Hey kids, spoiler alert for all of season
1 of The Haunting of Hill House, as well as the original novel, and mild spoilers
for Flanagan's other works like 'Oculus,' 'Hush,' 'Before I Wake,' 'Gerald's Game,' and 'Dr. Sleep.' And content warning for death, suicide, drug use, mental illness,
disturbing imagery, and...jump scares. They're going to happen. I'm going to
spring them on you, like this show sprung them on me. Also here's my usual warning
that these are my opinions, no matter how I choose to state them, and art is
subjective. Okay...now with that out of the way [High pitched screaming] If you've been watching this channel
for a minute you might notice certain themes and tropes that I tend to like? A
genre bending show with strong female characters, and cute sad boys, that's also
about trauma? Let's just say I have a type. So in October 2018 Netflix released the
10 episode series, The Haunting of Hill House. [More screaming] Now let's talk about it So to start out let me just say, I am by
no means an aficionado of the horror genre. In fact I'm probably the opposite. My journey with this particular genre has been...
long and strange. When I was a kid I got scared of Nickelodeon interstitials, and the THX logo. [Loud rising note] I had to
hold my mom or my sister's hands in certain aisles of a Blockbuster. To say
that I was "sensitive" might be putting it mildly. This struck fear into my soul
forever. To this day I am so easily startled that
when I got to see 'The Lightning Thief Musical' ...like...it's in the title, but the
first note of that show is a deafening thunderclap and a flash of lightning and
I jumped so hard that I scared my friend who was completely unbothered by the thunder
and just startled by her friend jumping ten feet in the air for no reason. When I
finally began to stretch and watch scarier movies it was always because
there was some other fantastical element, like a fairy tale faun, or it was
animated, or whatever. For many years 'Coraline' was the scariest movie I had
ever seen in theaters. And I researched the hell out of it first, reading the
book in order to spoil the ending so I could be mentally prepared for it, as
well as watching whatever featurettes were available ahead of the film's
release. In the last three or four years I've stretched further, seeing movies
like 'It Follows' and 'The Witch' on my laptop, curled up in bed with the lights
on, and occasionally shouting at my computer. In the last year or so I've
gone further seeing films like 'Get Out,' 'Us,' and 'Annihilation.' I actually saw a
couple of those in theaters including 'It Chapter 2' and in that case I was mostly
okay except for one or two particularly gross bits. Mostly I was there for Bill
Hader making me sad but I did really liked it and I am actually a recent and
massive fan of the happy deathday franchise and the sequel to it was so
good I cried so while I'm a little better with horror I still tend to enter
a movie theater a little warily when it's around October because I know there
will be large posters for upcoming horror films and sometimes I don't like
looking at those I still tense up if a trailer for a horror film plays when I'm
at the theater so when I say The Haunting of Hill House was one of my
favorite things I saw in 2018 I do want you to understand the implications of
that. Because this is not my chosen genre. I don't like being scared. This is not
the sort of show I normally watch. And yet one night, probably a month or two
after the show was released, I had heard enough interesting things online so I
turned this show on and aat captivated. I binged the entire thing and ended up
weeping at 3 AM Since then I've rewatched it and I've
gotten friends and family to watch it so we could talk about it because I liked
it so much. So without further ado let's talk about Hill House. So The Haunting of Hill House is based on a 1959 novel of the same name by Shirley Jackson and it
is a very loose adaptation and while we talk about the novel these are clips
from the 1963 film 'The Haunting' which is considered a more faithful adaptation
although they changed characters and plot points as well the novel follows
four characters dr. John Montague a paranormal investigator Eleanor Vance a
shy introvert who spent most of her life caring for her elderly mother Theodora
and adventurous and tempestuous artist and Luke Sanderson the young heir to
Hill House who is often called a rake or dashing and I think those might just be
1950s terms for a fuck-boy dr. montegue rents Hill House to investigate its
paranormal properties and invites guests who have experiences with the
supernatural like Eleanor in Theodora they are the only two who accept the
invite and the owner of the house basically begs off her nephew Luke so
he's there too also mr. and mrs. Dudley are the houses very weird and creepy
caretakers and they live off-site because they refuse to stay in the house
after dark once they've all arrived dr. Montague tells them all the history of
the house which involves a lot of the usual haunted house stuff illness and
death etc then the occupants begin to experience supernatural encounters most
of all Eleanor who the house seems to quickly single out she starts to feel a
bond with the house and might be losing touch with reality then we get a mrs.
