Characters / Midnight Mass (2021)

Character page for Netflix's Midnight Mass (2021)

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The Flynn Family

Riley Flynn

Played by: Zach Gilford

A former venture capitalist who returns to his hometown of Crockett Island after spending four years in prison for a drunk driving accident that resulted in a young woman's death.

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• The Alcoholic: His drinking led to a fatal car crash which took the life of another person. It seems like he kicked off the habit entirely during prison as he makes no attempt nor has any urge for alcohol at all. However, attending AA meetings is a condition of his parole.
• Author Avatar: Mike Flanagan is also an atheist, former altar boy, and recovering alcoholic. Per Word of God he was just as surprised as many viewers were to discover, while writing the show, that Riley is not the protagonist.
• The Atoner: Regrets causing the death of a young woman and is trying his best to make amends.
• Decoy Protagonist: Downplayed. He's by no means a minor character but his introduction makes it seem like he's going to be the series main focus, as he appears to have the most emotional baggage out of the cast, with him reconnecting with the town, his family, and an old friend. However, in truth the show has a larger Ensemble Cast where at best he has sightly more screentime than the rest, and then he dies (truly, after being killed and revived as a vampire) with two episodes of the show left to go; Erin, Sarah, Mildred, and later Hassan pick up the reins after his death.
• Dying Declaration of Love: He tearfully tells Erin that he loves her just as the sun rises. The fact that she reciprocates his feelings seems to help his passing.
• Dying as Yourself: Chooses to kill himself by letting the sun immolate him rather than give into the bloodlust, as Father Paul and Bev Keane encourage him to do.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Riley's hair is buzzed short in the present day but longer in the flashback scenes, as if to symbolize what a different person he was when he was drinking.
• Fatal Flaw: His alcoholism.
• Hollywood Atheist: Completely defied. The other characters seem to expect him to fall into this role, but Riley is actually quite respectful of all religions, just skeptical of the absolutes that come with them. He's happy to spend a whole day with Erin praying with her following her miscarriage, and attends Church with his mother. When pressed on the issue, he will express his lack of faith, but never derides others for their own.
• Killed Off for Real: Episode 4 ending makes it seem like the Angel kills him, but then 5 shows that it wasn't the case, he was turned into a vampire like Paul. However after debating the condition over the course episode 5 he ultimately decides to kill himself at the end of it rather than live like an abomination, making the most out of it to warn Erin.
• Hope Spot: Just as Riley closes his eyes and expects to be burned "alive", the scene shifts to him opening them while it's daytime, he smiles, and it seems like he might have found a cure from vampirism by being willing to die for others rather than be a monster. Turns out it was him peacefully entering the afterlife, and in the real world he spontaneously combusts.
• Messianic Archetype: Played with. He dies and comes back to life (as a vampire) with strong biblical undertones about the whole thing. But what makes him a messiah is not the coming back to life part, but rather his second death as he sacrifices himself via Suicide by Sunlight, an action that not only gave Erin a chance to escape, but also may have saved all of humanity.
• My Greatest Failure: His DUI accident and resulting manslaughter (which he considers murder) of an innocent girl driving the other car. It makes him miserable and literally haunts him every time he goes to sleep - not in the sense of a supernatural ghost, but simply his own guilt making him recall the massacred body of the girl.
• Neck Snap: A rare non-fatal version. Riley's neck is broken in three places when he's attacked by the Angel. Despite his newfound Healing Factor, it still takes six hours to fully heal, and Pruitt has to reset the breaks.
• Pro-Human Transhuman: Sacrifices his life to show Erin what's being done to the people on the island and give her a chance to escape.
• Riches to Rags: By his own admission he made a very decent sum of money working in tech startups before his arrest. His legal defense fees bankrupted both him and his family, and his criminal record makes his re-entering the field next to impossible. He's not particularly bitter about this, basically just wanting to make himself useful around the island.
• Shrinking Violet: He's soft-spoken and introverted, often preferring to keep to himself rather than interacting with other people. Erin is one of the only exceptions, as he will happily talk to her for hours, but it helps that she doesn't judge him the way his family does.
• Spotting the Thread: Suspects Father Paul of misdoing after he lies about Joe Collie visiting his sister on the mainland, whom Riley knows is dead due to a previous conversation with Joe.
• Suicide by Sunlight: Rather than succumb to the same Horror Hunger Father Paul has, he chooses to row out to sea far from shore and protection so that he will be burned to true death by the sun. Unusually for the trope, it is at once both peaceful and symbolic and fiery and horrific. Riley closes his eyes and sees the recurring dream of being on a boat in the ocean, but it's day instead of twilight and the girl he killed is there, back to normal and smiling, and he follows her to the afterlife. Meanwhile, in the real world, Erin gets to see him spontaneously combust and bursts into screams and tears.
• Walking Spoiler: As you can see in this entry, his death at the beginning of the final act, with 2 full episodes to go, is the main trigger for the start of the show's climax and has a drastic effect on all the other main characters, making it a bit difficult to discuss Riley's role in the show without bumping into his death.

Annie Flynn

Played By: Kristen Lehman

Riley's kindly, forgiving mother.

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• Church Lady: So keen on church attendance that she even persuades her atheist son, Riley, to attend with her because she hopes he'll find some genuine comfort from it. However, she is contrasted heavily with Bev, the local fundie, since the only thing they share is their mass attendance, but otherwise being polar opposites both in terms of personality and how they treat their religiousness.
• Fighting from the Inside: Annie is able to fight the Horror Hunger inflicted upon by the flock.
• Foil: To Bev Keane. She’s as religious as Bev, but embraces Christianity’s message of love, acceptance, and forgiveness whereas Bev uses it as an excuse to act Holier Than Thou and cast judgment on any and everyone in town. Bev is nosy because it allows her to extend her judgement while Annie says throughout the show that it’s not anyone’s place to judge another when they don’t know their story. Bev embraces the Angel's gifts even when she learns the truth, while Annie is horrified by the reveal. Finally, when death is certain, she faces death with dignity in the arms of her husband and the company of the other townspeople while Bev cowardly tries to escape her fate to till the end and dies alone.
• Happily Married: To Ed. She is devastated when he is overpowered by the vampires, and their last moments are spent holding each other.
• Heroic Suicide: She slashes her throat open, knowing the Horror Hunger the vampires are feeling will compel them to try to drink their full, rather than chase after remaining humans.
• I Reject Your Reality: The only moment when she's even remotely unpleasant is when Erin informs her of Riley's death. Annie refuses to believe her, shoves her away, and shouts at her, rather than entertaining that she might be telling the truth.
• Nice Girl: Annie is a kind-hearted, loving woman, to the point that she does not attack a single person when she becomes a vampire.
• "Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivers a brutal one to Bev, denouncing her for her self-righteous hypocrisy and belief that God loves her more than anyone.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Riley dies before her. She initially refuses to believe it when Erin tells her but ultimately comes to accept it and defends his memory to Bev when she denounces him as nothing but a drunken murderer.
• Pro-Human Transhuman: Like her husband, she refuses to give in to her Horror Hunger after being turned.

Ed Flynn

Played By: Henry Thomas

Riley's gruff father.

