#confessions.

i. first off, we’ve seen John show SOME amount of restraint re: his hunger as a vampire. 

In ‘Lamentations’, it’s shown that he’s in the middle of a hunger fit right before he leaves for the night to deliver daily mass to Millie, and struggling just after as well (right before Joe comes to visit). Earlier, Beverly also comes into his room to check in on him when he is, as he says, “starving”, and still refrains from attacking her. And even outside of John himself, we KNOW that this hunger is something that CAN be controlled with some willpower-- Riley, Annie, Ed, Ali, and Millie, despite starving, never DARE to take another life to remedy it. And looking back on the series, it makes sense why John was able to show restraint around these people. John repeats to himself a lot that when he feeds it’s because he’s “moved to act” but, at least subconsciously, I think John knows that he needs and wants certain people alive and wouldn’t actively butcher them. Millie and Sarah because he loves them, and Bev because he needs her as an ally for this all to work.

John, on some level, is also aware that this hunger and the carnage it brings is, in itself, a terrible thing. He even DESCRIBES it as ‘horrible’ during the Good Friday Mass in ‘Gospel’ ( “what is otherwise horrible is only good because of where it’s headed” ).

ii. John’s actions in the immediate aftermath of Joe’s death do not strike me as the actions of a man wrestling with a lot of guilt.

when Bev first finds him in the rectory, covered in blood on the floor, John looks more shocked than anything. He keeps staring wide-eyed at Joe’s body, as if he’s in disbelief that he was actually capable of killing a man. But when Bev approaches him, he doesn’t apologize, he just starts scrambling for excuses and continues to do so without Bev really prompting him to ( “ I don’t know what happened... Something came over me ” etc. ). He’s not really.... remorseful? He’s more so trying to explain it away.

Then, of course, Bev outright asks him if he feels any guilt to which he quite readily responds “no, not at all”. He thinks about it for a moment, granted. But not for long.

And during the pinnacle meeting with Riley in ‘Gospel’, when Riley is calling him what he is ( "Murderer.” ), John does not express ANY sort of guilt or even seems to WANT to think about what he’s done. Instead, he immediately deflects ( “A murderer, maybe. So was Moses. Paul, my namesake... I’m hardly unique in this room, either, am I? I mean, you’ve killed someone.” ). He even mentions that he prayed on the fact that he felt no guilt, Bev just cemented those feelings by showing him some scripture from Hebrews later on.

iii. John and Bev are BOTH very talented at manipulation, and twisting their faith to justify their actions and agendas, together as well as separately. It’s just that John’s ability to willfully bend the meaning of Biblical literature to justify himself, and rid himself of any guilt for his misdeeds, is often overlooked.

Throughout the events of Midnight Mass, John and Bev’s dynamic never registered to me as one in which there was a clear manipulator and the other an obviously innocent party. There’s definitely an argument for Bev being the primary manipulator in the dynamic while Pruitt is old and suffering dementia - that’s a given. But once John returns young and healthy again with a sound(ish) mind, that shifts into an alliance in which these are both equally manipulative people who tend to bounce off one another. They try to manipulate each other really, and while to a degree I think John can see through Bev using him, he knows he needs her on his side to reach his end goal and plays along. 

I think the reason that Bev gets a lot of John’s actions pinned back on her is that she’s much more outward about her manipulation. She actively throws the scraps of weight she has around to benefit her. John, by contrast, keeps his agendas hidden, and as opposed to threats and intimidation, takes the route of getting others to trust him before pulling the proverbial rug out from under them. Hell, he even hides his true motivation from Bev, as he’s been bread-crumbing her with only pieces of the truth so that she does not know his ultimate goal is to have a second chance at life as Millie’s partner and Sarah’s father. 

It should also be mentioned that while John and Bev have separate motivations (John wants to be a savior for his island community, primarily for his lover and their daughter ; Bev wants power and affirmation that she’s much more holy and righteous than anyone else on Crockett), the end goal for both of them IS to give their parish community this “miracle”. John just wants to share with everyone, while Bev ultimately wants to use this as an excuse to play Judge and Jury. To play as God. 

