julia and Brightcliffe’s past as the headquarters of a cult named “Paragon”, but Dr. Stanton, who runs Brightcliffe, claims ignorance of both topics. Ilonka explores the woods around Brightcliffe and meets Shasta, a woman who lives nearby and believes in the land’s healing properties. Anya sees a shadow with red eyes watching her. For Midnight Club, Anya tells a story about a ballerina who made a deal with the devil. Ilonka breaks into Dr. Stanton’s office with Kevin’s help and steals Julia’s case file. Afterward, Ilonka has a vivid vision where she sees Brightcliffe as it was in the past and a ghostly old woman.

Episodes 03

“The Wicked Heart”

Ilonka reads Julia’s case file and finds drawings with a symbol and the number “292.13”. Ilonka tells Kevin about the visions and whispering voices she’s heard her entire life that are now telling her to look into Julia, but he doesn’t take her seriously, since all of them have medication-induced hallucinations. Tristan, one of the Brightcliffe patients, dies. Afterward, Natsuki thinks she sees Tristan in her room and tells the other Midnight Club members, but they decide it’s not enough to be evidence of the fulfillment of their pact. Kevin tells the club a story about a teenage boy who is a serial killer. The story triggers Ilonka’s memory, and she and Kevin follow Julia’s symbol to a secret floor beneath the basement, where Ilonka sees a ghostly figure.

Episodes 04

“Gimme a Kiss”

Ilonka and Kevin bring the rest of the Midnight Club to the secret floor. They find records of the original Midnight Club, which was founded by Julia in 1969, as well as evidence of cultists. Ilonka meets Shasta again. Sandra, who is religious, and Spencer, who has AIDS, get into an argument but reconcile after Sandra apologizes through a detective noir story she tells at Midnight Club. Spencer hears a voice calling to him through the intercom at Tristan’s old room. Kevin goes to his girlfriend Katherine’s senior prom. Ilonka realizes that “292.13” refers to the Dewey Decimal System, and uses it to search the Brightcliffe library for a book with the symbol on it. Anya sees the shadow again and collapses.

Episodes 05

“See You Later”

Ilonka gives Anya CPR, reviving her. Ilonka reads the book, which is a diary written by Athena, a survivor of Paragon. Paragon, a health cult founded by Athena’s mother Aceso in 1931, practiced five-goddess worship and blood sacrifice, and culminated in a group murder-suicide orchestrated to extend Aesco’s lifespan. Ilonka thinks that Julia read Athena’s diary and found a way to cure her cancer. Ilonka has another vision of old Brightcliffe and follows the old woman through the halls into the library, where she bumps into Kevin. At Midnight Club, Spencer tells everyone about the intercom voice, and Amesh tells a story about a gamer who’s invited to play a seemingly unwinnable war game. Anya confesses to Ilonka that she’s scared of the shadow, which makes Ilonka more determined to find a cure.

Episodes 06

“Witch”

At Midnight Club, Kevin continues his story about the teenage serial killer, and Ilonka tells a story about a modern-day witch who tries to use magic to help her friends. Anya collapses again, but Ilonka refuses to accept her fate peacefully. Ilonka meets Shasta in the woods; Shasta reveals that she knows about the five-goddess worship and that the religion is much older than Paragon. Ilonka asks the Midnight Club to do a ritual following Shasta’s instructions, and all of them participate.

Episodes 07

“Anya”

Dr. Stanton catches the club. The ritual was completed but Anya is in a coma, where she dreams that she healed and returned to society, but her life is empty and she outlived her friends. She realizes she’s dreaming when she recognizes the dream as an amalgamation of the Midnight Club’s stories. Anya can hear her friends’ voices, and they tell her a story where all of them got better and lived out long lives together. Anya dies in her sleep. Shasta tells Ilonka that the ritual doesn’t work every time. Dr. Stanton burns Athena’s journal and debates whether to shut down the Midnight Club, which she has known about all along. Ilonka hears Dr. Stanton tell someone on the phone that one of her patients might not be terminal. Ilonka sees a ghostly old woman and man in her room, and the woman declares that she’s “hungry”.

Episodes 08

“Road to Nowhere”

Ilonka confronts Dr. Stanton about what she overheard. Dr. Stanton swears her to secrecy, but Ilonka tells Kevin. Ilonka believes she’s the one who’s been cured by the ritual and tells Shasta, who invites her to join her commune. Spencer visits his mother to get closure on her disowning him for his sexuality. Midnight Club is canceled because Dr. Stanton locked the library. Natsuki, who is dating Amesh, tells him her planned Midnight Club story about a girl who gives a ride to a pair of hitchhikers. Ilonka goes to the building’s secret floor where she sees the old woman; when Ilonka touches the old woman, the vision transforms into Kevin.

Episodes 09

“The Eternal Enemy”

Sandra is the one whose cancer has regressed, and Dr. Stanton tells her that her terminal diagnosis was an error. Kevin tells Ilonka that he’s been sleepwalking to the secret floor ever since they found it and that he’s been seeing the same visions and figures as her. They tell the other Midnight Club members but are met with skepticism, especially when Sandra confesses that she was the one who spoke to Spencer through Tristan’s intercom. Disillusioned, Ilonka goes to Shasta, who reveals that she is Julia Jayne. At Midnight Club, Spencer tells a story about a college student whose VCR records news from the future. Ilonka sneaks Shasta and other female commune members into the building to do the ritual to heal Ilonka, but Ilonka is suspicious when the ritual is different from the one Shasta taught her. Dr. Stanton interrupts the ritual before it can be completed.

Episodes 10

“Midnight”

Dr. Stanton interrupts the ritual, saving Ilonka and the other women’s lives, but Shasta escapes. Ilonka realizes that Shasta tried to use her for a murder-suicide ritual that Shasta was hoping would extend her own lifespan. Dr. Stanton believes that in the past, Shasta/Julia’s cancer spontaneously regressed, but Shasta attributed it to magic instead of luck, and she is trying to do the ritual again because cancer returned. Ilonka finally starts to accept her impending death. Sandra goes home after tearful goodbyes to her friends. Amesh starts seeing the shadow following him. Spencer’s mother visits him on Family Day. Kevin breaks up with his girlfriend in order to pursue a relationship with Ilonka. Ilonka discovers that Anya’s broken ballerina statue has become whole again; she reports this to the Midnight Club, who tentatively take this as a sign from Anya. Kevin finishes his story about the teenage serial killer, and Ilonka finishes her story about the witch, with the rest of the Midnight Club helping her tell the ending. The episode ends with the reveal that the old man and woman Ilonka and Kevin have been seeing are the original founders of the Brightcliffe building and that Dr. Stanton has a tattoo of the five-goddess cult.