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• Cannot Spit It Out: Has to force himself to even try to apologise Riley for the build-up resentment toward him. It doesn't work quite well, but it's clear Ed is struggling to say even what he ends up saying and truly didn't mean to sound offensive.
• Dented Iron: Decades of hard work on a fishing boat has done a number on Ed's body by the start of the series, mostly in the form of a back injury that hasn't healed properly, which severely effects his mobility. The spontaneous healing of his back is one of the first signs that the Angel's blood is beginning to effect the townspeople.
• Fighting from the Inside: He manages to fight off the urge to drink blood until his death.
• Happily Married: To Annie. They love each other very much, and share a number of close moments over the movie. His first act when he realizes his bad back is gone is to dance with his wife, they ignore the chaos of the burning town to seek each other out in the climax, and their last moments are spent holding each other.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He holds off some of the newly-turned vampires in the church so that a small group can escape, at the cost of his life. He ends up coming back as a vampire, but his initial sacrifice does give the others time to formulate a plan that works.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ed can be gruff and abrasive at times, but he's fundamentally a good man who loves his wife and sons very much. When he becomes a vampire, he does not hurt anyone despite his bloodlust, and his last moments are spent holding his wife.
• Kick the Dog: When Riley joins him on his fishing boat, Ed tries to strike up a conversation, which turns out to be their final one. It's an "apology" out of nowhere that devolves into something along the lines of "sorry you're a fuck-up who killed someone, I guess I did something wrong in raising you to be so horrible, but I can't see what that is. Sorry anyways, I guess." It clearly does nothing but make Riley's guilt and trauma exponentially worse.
• Parents as People: Ed loves his sons, but he struggles to relate to Riley and admits that he feels some resentment towards him, especially considering the stigma and financial burden that Riley's past actions had on the family. Ed feels ashamed of this resentment, though, and he tries his best to make things right.
• Parting-Words Regret: Regrets how poorly his final conversation with Riley went.
• Pro-Human Transhuman: Though he initially assumes he'll become a Horror Hunger-crazed monster who can't help himself if he's turned, when he is turned, he realizes he's perfectly capable of controlling his behavior, no matter how much it hurts, and refuses to join the mob of murderous vampires. It helps that Riley had postumously warned him what to expect, so he has enough understanding of what has happened to not lose himself to the hunger.

Warren Flynn

Played by: Igby Rigny

Riley's teenaged brother, who serves as an altar boy at the church.

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• Beware the Nice Ones: Like his brother, Warren is generally quiet and polite. But he and Leeza do not hesitate to set the Angel on fire when given the chance.
• Final Boy: Warren and Leeza are the only two characters confirmed to make it off the island.
• Parting-Words Regret: Laments that he did not take the final family dinner seriously, not knowing his parents and brother would all die soon after.
• Practically Different Generations: Warren is an altar boy in his late teens, while Riley has already left the island, attended college, had a career as a venture capitalist, and spent four years in prison.

The Greene Family

Erin Greene

Played by: Kate Siegel

Riley's childhood sweetheart who is now a schoolteacher on Crockett Island and expecting a child.

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• Abusive Parents: Her mother was physically and emotionally abusive, as well as being an alcoholic.
• Affectionate Nickname: She calls her unborn baby "Littlefoot."
• Disappeared Dad: Her father is only mentioned once, when she fondly imagines her baby joining him in the afterlife, implying that he is dead and that they had a loving relationship, unlike her mother. More details about him, including how and when he died, are never mentioned.
• Domestic Abuse: She endured this during her marriage, and she only worked up the courage to leave when she learned of her pregnancy.
• Dying Dream: While dying of blood loss, she flashes back to her earlier conversation with Riley where they discussed what happens after death. She had previously only answered for what happened to her unborn child. This time, she gives a monologue about what will happen to her, as she lies contemplating the stars.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: She manages to cut up the wings of the Angel while it is feeding on her so it won't be able to fly back to its nest and escape the sunrise, even forcing it to continue feeding on her so she can damage its wings further.
• Face Death with Dignity: She calmly faces her death after the Angel fatally wounds her.
• Genre Savvy: Erin is the first to realize how dangerous the vampiric infection is, and comes up with the plan to stop its further spread.
• Heroic BSoD: She's left utterly traumatized after Riley burns into ashes in front of her, and doesn't really 'wake up' until the Easter vigil in the church, when she realizes what Father Paul and Bev are about to do to the congregation.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When the Angel begins feeding on her, she chooses to spend her last moments tearing up its wings to prevent it from flying to safety, and even guids its head back towards her neck when it starts to look up to see what she's doing.
• Mama Bear: The realization that Father Paul caused her miscarriage with the Angel's blood makes her even more determined to foil whatever his plans are.
• Mystical Pregnancy: Inverted. Erin suffers a mystical miscarriage — not only does she lose her daughter with no hint other then a very light episode of bleeding, even though miscarrying at several months would definitely be far more noticeable than that, but the baby simply disappears from her womb without a trace and a bemused doctor on the mainland tells her that, from all medical observations and blood work, she was never even pregnant at all.
• Nice Girl: She's kind and empathetic, and rarely has a bad word for anyone — except Bev Keane.
• Significant Name Overlap: Takes over her mother's role as the island's "Ms. Greene."
• Taking You with Me:
  • Out of the human survivors of the midnight mass, she's the lesast optimistic about their chance at making it through the night; she tries to make the best of their time by devising the plan to burn the boats so the vampires can't go to the mainland. She then proceeds to help burn down the vampires' only remaining refuge.
  • When the Angel starts feeding on her, she slashes its wing so it won't be able to fly to the mainland or outrun the sunrise. When it starts to pull away, she actually forces it to keep drinking so she can slash its wings a few more times.

The Scarborough Family

Leeza Scarborough

Played by: Annarah Cymone

The mayor's devout daughter who uses a wheelchair after being accidentally shot, and rendered paraplegic, by Joe Collie.

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• Belief Makes You Stupid: One of the biggest aversions in the show. Despite her fervent devotion, her trust and gratitude towards Father Paul, and her healing being the origin of the town's religious fervor, she is never blinded by it. She is the only one in her family to refuse to commit suicide and be reborn as a vampire.
• The Cutie: Leeza is nearly always kind and forgiving.
• Final Girl: She and Warren are the only two characters confirmed to make it off the island.
• Meaningful Name: Her name likely originates from the name Elizabeth, the name of John the Baptist's mother. John the Baptist was said to be a prophet of God and a messianic figure.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Forgets to grab Joe's gun when she and Warren flee from Sturge, allowing him to get his hands on it and use it to kill Sarah.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After getting her legs back, she tells Joe that she's always hated him for ruining her life and hoped he suffers... before telling him that like God, she forgives him, and she hopes that just as she can move past her hate, that he can move on from his self-pity.
• Wheelchair Woobie: She uses a wheelchair because Joe accidentally shot her in the spine while he was drunk.

Wade Scarborough

Played by: Michael Trucco

The mayor of Crockett Island.

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• Co-Dragons: He and Sturge become this to Bev, doing her bidding and ultimately leading the vampires attack on the rest of the town.
• Extreme Doormat: Despite being the mayor of the island, he allows himself to be bossed around by others, especially Bev Keane. This includes going along with covering up the murder of Joe Collie by Father Paul.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Ooh boy. He starts off as the compassionate mayor. Then is coerced by Bev into doing more and more immoral acts, completely buying into to her and Father Paul's insistence that vampirism is a gift from God, willingly drinking poison to die and become one, all the while trying to force Leeza to do the same. Then he and his wife go on a blood-drinking spree with the rest of the vampiric church-goers, killing a fair number of people throughout town. However, once his faith in Bev is shattered by all the shelters being burned down, he and Dolly come to their senses and decide to peacefully sing with the Flynns as they await their demise in the sunrise.

Dolly Scarborough

Played by: Crystal Balint

Wade Scarborough's wife.

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• All for Nothing: Fully buys into Father Paul's and Bev Keane's claims about being reborn due to being swayed by the "Miracle" regarding her daughter, even trying to get her daughter to drink the poisoned communion wine, only to be turned into a bloodthirsty monster who dies with the rising sun a few hours later. Made much worse by the fact that her daughter loses all feeling in her legs soon after.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Like her husband. She starts out as a loving mother and respected member of the community. After Leeza's cure, she becomes a devoted follower of Paul. While initially reluctant, crying at the thought, she quickly gives into the hunger and kills several people. She ultimately comes to her senses along him and chooses to wait to die peacefully.
• Knight Templar Parent: Like her husband, she quickly becomes a follower of Father Paul and Bev's plans to spread vampirism to the townsfolk after seeing it cure Leeza's paralyis. She even tries to get Leeza to drink the poison, even when the girl makes it clear she's terrified, unable to comprehend why she could want to reject the "blessing'.

