The Biggest Unanswered Questions From The Mysterious Benedict Society Season 1
Contains spoilers from "The Mysterious Benedict Society" Season 1 and various books from "The Mysterious Benedict Society" series
As one might surmise from the title, the Disney+ series "The Mysterious Benedict Society" is full of mystery, and although many of the questions posed early on in the first season are at least partially answered by the end, there were many questions intentionally left unanswered. This appears to suggest that those making the show are trying to set the series up for a second season, but as of the time of writing, the big mouse hasn't yet confirmed this as a certainty.
We still certainly hope a second season is on the way sooner or later, however, because we have some questions that need to be answered in it. Here are some of the biggest hanging threads, head-scratchers and teasers that have us grabbing our own comically large magnifying glasses and overly complicated investigation boards with pins and strings holding everything together to figure out what's happening.
Will the Mysterious Benedict Society come back together if and when needed?
As we learned with the falling action of the first season's finale, each of the children appears to have found their own respective home. Reynie Muldoon (Mystic Inscho) finds an adoptive parent in Ms. Perumal (Gia Sandhu), while George "Sticky" Washington (Seth Carr) gets to attend the dream school he thought he was applying for in the first place. Kate Weatherall (Emmy DeOliveira), meanwhile, discovers that Milligan (Ryan Hurst) is her biological father, as he slowly discovers his memory, and Constance Contraire (Marta Kessler) "respectfully declines" adoption by Mr. Benedict (Tony Hale) while agreeing to stay with him and the rest of the society.
With each character seemingly going in a different life direction, how will they be able to come back together if and when needed? It's what they're able to do in the books, with Sticky being able to temporarily withdraw from his school as needed and Ms. Perumal trusting in Reynie's abilities despite her desire to keep him safe, while Kate and Constance's caretakers are both part of the Mysterious Benedict Society itself. It shouldn't be that much of an issue as long as Disney can get all the actors back, which is never a guarantee, but if all goes well, there should be a fun "getting the gang back together" montage and we'll be all set.
Will Milligan and the other brainwashed people ever fully get their memories back?
As this is still a children's series, the villainous Mr. Curtain (Hale) isn't going around killing most of his enemies, but instead "brainwashing" them, erasing their memories and, in most cases, having them work for him at the Institute. Milligan was able to escape, however, and join Mr. Benedict in the fight for good.
Over the series, Milligan recovers fragments of his memory, having flashbacks to his life as a "chemist with a conscience," as Mr. Curtain mockingly states. Although more and more knowledge comes back to him as time progresses, including the bombshell reveal that he's Kate's father, he still admits by the end that there is a lot he still doesn't know about his own past. For example, who is Kate's mother, and is she still alive? What exactly did Milligan do to get on Mr. Curtain's bad side, and how was he brainwashed? As always, there are some potential answers to be found in the original novels, but with the creators stating that the as-of-yet unconfirmed future seasons may deviate further from the original story, nothing is a guarantee.
Does Constance Contraire really have psychic powers, and if so, how did she get them?
Another big reveal in the season finale is that Constance appears to have some form of psychic powers, which she uses to overload the Whisperer and stop "The Emergency." However, the presence of unexplained psychic powers appears to fly in the face of how most of the series' science fiction works, which typically gives much more explanation for its fantastical elements.
So, if we get more of the series, we can reasonably expect it to expand on how Constance got these powers and how they work. In the books, it's somewhat explained by an unusually high intellect combined with her young age, where she is highly sensitive to patterns other people miss, which explains why she is the only person who can hear the Whisperer and ultimately put a stop to it. However, the show's creators are sure to have their own ideas, and we can't wait to see what they are.
What was in the blueprint that got Mr. Curtain so excited?
The best — and worst — type of mystery is one that is so close to being revealed and then yanked away from the audience, and that's exactly the one we got with the evil tease at the end. Mr. Curtain maniacally grins at a blueprint handed to him by his assistant, says "This could be interesting," and then credits roll.
What is it? We need to know, but there's no way to know for certain. In the second book, Mr. Curtain's overall goal is to get a plant to cure his narcolepsy, but why would you need a blueprint for a plant? That leads Reddit user u/Time_Capt to believe the creators may want to skip straight to the third book's arc, where Mr. Curtain attempts to reconstruct an even more powerful form of the Whisperer. But that's really all we have right now: theories.
Season 1 of "The Mysterious Benedict Society" is a Disney+ exclusive, available to stream right now.