The Midnight Gospel (2020) s01e07 Episode Script

1
[David] You could learn how to do that.
[David's voice playing in reverse]
[rewinding]
Shoving a butt plug-- butt plug
in the asshole-- asshole of your mind.
[fast forwarding]
-I'm enlightened now.
-[whirring]
[clicks]
[whirring]
[rhythmic music playing]
Butt plug ♪
Butt plug ♪
Butt plug ♪
-[Clancy's voice] I'm enlightened now.
-[David] In the asshole of your mind.
-Butt, butt plug ♪
-[vacuum suctioning]
Butt plug ♪
I need light.
-Or plants.
-[Clancy's voice] I'm enlightened now.
-What, my chonchichi?
-[barks]
Bed? No.
[computer]
Clancy, I found a planet that you'll like.
-[Clancy] We'll see about that.
-[whirring]
[computer] Norval 8.
This planet has rivers of wine
and mescaline fruit.
That parrot would make a great interview.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Maybe you didn't hear the song, but
-[David] Butt plug ♪
-[Clancy's voice] I'm enlightened now.
I'm enlightened now! Ah!
I got enlightened! Uh!
What about Lensor-Didor?
The planet of waterslide parks
and trampolines--
-I'm enlightened now!
-[pops]
-Okay, what about Planet Blank Ball?
-Perfect.
I made you some boring avatars,
Enlightened One.
Thank you.
-[whirring]
-Do you like them?
[hesitantly] Yeah
I made one that looks just like you,
except it's made out of cream.
-Is that cool?
-Mmm.
-Yeah.
-[whirring]
Send me down to Planet Blank Ball, boy!
[computer] As you wish.
Merging with simulator in
Are you chewing gum?
-[Clancy spits]
-Thank you, Master.
-Love you, bud.
-Two
one
[grunts]
[groans]
It really is just a big, blank ball.
[inhales, exhales]
Oh, God, fuck this.
Let's spice this ball up!
Hey, man.
-[groaning]
-[slide screeching]
-[thudding]
-Oh!
[grunting]
[groaning]
Hey, man, you got a hose for this thing?
I'm all chafed.
[clears throat]
You don't talk?
Okay, that's cool.
There's got to be one in here.
I've just got to remember where I put it.
[screams] Yeah!
Whoa!
[thuds]
[creature squawking]
[Clancy] Wow.
Damn.
That's a lot of stuff.
-[elephant trumpeting]
-[Clancy whistles]
What's up, baby?
[groaning]
Who's there?
[groaning continues]
[sniffs]
[groaning]
[whispering] Must ask questions.
-So much mystery.
-[buzzing]
Perfect for spacecast.
[deep voice] I am Death.
-It's nice to meet you. My name's Clancy.
-[Death wheezing, coughing]
[female voice]
Sorry, I had something in my throat.
[low voice droning]
Hey, would you like to be interviewed
for my spacecast? It's a space blast.
It goes into space.
I guess.
But before we start,
you need to describe my form
so I can manifest.
-Huh?
-[Death] Describe me.
What does Death look like to you?
Uh, all right, 14 feet tall
with nice hair,
one fun eyeball, a crab claw
with a fancy jeweled glove, a bat wing,
one clown leg
and all that in a child's red wagon.
-Is the wagon a part of me?
-[Clancy] Yeah.
And your butt is a rhino back half
with a food force field,
and the rhino's legs
are always standing in poop.
[Death] I think we need to simplify this.
Oh, okay.
Lose the middle and that gross boy
with the handles for hands.
I didn't ask for that.
[squeaks]
[Clancy] Try putting that crab claw back,
but smaller.
Now you can push along on the ground.
This isn't very practical.
[Clancy]
Okay. Well, how about you add a jet pack?
I'm not like "creepy Death" anymore.
I'm just like--
All right, how do you feel
about just being a normal Grim Reaper,
but keep that fun-looking eyeball?
[Death sighs]
You look cool.
Mind if we can start the interview?
Oh, yeah.
-I'm gonna start recording.
-[creature chattering]
-[Clancy] Hey, that's my hose!
-[Death] Huh.
[chattering] Ha ha!
[screams, squeaks]
Fuck! That little tart baker took my hose.