The Shabbaz Family

Sheriff Hassan Shabbaz

Played by: Rahul Kohli

Crockett Island's Muslim sheriff who frequently finds himself at odds with the town's largely Christian population.

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• Authority in Name Only: While he is the sheriff, he works alone and doesn't carry a gun, which leaves him with no way to act meaningfully when Bev, Paul, and the fellow believers take over the island. Joe Collie is also one of the few people who respect him, and he's also one of the earliest to go.
• Badass Normal: Successfully fights off several converted citizens during the night of the massacre, which helps get his group of survivors to safety and allows them to come up with a plan to prevent the converted from escaping to the mainland.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: He requested to be stationed on Crockett Island, wanting to escape racism and discrimination on the mainland and to keep his son safe. Not only is he at odds with the predominantly Catholic population, but Ali is incredibly bored and frustrated with small town life and becomes interested in Christianity when one of his schoolmates is cured by a 'miracle'.
• By-the-Book Cop: Downplayed. He's pretty lenient and laid back, but compared with everyone else on the island, he's the only person that seems to follow any sort of protocol, rather than ignoring events around him.
• Does Not Like Guns: Downplayed. He doesn't regularly carry a sidearm due to wanting to gain the trust of the islanders due to his race. He uses one in the finale though.
• Face Death with Dignity: He spends his last moments with his son, solemnly praying to Allah, before Hassan dies of his wounds and his son dies by sunlight.
• Fair Cop: He's a sheriff and quite handsome.
• Forced to Watch: Bev Keane's congregation forces him to watch as Ali drinks the poisoned wine and dies by suicide.
• Large and in Charge: He's the sheriff and stands at an impressive 6'4 and is the only character in the show to match Father Paul for height.
• The Lost Lenore: His late wife, who died of pancreatic cancer.
• Nice Guy: He's always polite and kind, even though most of the people he interacts with are the judgmental townsfolk who regard him either passive aggressive attempts to convert him or outright bigotry.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Had he not been so forceful in keeping Ali from exploring Christianity, it's likely he wouldn't have become as curious about attending Bev Keane's church as he did.
• No-Respect Guy: He is a decent, intelligent man, but the townsfolk have absolutely no respect for him because of his faith and ethnicity, repeatedly bulldozing over and ignoring whatever he says while passive-aggressively insisting that he should convert to Catholicism, while Bev flat-out hates him over it. His monologue shows that this is not a new thing; in fact, it was even worse for him on the mainland.
• Manly Facial Hair: Has a prominent, well-groomed beard, while being town's sheriff and when it comes to the push, he organises a fierce, efficient resistance against the cult in the finale, being the masculine hero to Bev's feminine villain.
• Odd Friendship: Ends up becoming the Only Friend Joe has, simply by the virtue of being the only person on the island not resenting him and always taking care for him during or after his drunk antics.
• Only Sane Man: He's the only person on the island who really has his shit together. He briefly shares this title with Erin when he tries (unsuccessfully) to remind Bev Keane that it's highly inappropriate (if not outright illegal) to hand out Christian Bibles and read from scripture in class in a public school.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Rahul Kohli's natural London accent comes through fairly often, especially on the word "Christian".
• Parents as People: As a devout Muslim whose wife was also as religiously devout, Hassan fears Ali will be converted to Christianity, thus losing a major connection in their family and especially in their Catholic-dominated town. He also wants to keep Ali safe from the racial violence and discrimination they faced on the mainland but acknowledges he's done so at the cost of impeding his development and understands Ali's frustration.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Downplayed. When explaining to Ali why there must be more to Leeza's "miracle" than meets the eye, he believes that if it is truly a miracle, then why didn't God/Allah save Ali's mother from cancer, who was just as devout to Him as the Scarboroughs were?
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Attempted at least. He tries to leave the church rather than let his son drink the poisoned sacrament and be revived as one of the converted, but gets tackled to the ground by the congregation for his troubles.
• The Sheriff: A downplayed example, as he deliberately doesn't try to interfere or cause any trouble. However, during the night of the Midnight Mass, he manages to become the protagonists' most useful member, working to undermine the efforts of Bev and her flock.
• The Stoic: He's almost perpetually cool and collected, in contrast to pretty much everyone else in town.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's tall, dark-haired, and pretty easy on the eyes.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He can be pretty snarky when he wants to be, especially to Bev Keane who he is never allowed to forget isn't comfortable with his presence, however much she likes to insist otherwise.

Ali Shabbaz

Played by: Rahul Abburi

The son of Crockett Island's Muslim sheriff.

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• Children Are Innocent: Leeza's miracle spurs his interest in Christianity, to the concern of his father.
• Face Death with Dignity: He spends his last moments praying to Allah with his father before dying by sunlight.
• Heroic Suicide: Subverted, before being played straight. His initial suicide, which turns him into a vampire, is not played heroically, though he is extremely calm and happy about it. He then sentences himself to death along with the other vampiric townsfolk by setting the last remaining shelter on the island on fire, preventing them from escaping the sunrise.
• Missing Mom: His mother passed away from cancer when he was young.
• Nice Guy: Like his father, he's a kind and morally upright person.
• Pro-Human Transhuman: He's the first outside of the conspirators to subject himself to death and vampiric resurrection, but turns on the others when he sees Bev and the other townsfolk shoot his father and hurl Islamophobic insults at him as he bleeds out, finally seeing the wickedness in their hearts and deciding to complete his father's work to stop them.

The Gunning Family

Dr. Sarah Gunning

Played by: Annabeth Gish

The town's local doctor and Erin's close friend.

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• Butch Lesbian: She is short-haired and possesses many stereotypically masculine traits, and she is attracted to women.
• Closest Thing We Got: There isn't an actual hospital with medical equipment nor is there an animal vet on the island, so Sarah is the closest thing they have if anyone is sick or injured.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: She dies in her parents' (Pruitt and Mildred)'s arms.
• Dying as Yourself: Sarah spits up the vampiric blood Pruitt feeds her to make sure she dies.
• Heroic Bastard: She grew up believing that George, her mother's husband, was her biological father, but her true father was Monsignor Pruitt/Father Paul, with whom her mother had an affair.
• Irony: She thinks Father Paul keeps staring at her because she's a lesbian and he disapproves of her. Not only does it turn out that he's her biological father, but ironically, Sarah managed to do what he never dared—following her heart despite social norms.
• Meaningful Name: In the Bible, Sarah was the wife/half-sister of Abraham, the progenitor of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and was childless until she was of old age. Sarah Gunning is the illegitimate daughter of Monsignor Pruitt/Father Paul and has no children.
• The Smart Guy: Sarah is the only heroic character to even attempt to explain the Crockett Island phenomenon.
• Spiteful Spit: One where the spite, unusually, isn't targeted at a person. She spits out Monsignor's tainted blood to stop him from turning her in her last moments.

Mildred Gunning

Played by: Alex Essoe

Sarah's aging mother who suffers from dementia.

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• Cassandra Truth: She's an old, dementive and clearly not exactly "there", so when she's insisting there was someone behind her window and keeps calling Father Paul "John", Sarah takes it as just part of the mental deterioration her mother is suffering under. Not only she's correct, but if she could properly articulate herself, the explanation would make her look even crazier.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: At the church, she fires two shots - one hits the Angel (though it doesn't do anything), and the second hits Father Paul through the temple.
• Mama Bear: She has no issue taking up Sheriff Hassan's firearm and shooting Father Paul in the head to save her daughter. It doesn't work, but she didn't know that it wouldn't at the time.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While she was doing it to save her daughter, Mildred shooting the Angel and Father Paul not only didn't kill them, it allowed Bev to unleash the turned congregation on the rest of the island where Father Paul had planned to keep them in the church and ease them through their transformations, as he had done with Riley.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Especially surprising, given her fragility. Though she and Paul die shortly thereafter, she survives long enough to see her daughter Sarah die in front of her.
• Scatterbrained Senior: She's riddled with dementia. One of the signs things have gotten really strange is when she suddenly becomes fully lucid and gets all her memories back.
• Supernaturally Young Parent: A dark example. Due to Father Paul secretly giving her the blood of the "Angel" in the form of sacrament, Mildred begins to visibly de-age. Eventually, after being fed on by the "Angel" in the climactic episode, Mildred appears younger than her daughter.

