Midnight, Texas Season 1, Episode 6 Recap: Twist!

Our short and supernatural summer together is coming to a close with tonight’s episode. Which is why I’m glad it starts with proxies for the audience: a bunch of drunk teenagers from nearby Davis yelling and running through the streets.

Luckily enough, to check off all the trope boxes, this crew of fresh-faced teen boys have a Final Girl with them named Aerin (Barbie Robertson). After they call Fiji (Parisa Fitz-Henley) “Sabrina the Middle-Aged Bitch” (sorry, but it made me snort laugh) and do some property damage, they get scared off by Lemuel (Peter Mensah) and leave Aerin behind.

Chivalry: Not everyone does it!

She’s on the highway, walking home, when she sees a truck that she thinks belongs to her friends. It doesn't, and it’s a truck we’ve seen before. The driver is not here to help. Oh shit y’all, this episode is going to be scary.

Of course, they leave us hanging about her fate, but the next morning brings another fright: Fiji wakes up to scratches from a demon hand on her leg. Then we get Manfred (François Arnaud) and Creek (Sarah Ramos) in bed together, but that’s a different kind of nightmare. (Sorry not sorry, I don’t ship it.)

The mood is shattered when Manfred sees a ghost hanging (as in, from a noose) outside of his window. He explains that seeing ghosts makes him feel like he has a hangover, which makes him settling in Midnight rather suspicious. Unless Fiji cleansed the whole town, there should be more spirits there than in the average Texas town since it’s also hosting a crack in the veil between good and evil. Creek’s solution? Taking him to brunch.

Creek does a touch-base with her little bro Connor (John-Paul Howard). He’s got a massive bruise on his arm, and he gives her the impression that their dad Shawn (Bob Jesser) is abusing him. From what the show has shown us of dad so far he’s often drunk and unreasonable, but the show establishes later in the episode on that he has never hit Creek. They make up for it by having him punch Manfred in the face further along in the episode, but truly who among us hasn’t wanted to try that?

The City Council is hipped to Aerin’s disappearance after one of the boys shows up looking for her. Of note: He “you people’s” the Rev (Yul Vazquez) and Manfred when the former offers the latter’s service in helping find her with his “intuitive” abilities, but just one scene earlier, Connor described Manfred as “the town con man,” as if the townies don’t understand what a medium does. (It seems like the writer’s room is stretching the credibility of who knows there's supernatural activity in the world and who doesn’t.)

Anyway, the crew breaks up to search the area. Creek and Manfred find a dead girl who isn't Aerin but is a girl who Manfred recognizes: Tiffany (Eve Kozikowski) from the vampire bus. Bobo (Dylan Bruce) notes that the crime looks a lot like what happened to Aubrey (Shannon Lorance). We have a serial killer on our hands.

That’s when they find Connor roaming around in the desert, maybe with a concussion.

At this point, everyone is comparing notes on the increased ghost activity, the demon who won’t go away, and this whole serial killer thing. Joe (Jason Lewis) steadfastly refuses to tell everyone, against the Rev’s urging, so the Rev trades his pastor clothes for rancher clothes and tells them anyway. He didn’t break his promise not to tell if he’s not wearing a clerical collar, right? So everyone knows the veil is not only drawing evil to Midnight but bringing the darkness out of them.

While continuing the search, Lemuel and Manfred find Aerin. They also find Creek’s dad with her and jump to the conclusion that he’s responsible for all these girls, which...well if he’d recently given me a black eye, I might jump to that conclusion also. Connor tacitly confirms the theory to Creek when she asks him by not saying their dad didn’t do it.

The City Council is ready to execute him, but the Rev steps in to make a moral argument against it and since these things (apparently) require a unanimous vote, they all wait until Manfred goes to search the Lovell house for ghosts who can confirm if dad’s a killer. But, twist! It’s Connor. Connor is a psychopathic serial killer. Just like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, he seemed so normal!

Aerin gives a positive I.D. on Connor (why did no one think of asking her if the dad did it before Olivia held a knife to his throat though?), but in all the hijinks no one thinks to get Creek out of the house with Connor. Oops.

If you think you know where this is going, you’re probably right. He kidnaps Creek and nearly kills her. The one thing that's surprising is that the dad knew about his son’s extracurriculars all along. He moved them to Midnight thinking it was small and deserted enough for Connor to hide and figured the residents could protect themselves. He’s been drinking to cope with his son killing people and animals for fun, but he wasn’t cool with anyone locking Connor up.

Obviously, this episode ends with Creek breaking up with her entire family. Joe busts out his angel wings to find her (and make amends to the City Council), leaving everyone slack-jawed that they know an angel, because among supernatural beings, witches, and the scion of white supremacists, it seems that angels are the only truly unexpected thing.

And, just when Connor thinks he’s gotten away, Lemuel runs in and breaks his neck. It’s hard to feel sorry for Connor when he was making such a creepy face seconds before it happened.

With no family left to speak of, since she’s disowned her father, Creek is a real Midnighter now.

Now, about that demon who’s still hanging out under Fiji’s skirts...