You mind if we walk and talk
so I can get the hose back
-for my waterslide?
-Sure.
-[Clancy] So you're Death.
-[Death] Mm-hmm.
[Clancy]
Losing people to you is so painful.
[Death] It is.
Do you have any advice
for people who are dealing with death
in their own lives?
Yeah. So the best thing you could possibly
do for yourself in your entire life,
I think, is be super present
for those moments.
-Yes!
-Like, 100% in,
like, sitting with the dead body
or 100%, like, sitting with the placenta
and the newborn, mewling,
covered-in-mucus baby.
Yes.
[Death]
These are the moments of primal reality
-that we don't get in our daily lives.
-Yeah. Mm-hmm.
-And they're actively kept from us.
-[sinister laughter]
By an elaborate system.
What is that system?
This seems truly like the conspiracy
nobody talks about.
Yeah,
it's one of my favorite conspiracies,
is, like, the death industrial complex.
[Clancy] What is this?
Can we talk about this?
Well, I can tell you for death
and I can tell you my theories.
Which, I don't even know if they're
theories. I think they're facts.
-I'll put them out there as facts.
-Cool.
So, what happened, it really happened
around the turn of the 20th century.
So you had--
-And keep in mind
-[snarling]
this is primar--
The extent to which it happens
is an American convention.
[Clancy] Oh.
-It's a United States convention.
-[Clancy] Yeah.
It happens to some degree
in many other places in the world,
but the US is really the king.
It's the mafia don
of this kind of cover-up of death.
Sorry. I'm sorry.
I don't mean to interrupt you.
Can you tell me
what these tart-baking mirrors are?
Sure.
This is a trial of judgment.
All these mirrors reflect
parts of yourself that you're ashamed of,
stuff you try to hide from yourself.
You have to forgive them.
-Forgive them?
-Sure. This is a good icebreaker.
-[Clancy] Hmm.
-[snarling]
Huh?
[Death] So during the American Civil War,
you see the rise of embalming,
which is chemically treating a dead body,
which keeps it fresh a little longer,
staves off decomposition a little longer.
Was this-- Was this because people
were dying far away from home
-and they wanted--
-Exactly. Exactly.
So the history is that you had all these
Northern soldiers going down to the South,
dying on the battlefield.
It was really important
in the Protestant ethos of the time
-that you see the dead body.
-[Clancy] Hmm.
[Death] So the train conductors
were getting all these decomposing corpses
on their train and they would go,
"Nope, kick 'em out.
We're not doing this anymore.
You can't pile up
your decomposing corpses in my train."
[playing jazz]
[Clancy] Holy shit, a sax man.
[Death] That's Judgment.
Wow, I was just thinking,
"I wish there was a sax man around."
So you had these enterprising young men,
who were embalmers,
who would follow the battles,
battlefield to battlefield,
like ambulance chasers.
-Whoa.
-Going to the battles
and setting up their tents.
They would prop up abandoned bodies
that they had embalmed
from the battlefield
to show their work,
as little advertisements,
like window advertisements
for their skills.
-[Clancy] Wow.
-[Death] And you would pay them
to basically, at that time,
disembowel the body,
put some arsenic in the body
to preserve the body.
Arsenic's a preservative?
-Yeah, it's a preservative.
-Huh.
They don't use it anymore,
'cause it's terrible, but
Now they use formaldehyde.
But at the time, they used arsenic.
-Huh.
-[continues playing jazz]
[scat singing]
-[creature squeaks]
-[Judgment screams]
-[Clancy] Hey, that's my hose. I need it.
-Ha ha!
Grow up.
So what I was saying,
it was a dangerous job
and they would send the body back up north
and it would preserve it
for that period of travel,
which was an interesting innovation.
So, wait, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
-This is a lot of information
-[Death chuckles]
and it's really--
[Death] That's the bit-- that's the intro.
We haven't even got to the explanation.
-[Clancy] Give me that!
-[creature squeaks]
[whispers] You're gonna die
after stepping on a ping-pong ball.
[squeaks, buzzes]
[distant crash]
[laughter echoing]
Okay, okay, so, you would get your
-Your uncle would come in a train
-Yes.
stuffed with arsenic?
Not-- Stuffed with sawdust, actually.
