What happened to Erin’s baby in Midnight Mass?

Midnight Mass has officially arrived, and it’s quite a rollercoaster of emotions and horror. The series starts off slow and takes some time to build up, but if you stick with it, it really delivers by the finale. Each episode reveals something new about the fictional town of Crockett Island, and each acting performance is just wonderful. It’s easy to become immersed in this world created by Mike Flanagan, and this is without a doubt my favorite show of his.

Like most horror content, Midnight Mass presents a lot of mystery and keeps you hanging on to find out all the answers. This show isn’t going to spoon-feed you everything, though. There’s a lot of symbolism and some questions that are left up for your own interpretation. However, there are some things that do get explained, and Erin Greene‘s (Kate Siegel) story is one of them.

Spoilers ahead for Midnight Mass.

When we’re introduced to Erin, she’s pregnant living on Crockett Island. We learn she had left town but returned to have her baby, and recently took up faith. She had a relationship growing up with Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford), who at the start of the show is just returning home from prison after killing a young woman in a drunk driving accident.

Erin frequently visits the local doctor, Sarah Gunning (Annabeth Gish), who tells her she’s healthy and that her pregnancy is going well. However, everything changes for Erin and the entire island once Father Paul (Hamish Linklater) arrives.

Father Paul shows up and tells everyone he’s here to temporarily replace Monsignor Pruitt, who’d fallen ill and is recovering on the mainland. The townspeople grow to really respect Father Paul, especially after these so-called miracles begin happening. In church one day, he’s seemingly able to heal Leeza (Annarah Cymone), a young woman who was paralyzed. He also somehow de-ages Sarah’s mom Mildred (Alex Essoe), who was very old and fragile.

But, not everything is positive with these changes Father Paul brings. For Erin, she sadly loses her baby. One day when she pays Sarah a visit for a regular check-up, they don’t see the baby in the ultrasound. Shocked and scared, they’re both at a loss for what happened.

Sarah believes Erin suffered a miscarriage, however Erin swears she did not. Erin decides to go to the mainland to get a second opinion, and things get way creepier from there.

When Erin is looked at by a different doctor, she’s told there’s no evidence of her ever being pregnant in the first place. The doctor doesn’t think she had a miscarriage, and doesn’t believe she was actually carrying a child. It’s a truly devastating scene.

How does Erin lose her baby in Midnight Mass?

So how does this even happen? It’s a mystery for a few episodes, but Sarah is able to provide an explanation eventually. Because her mom had been de-aging so rapidly, she’d been doing tests on her blood samples. She discovers that both her mom’s blood and Erin’s blood boils and sets on fire in the sun, which is perplexing… at first.

After Riley burns and dies in the sun right before Erin’s eyes out on the water in the rowboat, she goes back to town and explains everything to Sarah. Sarah comes to the conclusion that there’s something infecting the town, changing people’s blood and curing some things but also depleting their iron levels. If you have too much of it, you crave blood and are unable to go out in the sun without burning up.

As we see with Riley and Father Paul, they both drink angel blood after being resurrected and then cannot go out in the sun. The big reveal is made that Father Paul, who we at this point know is actually Monsignor Pruitt, has been giving churchgoers the angel blood disguised as wine.

Erin has been drinking the blood at church, and Sarah explains that because the baby that was growing inside her was an “alien presence” to this new blood, the blood likely killed her pregnancy and restored her body as if she was never pregnant.

It’s a chilling discovery and one that motivates Erin to help the townspeople even more. Something bad is coming, and she believes it’s her job to warn everyone.

Unfortunately, Erin’s story has a tragic end, as does almost everyone’s in Midnight Mass. You can stream all seven episodes on Netflix now, but buckle up! This show is bound to leave you speechless.