St. Patrick's Church Clergy and Congregation

Father Paul Hill

Played by: Hamish Linklater

The enigmatic new priest at St. Patrick's Church, who arrives to temporarily replace the aging Monsignor Pruitt after he became unwell during his pilgrimage in Jerusalem.

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• Actually, I Am Him: He isn't a replacement for Monsignor Pruitt. He is Monsignor Pruitt made younger.
• Affably Evil: Despite wanting to turn his congregation into vampires, his kind personality is genuine.
• All for Nothing:
  • Bringing the "Angel" to the island causes far more harm than good, and even with Leeza as one of the only survivors, the 'miracle' of her legs having healed is undone when the Angel is seemingly killed.
  • Even further back, at the end, he removes his priest collar in his last moments with Sarah and Mildred; if he had never become a priest, he would have never found the Angel and he would've gotten to live a happy life as an ordinary father and husband.
  • Made even worse by the fact that Mildred tells him that she would never have left her husband and broken up her family to be with him, thus wrecking his career, as she didn't want to ruin four lives.
• The Antichrist: From acting as a spokesman for a divine being, leading a flock, performing healing miracles, Paul shares many similarities with Jesus Christ. It's just that all his work is destructive and selfish and almost brings about The End of the World as We Know It. The most blatant parallel is when Paul compares his crisis of faith and dementia in Damascus to when Jesus walked through the desert and was tempted by Satan while ignoring the most important part of that story, Jesus rejected Satan and accepted his coming death while Paul was made immortal and considered it a blessing from God.
• Anti-Villain: He brought the Angel to the island in hopes of helping the residents, though this ends up bringing more damage than aid. By the time he's realized this, Bev has taken the reins and almost everyone dies including himself and his loved ones.
• Believing Their Own Lies: He insists to a disbelieving Riley that he feels zero guilt over Joe's death. This is is in stark contrast to him going nearly catatonic after the deed itself. He also struggles to justify it to himself and Riley, and it's clearly very much still effecting him.
• Big Bad: By bringing the Angel to the island and starting to turn the town into vampires, as well as shake up the status quo violently he serves as the primary antagonist and threat over the show, being at odds (directly or indirectly) with Riley, Hassan and Erin. He snaps out of his villainy only in the end and by the time he's seen the horrors he unleashed he turns against the very plan he started, but its too late for the town.
• Blessed with Suck: Eventually comes to realize that the immortality he's obtained and bestowed on the community is not worth the price of vampirism.
• Dark Secret:
  • He's actually Monsignor Pruitt, made young after he came across a vampire-like monster that he believed to be an "Angel". Not only that, but all the 'miracles' on the Island that happen after he arrives are caused by his adding the Angel's blood to the Communion wine and infecting people to create vampires.
  • When he was younger, he broke his vow of celibacy to be with Mildred, which conceived Sarah. He could never be with them without exposing that he broke his vows.
• Didn't Think This Through: Believes that converting his followers into beings just like him is the way to salvation, ignoring the fact that he was so bloodthirsty he drank the blood of the gravely injured Joe Collie rather than get him help, showing that not even he was above the base urges that come with his new state. He also planned to keep the congregation inside the church and ease them through their transformation, as he had done with Riley; even if Mildred hadn't shot him, unwittingly allowing Bev to take over, how likely is it that he would have been able to prevent a whole crowd of people from leaving a building, as opposed to just one?
• Egocentrically Religious: He's got nothing on Bev in this department but it's shown his faith was always more about his own goals and desires than any higher devotion to God, at first seeing it as a way to overcome his fear of death and later convincing himself that his goals are in line with what God would want.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In a twisted way, he plans to turn the whole town into vampires but doesn't plan to limit the "gift" only to those who attend his church or show sufficient devotion, believing it's a blessing that everyone has a right to. It's not much but it stands in contrast to Bev who was only too eager to use it as a chance to deny shelter to those she deemed "sinners" and unworthy of salvation.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Believed that "blessing" his followers via the blood of The Angel would grant them eternal life and youth, only for them to turn into a bloodthirsty, vampiric horde that slaughters the rest of the Island and brings about the destruction of their entire community.
• Exact Words: In his first mass at St. Patrick's while standing in for Monsignor Pruitt, he assures his congregation that "[they] aren't losing [their] pastor." That's because he is the same pastor.
• Face Death with Dignity: After his plan fails, he calmly accepts his fate and dies peacefully with Mildred.
• Fatal Flaw: Father Paul's inability to balance his urges as an ordinary man and his calling as a priest resulted in him illegitimately fathering a secret daughter, and his regret for his choices. His entire plan is deeply rooted in gaining a second chance to be with his loved ones.
• Foil: To Bev. Both are the parish leaders of the St. Patrick's Church, and in their faith, have become arrogant and as fallible as any other human — for Father Paul, he thought he could control an "Angel", and for Bev, she justifies her actions in belief that her religious fervor made her more righteous than others. Their hubris even comes to head when they attempt to cheat death. However, Father Paul's struggles stem from being torn between the temptations to be an ordinary man and his duty as a priest, while Bev just believes that she's better than everyone else for being so devout.
• Forgiveness: In Episode 3, we constantly cut away to Father Paul using the confessional box to beg to God for forgiveness shortly before the main events of the show, as he is going to lie to the churchgoers about what happened to Monsignor Pruitt and about his methods. His last words of the series are also the quietly request forgiveness from Mildred for everything he has done.
• Freudian Excuse: Father Paul saw his sister die of polio as a child, which gave him a deep-seated fear of death. A desire to understand death is what drove him to join the priesthood, and it's implied it's a motive for his current plan, even if he won't admit it.
• Good Shepherd: Father Paul is compassionate and understanding, always striving to do everything he can to support his community - for better or for worse.
• Graceful Loser: In the finale, when Paul sees Sarah about to burn down the church, he doesn't try to stop her despite being capable of doing so, and doesn't even try to talk her down.
• The Heavy: He brought the Angel to Crockett Island and kickstarted the plot, all in the hopes of giving everyone immortality so they could live forever.
• Heel Realization: He was always troubled by his actions but has a full one of these by the finale, to the point of not even trying stop or talk down Sarah when he sees her about to burn the church down to foil his plans.
• Immortality Seeker: Explains that as a child, he realized the overwhelming amount of death in the world must be drowning out God's ability to hear his prayers. When he's given vampiric immortality through the Angel, he sees it as his duty to bestow that gift on his community and the world, through any means necessary.
• Large and in Charge: He's 6'4 and leader of the congregation. Sheriff Hassan is the only character to be as tall and hold similar authority. In the first few episodes, his height over other characters (like Riley) emphasizes his role as a guide to the townsfolk. Once he becomes a vampire, that same looming height becomes intimidating.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: It actually speaks a lot to his character that, as someone who's been a vampire far longer than his congregation, he's still much, much better at keeping his vampiric urges in check. Compare that to the rest of the islanders, who upon being turned immediately went feral-mode and started chomping and chugging away on whatever poor blood-sack was nearby. Even with his mind and soul thoroughly corrupted, he's still ultimately driven by a powerful sense of self-control, his faith, and even a moral compass.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: He's Sarah's biological father.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Paul the Apostle was originally a man named Saul who persecuted Christians along the Damascus road until he met Jesus and became a Christian himself. It was on the Damascus road where Pruitt got lost, found the Angel, and was de-aged. In his confession to God, Father Paul explains this as to why he chose this name.
  • On a meta level, Paul the Apostle has been criticized by many scholars (Christian, Muslim and atheist alike) as one of the earliest corrupters of Jesus' original teachings, introducing several doctrines of his own which weren't mentioned at all or openly contradicted what came before him, and codifying several exclusionary views that were absent in the Gospels. Similarly, Father Paul corrupts his own flock by arrogantly imposing his own views on the supernatural, which often contradict what should be core Christian values –- thou shalt not kill, anyone?.
• My God, What Have I Done??: A two-part breakdown. One when he realizes that he was wrong to convert his flock against their will and turn them into bloodthirsty monsters, leading to him turning against Bev's plans. The second comes after Sturge shoots his daughter and she rejects the blood that could save her, which causes him to realize that his time on Earth has passed.
• Named After Somebody Famous: He deliberately gave himself the alias "Paul" because he couldn't help but see the parallels between himself and the Apostle.
• Nice Guy: Befitting a priest, he's a very kind, personable fellow eager to help those around him. Even as he descends into madness, he never loses his affability and desire to help people, though severely misguided his methods may be. He is also the first one to realize what a grave mistake he has made, and faces his demise with grace and acceptance.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Bringing the Angel to Crockett Island results in a series of events that ends with almost everyone on the island dying, including himself, his lover, and his daughter. Not only that, but if the Angel is still alive, it may continue to wreak havoc elsewhere.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Despite dying...multiple times, he does survive long enough in his vampiric state to see his daughter Sarah die in front of him, although he and Mildred go just a few hours later.
• Papa Wolf: He almost kills Sturge with his bare hands after the latter shoots his daughter, Sarah.
• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: He has a tendency to stumble over his words. As one reviewer for Vulture put it, "he speaks as if he's discovering his way through every sentence and wants you to come with him."
• The Renfield: To the extent of worshipping the Angel in a way similarly to the Trope Namer.
• Sanity Slippage: He gets crazier, and much hammier, as the series goes on, though he regains himself in the end.
• Secretly Selfish: He ultimately admits the reason he brought the Angel back to the island was that he wanted to save Mildred's life, despite it not being what she wanted and never considering her or their daughter's feelings on the matter. His confession in Episode 3 also has him confessing to no one, implying that he is confessing to God Himself, and that he sees no one above him but The Lord.
• Sinister Minister: Subverted. While he's responsible for bringing the Angel to the Island and it ends up causing more harm than good, it was out of a misguided sense of wanting to use the Angel's blood to heal people rather than wanting to turn people into monstrous vampires or recruit them into a cult.
• So Proud of You: Upon first meeting Sarah when she tends to him after he fainted at mass, he says that he admires that she's a doctor and helps people and that he's proud of her for that. It's a hint that he's actually her father. This is also one of the last things he says to her, when he tells her he's sorry they couldn't be together for longer but that she's the best thing that ever happened to him.
• Superior Successor: Father Paul initially is more popular than his predecessor, Monsignor Pruitt, due to being a younger man with more charisma, as well as the strange miracles that have appeared with him. Of course, he's replacing himself.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Dark-haired, good-looking, and standing at 6'4, Father Paul's appeal to the townsfolk isn't limited to his charm.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: He adds a mysterious substance (the Angel's blood) to the Communion wine (one of the altar boys accidentally walks in on him doing this, though says nothing), which miraculously heals Leeza's spine.
• Tragic Dream: As he admits to Mildred, his is that they can be a real couple and spend time with their daughter Sarah, a dream that's made impossible by the time period, their religion, his occupation, and their age.
• Tranquil Fury: While he has occasional angry outbursts, he is almost expressionless when he tackles and begins to strangle Sturge for shooting Sarah.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Monsignor Pruitt and Father Paul are one and the same.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Father Paul brought the Angel to the Island to save everyone and give them eternal life and endless youth. He ends up dooming the entirety of the Island save for two people who survive.
• Villainous Parental Instinct:
  • After he got transformed by the Angel, he said that he brought it back to Crockett Island - endangering everybody, including himself - because he said that he didn't want Mildred and Sarah to be separated from him by death.
  • He also allows Sarah to burn down the church, even though he knows she's condemning him and all those around him.
• Villain Protagonist: Once the series starts focusing on his health issues brought on from vampirism, which prevent him from holding mass, it becomes clear to the viewer that he's just as much the protagonist as Riley or Erin. In fact, it could be argued that Paul is moreso, as his actions and multiple character arcs very directly dictate the flow of the plot.