At the time, the embalming was
They would disembowel you,
meaning they removed your internal organs,
'cause that's really
where decomposition happens
is in the gooey
middle part of your body.
So they would disembowel all your organs,
they would stuff you with sawdust
or something to keep you
-[distant voice chattering]
-you know, your stomach extended,
and then they would fill your body,
your circulatory system,
with some kind of preservative.
[creature] Whoa!
[Death sighs]
They're doing this and it's actually sort
of a sensible innovation for the time.
People want their dead sons back
and they get their dead sons back
because of this process.
-[Clancy] Yes.
-But what happens
is that these same men are going,
"Wait a second. The war's over now,
but this is my business.
This is what I do now.
So we have to convince the rest of the
country that embalming is the way to go."
[Clancy] Whoa.
[Death] And so these men set out,
they go across the country,
they're selling their wares.
They're kind of like Amway salesmen
at first.
They're going town to town,
holding three-day embalming courses,
saying, "Come on down,
learn how to embalm."
-That makes sense, yeah?
-[Clancy] I like this guy.
[Death chuckles]
The real trick of it,
the real thing that really worked,
is at the turn of the 20th century,
they really started to push the idea,
based on, now, very bad science
And, honestly,
it was already bad science at the time.
It's that the dead body is dangerous
-Yes. That's what I thought.
-in some way.
Unless the person who died
had Ebola or avian bird flu
or some-- one of these incredibly rare,
wildly infectious diseases
-Plague.
-in which case,
the CDC would come collect them
immediately and take them for cremation.
They wouldn't be going
to a normal funeral home--
-Save some money that way.
-Yeah, you know, "Did your dad have Ebola?
That sucks, but, good news,
the government's gonna take care of it."
So unless that's the case,
your body almost instantly
becomes far more safe
Ow, ow, ow!
-There you go.
-[sighs]
the second that it dies,
because not only are the viruses and
the bacteria dying off pretty quickly
-Those don't live in your body that long.
-Huh.
Also, the things that are infectious about
a sick person or a dying person are what?
-Coughing, sneezing, pooping, bleeding.
-[Clancy] Whoa.
-All these things that get you
-Right!
they'd stop doing that
when they were dead.
[Death] So that's a positive.
You know,
as far as keeping your safety intact.
-[Clancy] Mmm. Wow.
-But if you're able to, say
keep your dad under hospice
and wash him and dress him
and do all these things
he's You know
that he's completely safe.
-Right.
-And nothing changes when he dies.
-It's the same thing.
-It's the same thing, if not safer.
So it's like Oh, my God.
That is so creepy.
And keep in mind,
humans were doing this,
taking care of their own dead in this way,
for tens of thousands of years
of human history.
This is just the norm.
It's only been in the last, honestly,
100, 120 years
-that what happened is, these embalmers
-[snarling]
these same men we were talking about,
-were really able to push the idea
-[grunts]
that what they were doing
by embalming the body
-is making it safe for the family.
-Holy shit.
Disinfecting it. Making it acceptable
and safe for the family to see.
-[Clancy] Right.
-[Death] So whereas before,
it was mostly women
who were in the home,
just washing the body
and waking the body and laying it out,
now, all of a sudden, you have men
coming in who aren't part of the family,
who are different professionals,
saying, "It's not safe for you to do it.
We're gonna need to come get the body,
prepare it
through this process of embalming
and charge you for it."
Holy shit. Did you say "waking the body"?
"Waking" meaning, like, viewing the body,
-laying it out
-Oh, okay.
for the family to come around
and hang out with it, basically.
So, all of a sudden, it now starts to,
in the early 20th century,
move towards this
this financial model.
[growls]
[Death] Oh, nuts.
[growls]
[continues playing jazz]
-[Death] Where was I?
-[Clancy screams]
[Death] Oh, right.
-This capitalist model of death
-[Clancy screaming]
where you have to turn your body
over to a funeral home to take it
drain the blood, put in the chemicals
Wow.
put on the makeup, put him in a suit
and essentially sell your dad back to you.
Wow.
[distant laughter]
They can't necessarily let people know
And what I do primarily is I advocate
for something called home funerals
-[snarling]
-which is not that complicated.
It's just you taking more initiative
with the death.
Hey, you going somewhere?
