Does Ilonka Die or is She Cured in The Midnight Club? [Spoiler]

Netflix’s ‘The Midnight Club’ follows the story of a group of teenagers who share horror stories with each other every night. They are all residents of Brightcliffe, a hospice for terminally ill kids. While most patients there have to live with their illness until they succumb to it, there are times, though rare, when some walk out feeling better than they had when they arrived there. It is the story of one such girl who entices Ilonka to visit Brightcliffe. Despite her foster father’s wishes, she decides to stay at the place and find out exactly what it was that mysteriously cured a girl named Julia Jayne. As time passes, Ilonka becomes more desperate to uncover Brightcliffe’s secrets and is ready to do whatever it takes to heal herself. Things, however, don’t turn out her way. Here’s what happens to her at the end of the season. SPOILERS AHEAD

Ilonka Misinterprets a Miracle

The only reason Ilonka had come to Brightcliffe was because of Julia Jayne, and when she finds her, it looks like she finally might have all the answers that she’d been searching for so desperately. Julia, aka Shasta, tells her about a ritual, one that needs some blood spilling but doesn’t go as far as to claim someone’s life. With Anya’s life hanging in the balance, Ilonka convinces the rest of the group to perform the ritual, in the hopes that it might work for Anya. If it works for her, then it should work for everyone else too.

Unfortunately, Anya dies soon after and it looks like the ritual didn’t work. But then, Ilonka overhears Stanton talking to someone, saying that one of the kids might be going home. This reignites Ilonka’s hopes, as she believes that the ritual did work, though instead of Anya, someone else reaped its benefits. The fact that she was the one who believed in it the most, Ilonka thinks that it is she who has been cured. However, it turns out that she is still to remain at Brightcliffe. It is Sandra who has a second lease on life.

By the end of the season, Ilonka is still where she was when she arrived at Brightcliffe. She still has cancer, and even if the ritual worked, it didn’t do anything for her. Shasta promises to help her, but then, that also turns out to be a sham. She discovers that Shasta herself is fighting cancer and is just as desperate as Ilonka to cure herself. This breaks the teenager’s morale and she realizes that she might have been deluded about the whole thing from the beginning. She was so intent on finding a solution to her problem that she went down a murky path and put other people’s lives at risk. She is ready to leave Brightcliffe and accept her fate, but then something changes her mind.

In sharing Anya’s belongings with Rhett, Ilonka discovers that the ballerina’s broken leg has been fixed. She takes it as a sign from Anya, and if it’s possible for her dead roommate to send a sign from the other side, then anything is possible. In the end, she extends her stay at Brightcliffe, considering that there are still a lot of things that she doesn’t know about the place. Perhaps the place really does hold some magic, though maybe not in the way that she’d previously hoped. For now, she is alive, and that’s enough to keep her going.

Read More: Where is Netflix’s The Midnight Club Filmed?