Midnight Mass: How Father Paul’s Vampirization Works Find Out Our Explanation

While for some viewers this is an error in the development of the plot, there is a plausible reason why we see Father Paul expose himself to direct sunlight in the first episodes of Midnight Mass.

The Meeting Between The Vampire and Monsignor Pruitt / Father Paul

In Midnight Mass, the series created by Mike Flanagan, Riley Flynn returns to the tiny island of Crockett after spending four years in prison and finding that she finds no solace in the faith she previously professed.

At the same time, the mysterious Father Paul, a priest called to replace the elderly Monsignor Pruitt, makes his appearance. The new, charismatic parish priest renews the religious enthusiasm of the entire community of the island, made up of just a hundred people, and he does so by performing what appear to be real miracles. Not all is as it seems and later we learn not only that Father Paul is Pruitt, but also that those miracles have little or nothing to do with the divine.

During a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the old Monsignor of Crockett Island encounters a creature inside a cave, in the middle of a desert area. If in Pruitt’s eyes the creature is an angel of the Lord, we viewers see him for what he truly is, a vampire. Although the word “vampire” is never uttered in the series – as if the show were set in a universe within which the very concept of vampire does not exist – the images we observe speak for themselves. The creature feeds on the Monsignor and offers him his blood which has the power to heal his wounds and rejuvenate him in body and spirit.

Regaining his vigor, Pruitt, under the pseudonym of Father Paul, takes the creature with him to Crockett Island in order to use the monster’s blood to heal his fellow citizens.

The Blinding Light of Day

In the finale of the fourth episode of Midnight Mass, Riley is attacked by the vampire exactly as Father Paul did. In the vampire’s clutches, Riley can only succumb to his bite. The monster drinks her blood and Riley faints, forever saying goodbye to her mortal life.

Awakening, Riley is horrified to discover that she can no longer expose herself to daylight. Its meat catches fire in contact with the sun’s rays. The discovery puzzled some onlookers who could not help but wonder how it was possible that Father Paul, on his return from Jerusalem, was able to walk among his people during the day.

The answer is simpler than you can imagine and is given to us already in the third episode of the Netflix series: the vampire did not kill Pruitt in Jerusalem. He fed on it, of course, but it never deprived him of life. The Monsignor of Crockett Island went close to death, but the vampire spared him, healing his wounds with his own blood. This is why, in the very first episodes of the show, Father Paul quietly wanders the streets of the island in broad daylight, mingling with his disciples.

It is only in the third episode of the show that Pruitt dies and the transition into a vampire begins. Probably poisoned by Bev Keane (Pruitt spits blood exactly like Pike, Joe Collie’s four-legged friend), Father Paul collapses on the floor of the rectory and, upon awakening, finds that he can no longer expose himself to the sun without burning. It is at this point that his bloodlust is felt and Paul kills the unsuspecting Joe.

Paul / Pruitt himself admits it candidly in the fifth episode of the series: “I died on the floor, right in front of it,” he reveals to Riley as he explains to him what the price to pay for an immortal life is. The vampire instead kills Riley immediately, not only drains his veins, but even breaks his neck. It is precisely for this reason that, unlike Paul, Riley immediately obtains his vampire abilities.