Can I come along with you?
-Hell, yeah.
-[laughing]
[Death] Yeah, sure.
I love this type of shit.
Yeah. So say your dad
dies at home on hospice.
You don't have to call anyone right now.
It's not an emergency.
He's not decomposing immediately.
He's not getting dangerous.
-Wait a sec.
-[Clancy] I need the hose.
He's dead now.
He's gonna be dead two hours from now.
-[Clancy] For my slide.
-Everything's okay. It's not an emergency.
And just, to the degree
that you feel comfortable,
sitting with that primal reality,
as we said,
sitting in that moment.
-Wow.
-Feeling the feelings that come out
and only calling the funeral home
when you feel ready.
Well, it's kinda too late for me.
Both my parents are friends of yours,
I guess you could say.
[playing ragtime]
[chattering indistinctly]
[gasps]
-[elevator dings]
-Come on! [grunts]
Get back here, you little hose thief!
You know both time Both parents Wow.
Both parents passing, it was just
very
It was not like this.
[Death] Mm-hmm.
That no one sat
Interestingly, no one sat with us
and was like, "Listen"
Enter! [snoring]
"the body's not diseased."
No. No one would sit with
No one would tell you this. No one.
[snoring]
[grunting]
"The body,
you could just hang out with
You probably should hang out
with her or him for a while.
-Just sit with him. It's okay."
-[grunts]
No one said that.
And, also, it's not like
there is some great desire in people
to hang out with a dead body.
Well, you know, that's complicated.
And that's something that I'm always
thinking about and negotiating.
Because the people who do it,
the people who have some inkling that
they might want to do it but aren't sure
and then they're given the permission,
they end up having
this magical, transformative experience.
I say it's like chocolate and puppies.
Like, that's the kind of feedback
that you get.
-Right.
-People love it.
[high-pitched feedback ringing]
[snoring]
And here's what happens
to so many people.
[continues playing jazz]
[Clancy] By the time
the dying person
is ready to start talking about it
-[high-pitched chatter]
-their mind is disintegrating.
-[Death] Yes.
-[Clancy] So they can't talk about it.
They're not able to articulate
exactly what it is they want.
[Death] Mm-hmm.
[Clancy] Right away, your mind goes.
-Your mind is out of here, man.
-[plays woodwind]
You're, like, fluctuating
through the past, present.
You're just going into the past--
You're talking to your husband
who died 20 years ago.
That's right. You know,
it's totally different from a movie.
In the movies, a guy's laying there, then,
all of a sudden, he's like, "I'm dying!"
-[Death laughing]
-Then he just dies. He looks great.
-Like he just got a facial.
-[Death laughs]
And then it's like,
"All right, see you later."
He kind of looks over--
"I'm sorry I won't be able to make it
to the ball."
[both laughing]
[Clancy]
"I'm out of the universe." Not even a
-[Clancy grunts]
-[Death] Mm-hmm.
[Clancy] Just literally like
Gone.
-Like, insane.
-[squeaks]
-[creature grunting]
-[Death] Yeah.
[Clancy] So people see that shit
and they just assume,
"Oh, I'll start planning for this thing
When I start getting sick
is when I'll start planning.
Based on the statistical probability
of my death,
I've got some amount of time left
to plan for the thing."
This is absurdity.
-You might have some moments
-[Clancy groans]
of clarity, but when you
have moments of clarity,
your family wants to talk to you
about how you are and the past.
They don't want to talk to you
about what your death plan is
-and if you want to be cremated.
-[creature roaring]
This was the cool thing about my dad,
because when he was dying, he
Man, it was wild. Sometimes he would
Sorry, remind me.
What did your dad die of?
I kill trillions of beings per second.
The slow fades.
He stood under a horde shadow
during the Sector Wars.
A tiny bit of the shadow just seeped in.
He struggled with it his entire life.
Eventually it got into his lungs.
He was a hero.
Found out about all his medals
after he died.
Oh, right, right, right.
[Clancy] So when he was dying, he
Sometimes, he would recognize me.
Sometimes, he thought that I was someone
who was a soldier from the Sector Wars.
-[Death] Probably the bald head.
-[Clancy laughing]
[Death] That's a common thing
for people at the end of life.