At the end of the day, John also has WAY more power when it comes to influencing the church community and interpreting scripture as a male priest than Bev ever will. Roman Catholic power dynamics are highly patriarchal in nature and what John says is ultimately what goes. He’s been a priest long enough to know this, to know that now that he can think more clearly he’s not “under her thumb” anymore. He can put an end to a lot of her shit any time he wants, but he doesn’t. Because he needs her to do what she does best for this all to work.

And while Bev definitely likes to twist a lot of things and recite a lot of scripture to justify both John and herself, well.... she didn’t haul an “angel” back to Crockett from Damascus and start feeding everybody its blood without their knowledge in the first place. That was wholly his doing, as was declaring the creature as “God’s messenger” in the first place. 

iv. finally, and this may be an unpopular and more sinister interpretation, but on some level.... i personally think that John killing Joe is due in part to a reaction of their conversation. Even as a possibly subconscious motivation, I think John meant to kill him for it. 

When Joe first arrives at the rectory, John’s body language is guarded. He’s crossing his arms, pressing himself into the opposite side of the room, genuinely looks like he doesn’t want to go near him in fear of hurting him. This changes once Joe sees the old newspaper clipping on the wall, and mentions how much Father Paul resembles Pruitt ( “you could be his son... you know that was a rumor when I was a kid, that the old man wasn’t exactly celibate” ). 

Now in Joe’s defense here, he hardly strikes me as the type to have an interest in town gossip (at least, not beyond whatever shit Bev is pulling) and he likely doesn’t judge anyone else or care deeply about anyone’s business beyond surface observation, just as he says. But here’s the thing. John has no way of knowing that for sure. Despite living on the island for almost all of Joe Collie's life, he and John are essentially strangers. Joe has never stepped foot in St. Patrick’s before the day of the first AA meeting he attends. It’s most likely that beyond names, Joe and John know nothing about each other.

Dolly, Wade, Sturge and Bev were all there to witness John’s death and rapid resurrection and know who he really is at this point as well.  But the key difference here is that he knows them. Knows that they will heed his guidance and directions as their longtime priest, meaning that when they promise to keep the truth to themselves, he trusts that they will. And in Sturge’s case, he is at least visibly intimidated enough by Bev to do just about anything she says.

Joe is an entirely different case. He has not been a part of the parish for decades. At this point, there’s only the very beginnings of trust formed between them. Father Paul/ John is in the process of helping him, and Joe is visibly grateful for that kindness, but certainly not enough to the point where Joe would cater to the priest’s every wish. He doesn’t have the lifetime of Catholic guilt and indoctrination to back that kind of behavior up. So how can John trust Joe to not run his mouth? Because if Joe does by chance, then this could create a significant obstacle that prevents John from spreading this so-called miracle to his community. Yeah, Joe’s first conclusion likely wouldn’t be “Father Paul is actually John Pruitt and he’s a vampire now!”. But a scandal about Pruitt having a kid (when at this point, the island doesn’t know the truth about Sarah Gunning’s father) could put his leadership and intentions under way more scrutiny than what is comfortable, as well as these “miracles” he’s been performing. A lot of the otherwise stupid shit that John pulls only works because of Crockett’s blind trust in their priest and the faith that he has their best interests at heart. They never question him. He doesn’t want them to start.

It is AFTER this observation of Joe’s that John’s disposition visibly shifts. This is when he decides to get close to him. This is when he approaches him and encourages an embrace. THIS is when he smiles and tells Joe how proud he is of him, how he knows that hunger and how “hard it is to fight against it”. I picked up on this as a hint - Maybe John’s been fighting it this whole time they’ve been in the room together. Maybe this is the excuse he needed to stop fighting and give in. And it seemed to me that he’s using Joe’s trust in him as a confidant, in this moment, to create a false sense of security and validation so that he’s more compliant.

And I would like to point out that John knows, by this point, that his blood should be able to heal and resurrect someone. When Joe is bleeding out on the floor, he mutters half-hearted apologies, weak “are you alrights” in a manner that almost feels like it’s to save face, but he does not offer Joe the ‘gift’ of new life. He simply feeds, and lets him ultimately die as a sacrifice for “the greater good”.