Montague and her companion Arthur Parker who is headmaster of a boys school and a
meat-and-potatoes manly man they joined the investigation and they're really
terrible and really into this Ouija type thing called plan checked
after now in a trance ends up accidentally endangering not only her
own life but that of Luke she is forced to leave finally she gets in her car and
drives not a way into town but directly into an oak tree where one of the
original owners of the house died many years ago in the end it's unclear
whether she was mentally ill or communing with the spirits of Hill House
but one thing is sure the house stood ominously for 80 years and would stand
for 80 more in real life Shirley Jackson lived the life of a repressed housewife
with four children and her husband literary critic and lecturer Stanley
Hyman who was often controlling and unfaithful to her many hailed this novel
to be an early work of feminist literature the novel features themes of
female repression and rage that some say were a reflection of Shirley Jackson's
real life living in the 1950s where women's experiences and thoughts were
often undervalued Nell spends much of the book agonizing over simply being
seen and accepted by the other occupants of Hill House until she ascends beyond
them and potentially gains new power from her connection to the house which
is then stifled when she's forced out by Luke and dr. Montague and the series
took all those themes about the struggles of women to be seen and heard
and made it about so does this stuff capture the supernatural don't believe
in that word I prefer preternatural look I like this show a lot and a lot of
elements from the book are here but it's fair to say that this show took a piece
of proto-feminist literature and made it about men steven is probably the main
character of this show we begin and end with voice over from him the first
episode follows him and the last episode is bookended by extended sequences with
him a lot of Eleanor Vance's story is here split between Nell and Olivia Crain
but the framing has changed there isn't a sense of empowerment in their
communion with Hill House it is unambiguously making them a danger to
themselves and others their deaths are the tragedies around which the show is
devised we eventually learn about their inner lives after their deaths but it
does strike a different tone from the book I mean I said up front that I like
this show a lot so obviously I'm still here for the changes but it is a fair
criticism to lab at the show when I can't really deny it just happens to be
I really enjoy this version of the story warts and all it is fun to read the book
after seeing the show just to spa all the little detail scenarios and bits of
dialogue they peppered throughout the show. [Mrs. Dudley] "In the night...in the dark." [Hugh] "Journey's end."
[Liv] "In lover's meeting." [Nell] "I'm like a small creature swallowed a whole by a monster." It's a
very liberal adaptation but also a very creative one in some ways it's a more
modern story that Mike Flanagan is telling one that been genres often
becoming more of a drama with horror elements and in some cases becoming such
a gut-wrenching tragedy that I'm still thinking about this show over a year
later and hey what's up with that window before we can talk about grief and
hidden ghosts we got to do the usual rundown. The Haunting of Hill House is a
Netflix television series that was written and directed by Mike Flanagan
along with the team of six other writers the series was announced on April 17th
2017 with Flanagan and Trevor Macy as producers Macy seems to have been
working with Flanagan since oculus in 2013 this series was produced by Amblin
and paramount and began filming in October of 2017 in Atlanta Georgia
the exteriors for Hill House were filmed at Fisher Manor in LaGrange Georgia and
interiors for the house were built on a screen gem soundstage in Atlanta the
music was composed by the Newton brothers and most of their previous
credits are other Flanagan films having watched some of those other films I will
say I think their work on Hill House is my favorite that piano motif that you
hear a lot throughout the show yeah that one it's really good now with
that out of the way let's meet the cast at the top there Steven Crain played as
an adult by Dutch actor Mikael Houseman and as a child by Paxton singleton
Steven is the oldest brother in the Crain family as a child he's a
remarkably gentle and caring older brother as an adult he sort of - trapped
between his own repressed anxieties and frustrations with his family to be much
of anything to them a lot of people really hate Steven and I don't we'll
get to that next there Shirley Crain played as an adult by Elizabeth reser
and Lulu Wilson as a child Shirley is a funeral home director and she's hanging
on to whatever control she has in her life with a type a grip that's just really not sustainable after her there's