[Clancy] He would be like,
"Who is your commanding officer?"
He would say things like that.
It was really interesting, but
And so, you know, I was thinking,
"Well, I probably won't see him again."
Like, "Right now what I'm seeing
is this sort of, like, sleepwalker.
I don't know that I'll see my dad again."
[snoring]
[Clancy] And then, he'd pop back up.
He popped right out of it.
There he was.
And he And he was
Because I have been taught
to be honest with dying people
Thank God.
When he would
He said, "What's happening?"
And I'm like, "Oh, you're dying."
And then he's like, "Oh, okay.
You'd better go get a pen
and a piece of paper."
And then he starts telling me, you know,
what to
You know, what to say to people.
It was beautiful. It was wonderful.
You know, including things which
I still haven't done. I've got to do this.
-[Death laughs]
-You know, like, send a lunch platter
to the hospice.
All these beautiful instructions.
It was I got lucky that he did this.
Yeah. You should send a lunch platter
to the hospice.
-I'm going to.
-They'd love that.
I'm going to do it.
Dad, wherever you may be
in the past, present or future,
it's happening, I'm sorry.
I'm a little distracted.
That's not a good excuse.
Easy to send a lunch platter.
-[thuds]
-[high-pitched feedback ringing]
Well, Death, it has been really great
getting to know you.
Likewise. Thank you
for letting me gab about my work.
[indistinct chatter]
[snarling]
[laughing]
[Clancy] Hey, um, I need the hose.
Excuse me. Pardon me.
Can you get That's my hose.
I need it.
-[mutters]
-[Clancy grunting] Hey, I need
Hey! Hey, man!
Hey, man! Hey, man!
-[grunting]
-[singing gibberish]
Who dares to waken old Elevator Emperor?
[grunts]
[howls]
-[screaming]
-[grunting]
Anyone up for a game of basketball? No.
Baseball? No.
-Ping-pong?
-No!
[Death giggling]
[screaming]
-[Death laughing]
-[creatures screaming]
[screaming]
[all screaming]
[Clancy panting, gasping]
[screaming]
[screaming]
Stop fighting it.
You're gonna be okay. Face the void.
Besides, you're not gonna die yet.
That'll be on a rolly chair.
Rolly chair?
[shouting] Holy shit! Yeah!
[Clancy screaming]
[Clancy screaming]
Hello, boy.
Oh, that's my hose.
[beeps]
[squeaks, chimes]
What are you? Are you a metaphor?
[beeping melodically]
Want to slide?
[beeps]
-Whoo! Yeah!
-[beeping melodically]
[Clancy] Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
[Clancy laughing]
-Woo-hoo-hoo!
-[continues beeping melodically]
This is the best slide I've been on.
Honestly.
I've been on a lot of waterslides.
[beeps]
I need you as a bag again.
[beeps melodically]
Thanks. Bag mode, activate.
[beeps, chimes]
Let's go bag home.
[slide screeching]
[bell chiming]
[thuds]
[screeching continues]
[playing woodwind instrument]
Goodbye, Blank Ball!
You suck!
She said I'm gonna die on a
[gasping]
I'm gonna die on a rolly chair!
[panting] Ooh hoo! Ooh hoo!
Shit!
[fire crackling]
[fire whooshing]
-[fire shudders]
-Hey, thanks, Clancy!
[in foreign accent] You are welcome.
Mmm.
[computer] So what are you gonna do now?
Meditate or something?
Oh, jeez, no. That was embarrassing.
No, I'm not enlightened anymore.
I wasn't enlightened.
-That doesn't even mean anything.
-[sniffs]
-[dog barks]
-Hey, Charlotte. Missed you, too.
[suction pops]
Even though your life is out of tune ♪
-You can still sing along with it ♪
-[keys tapping]
And it's better to be you
And out of tune ♪
Than acting like someone else
Who has found enlightenment ♪
[whistling melodically]
[Death] What does death look like to you?
[dance music playing]
One clown leg ♪
One clown leg ♪
Fourteen feet tall ♪
One clown leg ♪
[indistinct high-pitched voice wailing]
One clown leg ♪
One clown leg ♪
Fourteen feet tall ♪ 
One clown leg ♪
[indistinct high-pitched voice
winding down]
Chirp.