Netflix’s Slasher
Season 3, Episode 6: “9 pm to 12 am”
Directed by Adam MacDonald
Written by JP Larocque

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “6 pm to 9 pm” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “Midnight to 3 am” – click here
Connor Rijkers (Gabriel Darku), his sister Jen (Mercedes Morris), and Saadia Jalalzai (Baraka Rahmani) are heading to the big rave in a creepy abandoned building, filled with people dressed in costumes, high on drugs, and smashing random shit. Fun?
The music’s bumping. For Saadia, it’s a near religious experience, albeit somewhat surreal, too. The friends soon hear about Wyatt (Jefferson Brown) being taken into custody as the Druid. They assume it’s a true night out to celebrate.

At Clayborne Apartments, Dan Olensky (Dean McDermott) runs into Angel Lopez (Salvatore Antonio), who tries to offer condolences about his daughter, only to get yelled at for his trouble. Amber Ciotti (Joanne Vannicola), as always, is kicking around the halls, paying attention to everything and everyone. She looks through the bag of garbage Angel throws out. Angel’s thinking of Joe Dimashke (Ilan Muallem) and tries calling. He won’t get an answer. Joe and Violet (Paula Brancati) are chopped up in a bin someplace.

Dan goes to the morgue to see his daughter. Coroner Lucie Cooper (Tiio Horn) advises the girl’s face was badly mutilated. He still wants to see. Must be difficult, to look at your child’s face chewed away, her eyes and teeth no longer covered by lids or lips. Brutal.
Detective Roberta Hanson (Lisa Berry) sits in an interrogation room with Wyatt, whose nonchalant attitude about killing Noelle and Kit is chilling. She breaks out pictures of the other Druid victims. He’s incredibly insensitive — “This is top notch“— yet doesn’t appear to be taking credit for the Druid’s latest murders.

Drunk Dan is sleeping one off on the couch when he has a vision of his daughter coming back home. He remembers all the good moments they shared once. Then, as he hugs Cassidy, her hair comes off, and her skin, and her face is nothing but a skinless scream! Pretty harsh nightmare. Fuck Dan, though. Another “racist piece of shit” like that kid. Dan gets an e-mail from an appropriate address— whitepower1889@mailwarrior.net— that says someone other than Wyatt killed his daughter. He’s given the picture of a door, the address where the killer supposedly lives.
And what in the hell’s Amber up to with all those keys? She’s slipping into the Olensky apartment, into Cassidy’s room. Strange.

At the rave, Saadia hears that asshole Charlie calling her family murderers, and generally being a racist white shit. We see small moments from her terrifying memories of home. She has enough of listening to this douche and smacks his face, then Connor kicks him out. Saadia feels guilty and weird for partying on the anniversary of Kit’s death, especially since they’re at the same solstice party. Connor tries to tell her it’s a way to ward off the evil, to push away the bad and say ‘we don’t care about dying.’ At the same time, Saadia knows real death, similar to Connor and Jen. She’s experienced horrible things back home. She’s seen things 99% of American youth will never, ever see. She saw members of her family killed and burned by the military.
Jump back 10 years. Angel was working for the Pride committee and knocked on Dan’s door. He was looking for donations of any kind to help a “new family of refugees” who recently moved in— the Jalalzais. Naturally, white power Dan didn’t give a shit. He was only concerned about “white citizens” and basically threatened Angel. That’s when the descent into white nationalism erupted for him.
Current day, the same whitepower1889 is e-mailing Angel, taunting about his boyfriends. Easy to assume it’s Dan. But we know different. And the e-mail has a clip of the Violet-Joe sex tape, as well as that same door. Uh oh. You can see where this is going.

Both Dan and Angel go out back around the building, to the door to which they were sent. They start to argue, each confused about why they’re there, sharing the e-mails they’ve received and neither of them knowing what the hell’s going on. Then they realise they’re locked inside. They’ve been “catfished.”
Only question is, why? Oh, you know!

“When we dress up as zombies, and ghouls, and ghosts,
we’re basically just giving death a big fuck you.”

When Saadia goes to the bathroom, she finds Charlie waiting, spewing misogynistic hate and getting rapey. She gets out of there without anything happening. Hopefully the Druid kills him soon. Right on time, the killer slips out to jam a long blade down the kid’s throat. This is one murder Father Gore condones.

The situation’s rapidly devolving with a white nationalist and a gay person of colour stuck in that room together. Dan gets handsy, prompting Angel to beat the living shit out of him, using all the pent up anger from years of discrimination to bloody the racist. It doesn’t feel good for him, even if cathartic.
Suddenly, Dan notices gas flowing into the room. Not long and they’re unconscious.

Jen, Connor, and Saadia head off from the rave with tons of snacks. At Clayborne, they remark how the apartment “looks haunted.” It’s definitely being actively haunted by the Druid, bringing the place’s Gothic past back to life.
While the friends are having fun, Angel and Dan wake in that room with their faces glued together. The racist freaks out, trying to pull himself away from Angel, as their skin starts to tear. Goddamn.
Others can have their opinions. Father Gore thinks Solstice is his favourite season yet, even above the gnarly, excellent Guilty Party which was an improvement over the already fun first season, The Executioner. There’s great characters, lots of crazy kills, and the story’s twisty as ever. Plus, the commentary on social media, as well as other issues, is great for a horror show in 2019.
Balls to those who don’t dig it! Those of us who love it can keep on loving.

“Midnight to 3 am” is next time.