Bev Keane

Played by: Samantha Sloyan

A zealous and overbearing member of St. Patrick's Church, and an influential figure in the community.

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• 0% Approval Rating: No one on the island likes Bev due to her haughtiness, dishonesty, selfishness, petty cruelty, judgemental attitude, and generally awful personality. Even Sheriff Hassan admits early on that Joe is right to hate her.
• All Take and No Give: Bev manipulates people into giving her things, which she masks as giving back to the Church, and puts on a show of helping the community, but it's clear that strings are definitely attached. It's also implied by other characters that she manipulated the aging and senile Monsignor Pruitt.
• Ax-Crazy: In the beginning, she’s already giving off serious red flags regarding her mental state given how she fatally poisoned a dog for barking at her, but by the end of the season she’s set the entire town ablaze and is planning on spreading the vampire plague onto the mainland, with all the death and destruction that entails.
• As the Good Book Says...: Usually finds a way to twist passages of the Bible to suit her own purposes.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: One of the earliest signs we get of her evilness is her poisoning Joe Collie's dog because he annoyed her.
• The Bully: At her best, Bev is just a bully. She finds whoever she deems weak willed enough to push around to get what she wants. She displays this behavior with Wade and Sturge until the latter has had enough and just abandons her in the face of death.
• Church Lady: Builds her whole life around the church and Monsignor Pruitt (and his successor), up to and including covering up murder for him. Unlike the other equally religious but more heroic women like Erin, she takes most of her religious guidance from the church itself. At the end, she's also shown to take sadistic pleasure in knowing that those who came to church will be "saved" from the vampire massacre while others will be condemned, viewing it as what they deserved. She doesn't even have the decency to die with the rest of the congregation, despite her apparent belief in it.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Bev makes a point of always seeming to be a perfectly kind, wholesome person but there's a definite sense of haughtiness, judgement, and petty cruelty to her words and behavior. And that's before she becomes an outright villain.
• Didn't Think This Through: Orders the converted Islanders to burn down everyone's homes in a "Flood of Fire" to drive out the remaining humans, only sparing the Church and the Rec Center as refuge for her followers. She never considers the heroes not only might have the same idea, but it will give them far less to torch to deny the converted flock refuge...
• Dirty Coward:
  • In the final episode, when she realizes that she's facing death by sunlight she kneels down on the beach as though to Face Death with Dignity... only to start frantically digging in the sand with her bare hands in a desperate and pathetic attempt to save her own skin. Her last act is screaming in terror and agony as the sunrise incinerates her.
  • Bev also hides in the back of the Church while the flock are drinking the poisoned communion wine she prepared, implying that while she intended to lead them she had no intention of killing herself and becoming like the rest of them.
• The Dragon: The most loyal follower of Father Paul, even after his true nature and identity is revealed to her, fully supportive in his cause. However...
• Dragon Ascendant: Takes over the role of Big Bad for the series after Father Paul comes to regret the horror he unleashed.
• Dragon with an Agenda: As twisted as his logic becomes, Father Paul does seem to genuinely want to share the "gift" of immortality to his followers, and had wanted to keep bloodshed to a minimum during the Easter vigil. However, once he is indisposed and Bev takes over, she intentionally unleashes the newly-turned bloodthirsty vampires on the rest of the town.
• Dying Alone: While the rest of the townspeople spend their last moments together or with their loved ones and die peacefully, Bev dies alone, crying and pathetically trying to escape her fate. Ironically, Hassan and Ali are within walking distance of her but because of her Islamophobia, racism, and ego she can't bring herself to join them.
• Egocentrically Religious: It's made extremely clear that Bev largely sees her religious beliefs as a way of feeling superior to everyone around her and to indulge her worst impulses and feel good in doing so. The final episode even has Annie outright tell her that, contrary to what Bev believes, God doesn't love her more than anyone else.
• Evil Is Petty: In addition to her acts of outright villainy, Bev is gossipy, judgemental, and unpleasant to everyone she encounters.
• Expy: As a middle-aged woman and a callous, judgmental, bitter fundamentalist who ends up leading a cult during what appears to be a localized apocalypse, she bears a close resemblance to Mrs Carmody.
• Face Death with Despair: Bev's final moments consist of her desperately trying and failing to save herself, trying to dig a hole in the beach to save herself from the sun, and crying in fear all the while before the sunlight kills her, in sharp contrast to everyone else who is calmly awaiting their fate with their loved ones. It would almost invoke pity were she not so reprehensible.
• Faux Affably Evil: Bev always has a "stern but reasonable" Sunday school teacher air to her and can be superficially polite in a passive aggressive kind of way but it becomes gradually clear just how horrid she truly is underneath. It stands in sharp contrast to Father Hill whose charming personality is entirely sincere.
• Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: Bev loathes anyone who doesn't fit into her narrow-minded view of the world, regardless of whether they've actually done anything to her personally, taking their very existence to be a personal slight.
• Final Boss: Shapes up to this in the finale, being the most direct leader of the converted flock to wipe out the rest of the Islanders, as well as escape to the mainland the next day.
• Foreshadowing: Her murder of Joe's dog Pike because he barked at her shows how callous and uncaring she truly is.
• The Fundamentalist:
  • She's the most religious out of the other patrons at St. Patrick's. While seen as the priest's reliable Number Two by the churchgoers, she's regarded as a self-righteous, Holier Than Thou hypocrite by the less devout like Erin and Joe.
  • She doesn't believe in the separation of church and state in terms of education, encouraging children to read the Bible and learn about Christianity/Catholicism as if it was another objective school subject.
  • After the Easter service, she sics the newly-turned hungry vampires on the rest of the town, saying that the faithful church-goers have nothing to fear, but let God sort out the rest.
• Hated by All: Good luck finding a single character on the island who will have anything nice to say about Bev due to her track record of shitty behavior and repulsive personality. Even Father Hill seems only barely able to tolerate her presence during many of their scenes together.
• Hate Sink: Bev is like a "greatest hits" of loathsome characters traits. She's cold, judgemental, cowardly, selfish, cruel, bigoted, dishonest, extremely haughty, hypocritical, proudly narrow-minded, and believes herself better than others with no issues expressing that fact. You may not be able to hate Father Hill/Monsignor Pruitt due to his sympathetic story, sincere belief that he is doing what's right and genuinely kind and charming personality or any of the other islanders but you can absolutely hate Bev. There is absolutely nothing good, sympathetic, or redeeming about her and she is the only character in the series to be portrayed as thoroughly horrible, through and through.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Bev orders her followers to burn down every refuge on the island except the church so that she and those she chooses to allow in will be safe and everyone else will die. This comes back to bite her when Hassan and the others think to do the same with the church and shelter, leaving Bev with nowhere to hide come sunrise.
• Hypocrite:
  • She claims she isn't opposed to Islam or the Koran and that it would be okay for Hassan to hypothetically teach about Islam and the Koran at the school just as Catholicism and the Bible are being taught. She then says the Koran is mostly filled with content that is inappropriate for children and that she would never read it to them, just as she wouldn't read some parts of the Bible such as the story of Lot to children. This is ignoring that the Bible also has quite a bit of children-inappropriate content beyond that, most of which has either been censored or overlooked.
