The Midnight Gospel

If The Midnight Gospel was an acid trip, then Duncan Trussell and Pendleton Ward are your spirit guides. This show is about sharing the personal lessons you learn alone in the dark. Adult themes are amplified here; gore, violence, drugs, and nudity are all amped to the nth degree. Beneath the fever dream is a prayer to human connection. For The Midnight Gospel, there is no such thing as small talk. Trussell's warm ability to connect with his guests on their most personal levels disarms you. Pendleton Ward's ability to weave a universe out of what is essentially a series of podcasts is masterful. The two, in harmony, balance each other perfectly. Here, Ward and Trussell succeed so often and in so many ways it's hard to unpack everything without wanting to sit back in for a second viewing.

Do you enjoy podcast like Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and Joe Diaz but are not able to sit through them wether due to its length and or lack of visual stimulation? Well this is an amazing middle ground. This show has some excellent conversations with very interesting people and some great animation to go along with it. The way they handle the conversations and the events happening around the characters are amusing to say the least. I highly recommend checking it out. Edit: When I made the review I just finished the fourth episode. After finishing the series I realized that this is something special and I really mean what I say. This is something that's going to stay with me for a while. The last episode had me tearing up it's absolutely incredible.

It's basically an animated podcast. There's not really any plot just some guy interviewing people about....things but the animation is not related to the thing they're talking about at all. It's certainly unique and weird and...good? I...don't know. I mean I don't hate it but I'm just simply not interested about the topics and the conversations around those topics. They talked about life and death and god and spiritual things. Some people might considered their conversations deep and profound but I really don't. Maybe because I feel like I've listened to podcasts or interviews around these topics that's pretty much the same or even better. They just don't have the means to put it in animation. You really have to watch it yourself. I don't think there's definite good or bad about it. It's a conversation, you listen to it and you think about it and that's it.

As others pointed out there are many 1,2 star reviews and I don't want others to think the show is bad. I think it's excellent, the conversations aren't scripted (since it's a podcast) so in a way, the conversations are much more real than the ones in any other show where the characters have dialog sheets that they have to follow.

I also think the animation style makes it worth watching each episode twice: once paying attention to the dialog, second time to the animation.

One of the ideas of mindfulness is not judging, to simply observe our thoughts and I think this show simply presents ideas. It doesn't judge, it's not saying "you should think this because X". It is simply presenting view points which I think is helpful to help anybody that wonders things like "what's the purpose of life?", "what's the deal with people talking about presence and meditation, is it all just false?", "what is enlightenment?", "why do people talk about a separation between the thinking mind and the conscious, observing self?", "why do I FEEL like I'm suffering?" etc. As such, the show simply presents ideas. It is up to everybody to decide which ideas (if any!) they accept. I don't think that makes the show bad, right?

Finally, I wonder if any of the bad reviewers have bothered to watch the full show, including the last episode. I think the last episode is an example of a level of truthfulness I don't think I've seen on any other series/film and tbh I ended up crying. I don't think one gets that from a 1-3 star show.

Since I discovered T.M.G. and Duncan Trussel, I stumpled towards many great, interesting and awesome conversations (mostly with his Podcast - Duncan Trussel Family Hour), and discovered many great people and teachers ( just a few: Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Ram Dass, David Nichtern,...). Check out DUNCAN TRUSSEL FAMILY HOUR...can't recommend it to much! Even the commercials are hillarious!!!

I'm truly thankeful for this show! LOVE the work that Pendelton Ward did, too! Amazing Show!!!