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Ms. Miriam Mead is the satanic henchwoman of Michael Langdon. She is a character in Apocalypse primarily portrayed by Kathy Bates. She is the secondary antagonist of the season.

Background[]

As of now, few details have emerged about Miriam's background and personal life. She mentions that her father was a military officer in the Vietnam War, during which she claims that he proudly killed so many Viet Cong forces that he lost count.[1] Along the road she ended up at the Church of Satan. Following the signs to Michael Langdon, the Antichrist, Miriam eventually became a mother figure to him due to them both not having any true family members left.

Personality and Appearance[]

Miriam Mead is a small woman with prominent dark eyebrows, closely cut jet-black hair and dark lips. She dresses very practically in a boxy, black military-style suit with black leather gloves - suggestive of her sadistic and bloody duties at Outpost 3.

Ms. Mead describes killing as being in her DNA. She is ruthless and sadistic, going as far as to manipulate her Geiger counter into displaying high amounts of radiation on Outpost dwellers in order to subject them to a brutal and painful "decontamination" which involves roughly scrubbing their bare naked bodies with Tampico warehouse brooms and killing them if the Geiger counter "still detected radiation" after the cleansing. She is not above killing or torture and appears to greatly enjoy both.

Despite her high rank and being second-in-command of Outpost 3, she is not a Purple (post-war high society), and it is implied through her casual purple dress ups with Ms. Venable that she secretly desires to be one.

Despite her enjoyment and pleasure in torturing the survivors in Outpost 3, Miriam holds high respect towards her superiors, The Cooperative, and firmly acknowledges and respects the chain of command. She tells Ms. Venable that the only hesitation she has with the new world order of Outpost 3 is the fact that it undermines the Cooperative's authority.

In a flashback, the woman who raised Michael is revealed to look exactly like Mead, and she was part of the Occult. She kept a shrine in her dining room and insisted on saying grace before each meal to his malevolence. She also practices rituals involving incantations and a goat's head. She had trouble procuring the latter because the local butcher refused to sell it to her, which she believes to be an infringement of her religious rights.

Story[]

Miriam meets Timothy and Emily at the gates of Outpost 3, walking them into the compound and ensuring they are decontaminated before entering the building.

Later, she arrives at the dinner table with Wilhemina Venable who overhears Coco slandering the food, causing Venable to slap her whilst Miriam nods in agreement. When Venable reads the message from The Cooperative that the world as they knew it is gone, Miriam comments that the system before was weak and that it did not take much to destroy it. When one of her fellow agents reports a spike in the background radiation in the room, Miriam seemingly discovers Mr. Gallant and Stu to be the sources. They are taken to the decontamination chamber and given a brutal cleaning, but Miriam still finds Stu to be contaminated and executes him.

Sometime after, Miriam visits Venable in her room and they pretend to be "purples". They conspire about dispensing sadistic punishments which Venable admits that she enjoys, and Miriam, a former military agent, admits they've been making up rules and punishments as they go along, such as setting the Geiger counter to maximum sensitivity to frame Stu. Miriam expresses concerns about defying The Cooperative, who she states have paid her bills for a long time.

Eighteen months later, the inhabitants of Outpost 3 are growing less hopeful of rescue and supplies are dwindling. When Gallant protests and insists they leave, Miriam tells him that nobody is allowed to leave. An alarm suddenly sounds to alert that an intruder is on the grounds. Miriam goes outside and meets Michael Langdon who has arrived in a horse-drawn carriage. He tells her to take care of the horses, which she leads away and shoots. She sees people dragging the horses' corpses away as she goes back to the compound.[1]

Emily prepares for bed, but hears a strange noise: her room is crawling with snakes. Her screams bring Timmy and Mead. Mead rejoices at the new protein, despite the risk of contamination. The dinner companions discuss what they've been eating lately, including possibly Stu. The servants lift the cloches over dinner to reveal the snakes, unexpectedly alive, which slither across the table.

The dinner guests assemble in the library, and Langdon enters to announce that the other American compounds in New York, West Virginia, and Texas have been overrun and destroyed. He explains the purpose of The Sanctuary, which holds certain security measures, and that he will be evaluating candidates for survival. Mead asks why they weren't given those measures, to which Langdon answers is "classified".

After observing Gallant having sex with the Rubber Man, a disturbed Evie visits Mead in her chambers and tells the overseer about her grandson's indiscretions. Mead reports to Venable and relays Evie's tale. They suspect Langdon as the suited figure, neither knowing Rubber Man's true nature nor that Langdon overhears their plotting. Venable interrogates a chained and nearly nude Gallant, while Mead whips him. The women walk away after Venable notices that Gallant is enjoying being whipped.

Timothy and Emily realize that since Venable's rules are made up and irrelevant, nothing can stop them from having sex. Later, Mead intrudes on Tim and Emily while they are sleeping on bed and drags them away. The young lovers confront Venable about her made-up rules, and she sends them to their punishment. Mead takes them to a chamber for execution where Tim shoots her in the torso in an escape attempt. She staggers away, revealing a torso full of white fluid and circuitry: Mead is an android.[2]

Mead explains her past to Venable when Mead comes up with a plan to kill. A couple minutes later Mead and The Fist go and check an alert outside. They find apples and Mead thinks they should poison them and give them to the residents. Venable and Mead start the party and kill the residents and they head to Michael's room. Michael makes Mead turn on Venable and he makes her shoot Venable. Michael then explains she is a loyal follower of Michael which she realizes he was in her past.

When Ariel is taking Michael away Miriam is praising Satan and saying she loves Michael. Mead is later seen when John is at a gas station where she kills him and returns to Michael and Ariel. In a past story guided by Constance, Miriam abducted a girl and brought her to a satanic sacrafice for Michael with Anton and Samantha and a couple of days later, Michael left with Mead. Coco goes to abduct Mead but Mead dugs Coco and The Albino Men go and abduct Mead. Mead, Ariel, and Baldwin were all burned at the stake for their crimes. Michael goes in the woods in search for his farther where he has a vision of Mead blaming him for her death. Michael finds Jeff and Mutt and they make a robot version of Mead. Mead and Michael go kill the witches and Mead tells Michael to go visit Jeff and Mutt which he does. Mead and Michael go to visit The Cooperative where he gives them a prep talk. After the apocalypse, Mead and Michael attack the rest of the witches and Cordelia makes Mead malfunction and her head falls next to Michael while she sings Daisy, Daisy. After the use of Tempus Infinituum, Mead, Anton, and Samantha arrive at Timothy and Emily's house looking for their new savior, Devan Campbell.

Quotes[]

  • To Michael Langdon: "Hail, Satan!"
  • About the world pre-apocalypse: "It was always fragile. They made you think it was a rock. It was a water balloon. One prick of the needle and *pops lips* that's all it took."
  • To Wilhelmina Venable: "Killing is in my DNA."
  • Last words at the stake (Human Mead): "You think death is a punishment? I do not fear the fire, it cleanses me, as it will cleanse this world! I've seen the end, I bear witness to the darkness. Father! Take me in your arms... Your kingdom is nigh!"

Notes[]

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Episode: The End
  2. Episode: The Morning After
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