  • In the penultimate episode, Bev hides in the back of the church and avoids taking the poisoned communion wine, despite encouraging the others to partake and be "reborn."
  • In the final episode, she constantly calls Hassan a terrorist, conveniently ignoring that she unleashed the converted Islanders on everyone who didn't go to the midnight mass, and is behind the burning of every house on the island.
  • Bev loves to pride herself on being the most devout Christian on the island and looks down on everyone else as a result but conveniently ignores that pride is considered the greatest sin in Christianity.
• Holier Than Thou: She believes her faith sets herself up as more morally righteous than others, despite being guilty of racism, theft, and murder. All of which occurred before she signed up with Father Paul to convert the residents of the island to vampiric monsters.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Invokes this after discovering Joe Collie's dead body in Father Paul's residence, getting the others to help dispose of the body by referring to Joe as "It."
• It's All About Me: Bev clearly sees her faith as little more than a way to bolster her enormous ego and look down on others. Even before things started to get rolling, she was clearly gunning for a position of a spiritual leader as the "most pious" resident. Which, if you recall she's Catholic and so is the local congregation, is a big no-no by default.
• Jerkass: Probably the nicest thing that could be said about her. Even prior to slip into outright villainy, Bev is cold, judgemental, haughty, close-minded, bigoted, and clearly believes her faith makes her better than everyone else and has no issue letting others know it. Pretty much no one on the island likes her and with good reason. Sheriff Hassan even says that Joe is right to not like her and Father Hill mostly seems to just barely tolerate her.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Already a morally ambiguous character, she really gets worse once she is converted, and begins to see herself as more chosen than Father Paul himself.
• Kick the Dog:
  • She poisons Joe's dog Pike with 1080 just because he barked at her.
  • She also denies refuge to a converted islander who was changed against his will and was horrified by the act of killing his wife and children, since he never actually went to Church or was properly grateful enough for the change. This would in effect be murdering him, since he would have burned to death in the sun.
• Lack of Empathy: Bev has absolutely no empathy, mercy or compassion for anyone who doesn't meet her extremely rigid standards for devotion or faith, which means everyone on the island who just doesn't follow her blindly. She's perfectly willing to let people die left and right when the opportunity presents itself.
• More Despicable Minion: She's subordinate to Father Paul/Monsignor Pruitt, and acts as his "enforcer," but she's the really loathsome one while Father Paul is firmly convinced not only that he's in the right, but acting in the best interests of the islanders and has both a sympathetic reason for his behavior as well as numerous moments of genuine kindness. Tellingly, at the end, while Pruitt wants his "gift" to be shared by all the villagers, Bev is keen on restricting it only to those who "deserve" it; she condemns one man turned into a vampire against his will to burn to death in the sunlight because she deems him insufficiently devout.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Tellingly, Bev felt this way before she was even converted or became aware of Father Paul's true nature, since she murdered a dog who annoyed her by poisoning him to death.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Ordering the converted islanders to burn down all the residences on the island ends up backfiring on her, as the heroes burn down their last two places of refuge before the sun comes up, dooming them all.
• Nosy Neighbour: Of the puritanical variety. With her scrubbed face, plaited hair, and commanding voice, she's the classic bossy Rabble Rouser every village seems to have.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Although she helps Paul turn the congregation into vampires, she says it is to share the "gift" of eternal life, but any "good intentions" are thrown out the window, when she decides to free the vampires to start a massacre in the island, killing anyone who has not attended mass. And she wanted to repeat the process on the Mainland.
• Old Maid: A spinster of Vague Age, as it seems she may have been at school with Joe Collie, who appears to be in his mid-fifties/early sixties.
• Opportunistic Bastard: The idea of turning the islanders into vampires was Father Paul's idea, but she kidnapped her for her nefarious purposes of starting a potential apocalypse on the mainland.
• Politically Incorrect Villain:
  • She believes in spreading the word of God at school such as giving bibles to students or reading them verses, claiming that it wouldn't be that different from teaching them science or history and that the point of school is to learn. While it seems like a sane enough opinion by itself, she also says in her argument that while she's not opposed to Hassan doing the same with the Koran, she believes the Koran is inappropriate for children so she would never bring it into their learning environment.
  • After turning into a vampire, she calls Hassan a terrorist and says she always knew he was one.
  • She also looks down on Erin for being a single pregnant mother (which is also hypocritical, since Erin is married, but she left her abusive husband) and makes little effort to hide that view.
• Pride: Her defining trait. Bev is extremely prideful and sees herself as better than everyone else on the island for her devotion to her faith and believes she not only deserves the blessing but has a right to deny it to others she deems lesser than herself.
• Revenge by Proxy: It's somewhat subtle, but she especially hates Hassan, and is shown smirking with visceral glee as she orders the congregation to restrain him while Ali drinks the poison in front of his helpless father.
• Revenge Through Corruption: Though Bev doesn't see it as corruption, but as saving Ali from Islam, she seems to especially enjoy turning him towards Christianity and then vampirism and away from Hassan.
• The Renfield: She plays this role for Father Paul Hill/Monsignor Pruitt.
• Strawman Political: Bev is just about every reprehensible stereotype about small-town, conservative-minded Christians in one unsavory package and turned to eleven. Think of a real-life Helen Lovejoy but even worse and you've got Bev.
• Sugary Malice: Bev is the queen of passive-aggressive insults and backhanded compliments.
• Take a Moment to Catch Your Death: Bev runs away and hides when everyone else is drinking poison and being killed. However, upon realizing both her betrayal and her role in making it all happen a couple of minutes later, Erin shoots her in the stomach, killing her.
• The Sociopath: Considerably manipulative, considering that she led the congregation into following her orders, incredibly callous, sadistic and cruel, ultimately orchestrating the deaths of hundreds of people with zero remorse, and extremely selfish, with her religious fervour based almost completely around her own psychotic narcissism. While many of the antagonists committed their reprehensible deeds out of either weak-will, lack of self control or a mistaken intention to do good, Bev’s only motive was to subjugate or destroy everyone and everything around her as she saw fit.
• Too Dumb to Live: Taunting Erin that shooting her would only buy the heroes about five minutes before she revived and hunted them down, when a five-minute head start proved crucial in allowing the heroes enough time to thwart her plans.
  • Ordering the converted to burn down all the residences save for the church and the rec center in order to deny refuge to the heroes, which just mean that all the heroes had to do was burn down two buildings that were relatively close to one another.
• Vague Age: Bev's exact age is never specified but indirect references to her past as well as her dress sense and general demeanor imply she is in her fifties/sixties although Samantha Sloyan is only in her early forties. (It's especially difficult to tell since she's been taking communion, so presumably she's been de-ageing as well.)
• Villainous Breakdown: An epic one in the final episode. After finding all refuge from the rising sun destroyed and no hope of finding shelter, Bev breaks down and heads to the beach, fruitlessly trying to dig a hole in the sand to hide in while crying in desperation.
• White Shirt of Death: Her white robe gets stained with blood when Erin shoots and kills her... then she rises as a vampire and gets a lot of screentime with blood covering half her front after that.

Monsignor John Pruitt

Played by: Hamish Linklater

The priest at St. Patrick's. After becoming unwell during his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he was temporarily replaced by Father Paul until he recovered.

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• Good Shepherd: Before his illness and degeneration, he was a much-loved local priest. When a young Riley approached him with a fatally injured mouse, asking the Monsignor if God would heal it, the Monsignor spent three days hunting for a similar-looking mouse so he could tell Riley the mouse was resurrected.
• Ironic Name: The name Pruitt is derived from the Middle English word "prou", meaning "brave". Depending on your point of view, Pruitt is either a coward for fearing death enough to try to cheat it and/or is foolishly brave enough to bring the Angel back to his town.
• I Was Quite a Looker: His time as Father Paul shows he was a handsome man in his youth.
• Meaningful Name:
  • There are two important Johns in the Bible: John the Baptist and John the Apostle.
    • John the Apostle was the youngest Apostle and was the last to die, surviving to old age until he passed of natural causes. He was one of Jesus's closest disciples and was first a disciple of John the Baptist. He was also believed to have written multiple books in the New Testament as well as the Gospel of John, which contained the Book of Signs, telling seven of Jesus's miracles, including the healing of various ill people and the rising of Lazarus from the dead.
  • John the Baptist was a prophet who believed a messianic figure greater than himself (Jesus) would be coming, and is believed to have baptized Jesus. He was executed by King Herod for rebuking him for divorcing his current wife so he could marry his brother's.
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about him without revealing he and Father Paul are one and the same.

Sturge

Played by: Matt Biedel

A ferryman who also works as the church's handyman. He becomes an ally (or perhaps a pawn) of Paul and Bev.

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• Affably Evil: Never loses his friendly personality even after becoming fully subserviant to Bev and going on a rampage where he personally kills several people.
• All for Nothing: Shooting Sarah to try and stop her from burning down the church is completely pointless, as Mildred and Paul do it shortly after out of grief over Sarah's death.
• Beard of Evil: Downplayed. Sturge has a pretty long beard and aids in some pretty villainous acts, but he isn't portrayed as irredeemably bad.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: In the final episode Sturge turns Howie, one of the island's non-believers, into a vampire rather than killing him because the man always treated him well. Bev berates him for this.
• Belief Makes You Stupid: Sturge is a devoutly religious man, but he lets his faith be used to manipulate him into aiding Paul and Bev in committing several immoral acts under the belief that they are being done to further the Second Coming of Christ.
• Co-Dragons: He and Wade become this for Bev.
• Everyone Has Standards: Despite serving as Bev's main enforcer during the series' finale and being fully on board with their plan to spread the vampiric plague to the mainland, he voices his concerns about her more extreme actions on several occasions. He's shocked when she refuses to give Howie shelter, effectively dooming him to death by sunlight, simply because he isn't part of the congregation, and he also tries to dissuade her (although to no avail) from burning down the entire town.
• Face Death with Dignity: Once every source of shelter or escape is destroyed right before sunrise, Sturge accepts his fate just as gracefully as the vampirized heroes. He acknowledges that he's done bad things, tries to comfort several other frightened characters, and joins the Flynns in singing a hymn as they wait for death.
• The Ferryman: Sturge works on a ferry boat transporting people to and from the mainland and helps shut down every way off the island to make it a Closed Circle for the last two episodes.
• Heel–Face Turn: After the church and Rec center are burned, he abandons Bev and chooses to spend his final moments comforting Ooker and Howie.
• Hero Killer: Sturge fatally injures Sarah during her fight against the flock in the climax.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: To some degree, he seems to have a simpler and more direct way of thinking than others, and is clearly gullible. Bev particularly seems to treat him like a simpleton. But he's inclined to try to comfort people when he sees them in distress.
• Noble Top Enforcer: Sturge does a lot of the grunt work for Father Paul and Bev and contributes to the deaths of many people. However, he shows some hesitation before some of his worst misdeeds and shows mercy and compassion toward his enemies on several key occasions.
• Only One Name: Sturge's full name is never mentioned.

Ooker

Played by: Louis Oliver

Warren Flynn's friend and fellow altar boy.

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• Evil Former Friend: He's Warren's best friend and also hangs out with Leeza but tries to kill and feed on them after becoming a vampire.
• Interrupted Intimacy: He once walked in on his older brother having sex with a girl.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After coming down from the feeding frenzy, he is overwhelmed with regret for killing his mother.
• Self-Made Orphan: His Horror Hunger after being transformed apparently causes him to do this offscreen, leaving him horrified.
  Ooker: I think I killed my mom.

The Angel

Played by: Quinton Boisclair

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• Angelic Abomination: The Angel's resemblance to one is played for all its horror.
• Failed a Spot Check: When feeding, the Angel is near oblivious to its surroundings, including even attacks on itself. It even ignores or doesn't notice Erin cutting holes into its wings when it feeds on her blood, leading to its (possible) demise.
• Feral Vampires: Downplayed. It's smart enough to work with Fr. Paul, shush him when he's panicking, and take part in a mockery of Easter service. Outside of these incidents, however, it acts more like a wild beast than anything else, stalking the night to prey on wild animals until the chaos in the epilogue allows it rampage through the island and revanously devour any uninfected human that it can catch. It also never speaks, and instead only growls, snarls, and shrieks like a beast.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: While it’s clearly sapient enough to work with Fr. Paul, it is never explained why the Angel would go along with the plan. No insight is given into its mind, and any possible feelings or motives beyond feeding are never explored.
• Greater-Scope Villain: It's responsible for Father Paul and Bev Keane's plans involving its blood, but it acts more as an onlooker to the events rather than a direct player.
• I Love You, Vampire Son: Averted. It's cold and dismissive to Pruitt, though it does kill Mildred when she shot Pruitt, implying some possessiveness.
• It Can Think: The Angel shows some signs of intelligence.
  • It is capable of planning and communicating with Father Paul, who says he can hear it in his head. It even shushes him when they meet at the Rec Center. Presumably, it went along with the plan so it had an easy source of fresh victims.
  • The Angel can wear clothing to disguise itself, recognise the purpose of a firearm, lure victims by mimicking their speech, and even take part in a mockery of a church service.
• Looks Like Orlok: The Angel is hairless, pale-skinned, pointed-eared monster impossible to mistake for a human being.
• Monster Progenitor: His exact origin is unknown but he's the oldest vampire in the story, and is responsible for turning Pruitt and, through him, most of the population of Crockett Island.
• Mysterious Past: Its origins are a complete mystery. Somehow it ended up trapped in a buried tomb outside Damascus. How that happened, how old it is, or even if it really Was Once a Man are never elaborated upon.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: It is very clearly a vampire, but is only ever known as "the Angel" as a result of Father Pruitt's original mistaking of its identity.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: It remained imprisoned for an extremely long but otherwise unknown amount of time in a tomb near Damascus, kept sealed away by the tons of sand covering its prison and by its weakness to sunlight. That is, at least, until a sandstorm wipes away the layer of sand and the lost and confused Monsignor Paul stumbles into its lair...
• Stronger with Age: The implied reason why it is so inhuman and resistant to bullets compared to more recent vampires is that it is incredibly old, and its vampirism has had time to alter it in ways that all the others, who have been vampires for weeks or days at most, have not.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: He is willing to play along with Paul when he mistakes him for an angel.
• Uncertain Doom: Erin cuts his wings full of holes, and he's last seen weakly flying west in an attempt to outrun the sunrise with Warren observing that it likely has no chance of doing so, since the shoreline is fifty miles distant and sunrise is quickly approaching. It's ambiguous whether he lived or not; on one hand, it's implied that Leeza lost the feeling in her legs due to the Angel's death; on the other, Mike Flanagan suggests that the angel represents the corruption and/or fanaticism to be found in any belief system that can never truly be killed, suggesting that he managed to survive.
• Villainous Glutton: Broke Riley's neck in three places while feeding on him, and when he resurrects it crunches painfully back into place requiring six hours to fully heal. Later, it ignores Leeza shooting it in favor of feeding on a woman, and seems untroubled by Erin cutting a dozen jagged holes in its wings as it feeds on her, ultimately dooming it.
• Voice Changeling: It's able to mimic Bowl's voice with only a slight distortion, using it as a trick to lure him into an abandoned home to feed on and kill him.
• The Voiceless: It doesn't say anything aside from a few snarls and growls. However, it is shown to be rather sapient at times.
• Walking Spoiler: His full on-screen appearance in Episode 3 completely shifts the show into a Gothic Horror vampire story.

Other Townsfolk

Joe Collie

Played by: Robert Longstreet

The town drunk and local pariah.

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• The Alcoholic: To an extreme degree as he is almost always seen drunk or drinking. It got worse after the accident with Leeza and became the only way he could live with the guilt.
• Beard of Sorrow: Has a truly epic beard and is a severely depressed and self-loathing alcoholic.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • He tells Riley about how his sister had recently passed. When Father Paul tries covering up Joe's murder to Riley, he claims he's visiting his sister, which is what tips Riley off that Father Paul is up to something.
  • In a rather literal case, his gun is shown on his wall when Leeza visits. This gets used in the final episode.
• Drowning My Sorrows: He's frequently drunk out of unhappiness with his life, especially after accidentally paralyzing Leeza, the recent passing of his sister (who he says is "the only person who ever gave a damn about him"), and the sudden death of his dog.
• Foil: To Bev Keane, with whom she shares an intense and mutual hatred. While Bev makes a point of seeming to be the ideal Christian and isn't shy about letting everyone else know and plays a large role in the community, Joe is an alcoholic who has been in trouble with the law numerous times and has been shunned by the town for accidentally paralyzing Leeza in an accident. Bev always looks prim and proper while Joe is always dishevelled with a wild beard. Bev is superficially polite while Joe is foul-mouthed and abrasive. And while Joe reveals himself to be a good person at his core and makes a genuine effort to improve and atone for his misdeeds, Bev shows how rotten she truly is as the series goes on and never thinks of herself as in the wrong about anything so she never repents.
• Hated Hometown: He laments that unlike his sister, who left Crockett Island as soon as she could and never returned, he could never find the courage in himself to leave.
• Jerkass Has a Point: He's entirely right to suspect that Bev Keane killed his dog and to intensely dislike her in general, a fact even Sheriff Hassan admits to.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Joe is a grouchy, ill-tempered, foul-mouthed drunk but he's not a bad guy overall and will occasionally show his softer side, particularly when he decides to get sober and makes a sincere effort to improve his life.
• Manly Tears: When his dog dies, and when Leeza tells him she hates him but forgives him.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Permanently paralyzing Leeza was one of his life's greatest regrets and continues to torment him in the present day.
• Odd Friendship: With Sheriff Hassan, thanks to their constant interactions in the island's arrest.
• Pet the Dog: A literal example as he clearly adores his dog and is devastated by his sudden death. He also shows a softer side when trying to get sober, sharing a few sincere moments with Riley and Father Hill.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: He decides to turn his life around and get off the bottle once he sees that Leeza has been healed, convinced that there are miracles in the world and that he needs to change. Then he's seriously wounded by Father Paul, who feeds on his bleeding head wound. Made even worse by the fact that Joe was alive for quite a while after he was injured, meaning Father Paul could have saved his life rather than feed on his blood.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Easily the most profane character in the series. Hardly a sentence leaves Joe's mouth without having "fuck" inserted into it and usually more than once.
• Smarter Than You Look: Despite his reputation as the town drunk, Joe has his clever moments.
  • He's right on the money about how truly evil Bev Keane is, and he is correct in thinking that she deliberately poisoned his dog.
  • He is also the second person (besides Mildred) to note the resemblance between Father Paul and the young Monsignor Pruitt, though he doesn't quite make the full connection and simply says that Father Paul could be Pruitt's son.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: He's killed by Paul right after he's started to turn his life around and learn to forgive himself.

Bowl

Played By: John C. McDonald

Crockett Island's resident drug dealer who frequently does odd jobs around the island.

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• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: More of a jerk than evil but he uses the money from his criminal activities to provide for his family. His mother is devastated after his disappearance.
• Evil Redhead: Downplayed. He's not evil, but he is definitely a dick.
• Fiery Redhead: He starts threatening Sheriff Hassan when he checks if he's selling Joe drugs.
• Jerkass: He's pretty gruff and unfriendly, and frequently insults people for even slightly annoying him.
• Justified Criminal: His mother points out to Sheriff Hassan that Bowl's drug dealing, though illegal, is a key source of income for his family.
• Pet the Dog: He fixes Joe's generator free of charge and is one of the two people who treats him decently.
• Punch-Clock Villain: For a given value of villain. Bowl is a dick, but he does various legitimate odd jobs around the island in addition to his drug dealing, and clearly doesn't view it as anything more than a source of income.

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