Theo the middle child played by Kate Segal as an adult and McKenna Grace as a
kid she has this touch based psychic ability that she manages by wearing
gloves most of the time she's established boundaries with most of her
family maybe a brick wall when it comes to work and gets her jollies by having
the occasional one-night stand you're like a frat guy I'm a giver then
we have the twins Luke Crain played by Oliver Jackson Cohen as an adult and
Julian Hillyard as a kid Luke hasn't coped well with whatever he experienced
as a child once he was sweet and had an imaginary friend she's not imaginary
but since Hill House he hasn't been doing well then his twin sister Eleanor
Crain aka now played by Victoria pedretti as an adult and violent mcgraw
as a kid well she's a little naive and a little soft and just a little bit
ill-equipped for the life she got handed then we have their father played as a
younger man by Henry Thomas and Timothy Hutton in the present-day when the kids
were young he was clearly doing his best to be the right kind of strong family
man and in the face of Hill House he just wasn't able to in the present day
he's maybe lost touch with reality or maybe he's the only one who understands
what's really happening rounding out the main cast we have Carla
cugino as Olivia Crain mom to the Crain family and you guys go on without me how
could we we're gonna get to mama Crain soon so in the first episode we meet
Steven Crain a writer and shocker the character that Mike Flanagan most
identifies with he's interviewing this woman about a paranormal encounter clearly this is our dr. montegue but
with a twist most times it ghost is a wish Steven's not trying to document
paranormal phenomena he's just getting material for his next book he even
admits to this woman I'll need to take some liberties I always do I promise to
be respectful we learned that his first and most popular book is 'The Haunting of Hill House' an account of his childhood in that haunted house and the family's
not particularly happy with it fuck Steve from there we get our first
glimpse of Nell alone in a motel room looking distress we watch Steven dodge
her call and then surely to and throughout the episode we keep getting
glimpses at their time at Hill House there are troubles like Nels nightmares
and difficulty sleeping Luke's creepy drawings in his treehouse the slightly
strange caretakers the Dudley's and this ominous locked red door but nothing to
indicate how or where things went wrong from there we meet Theo having a night
out at the club and a one-night stand with this cute girl Trish who she
promptly dismisses also she wears gloves [Trish] "What's that about?"
[Theo] "Just kind of a Germaphobe." So then we finally get to meet Hugh Crain in the modern day. He seems to still be very affected by whatever happened at Hill House and he's woken by
Nell who calls to tell him: [Nell over the phone] "Do you remember the Bent Neck Lady?" [Hugh] "...Yes..."
[Nell] "She's back." And this scares the shit out of him. [Hugh] "Where are you?" [Nell] "I'm at home...in bed..." He tells her to go to Steven and immediately makes plans to come out there for her and now we finally get our first glimpse of what
the hell happened at Hill House. A young Steven was woken up in the middle of the
night by Hugh who seemed to be in an absolute panic. [Hugh] "We're gonna run." [Steven] "Dad--"
[Hugh shushes him] [Hugh] "I'm gonna carry you." "You keep your eyes closed no matter what." And we see Hugh get all
the children into their car and drive away. [Shirley] "Where's mom?!"
[Other kids crying] [Hugh] "That's not mom."
[Other kids crying] And he leaves their mother behind.
In the present Hugh calls Steven and tells him he needs to keep an eye on Nell,
and that she's coming to his house now. [Steven] "I'm not even--"
[Hugh] "I'll see you there--I'll meet you there." [Steven] "...Living at home right now." And while Steven settles in for a night of
waiting for a ghost, we see Nell dancing through the halls of Hill House, and we
see every Crain child jolt awake at exactly 3:03 a.m. Eastern Time. [Gasp] [Shirley whispering] "Nellie's in the Red Room." And finally Steven finishes up his investigation into the woman's home. He concludes that she probably imagined the ghosts but says he might write it up anyway. [Steven] "I'll need to take some liberties...I always do." We get another scene from
back then where we learned that Hugh kept Hill House. That nobody would be
allowed on the grounds except for the Dudley's and... [Hugh] "And it sits there and rots!" Also there's a scene where Mrs. Dudley tells a young Steven that the staff won't stay in the house after dark. [Mrs. Dudley] "In the night...in the dark." Then in the car Steven calls
his wife Leigh who we saw in an earlier flashback from before he published the
novel. It turns out they've hit a bit of a bad patch. [Leigh] "You know what you'd have to
say...is there any point?" And then he returns to his apartment [Stuff falling on the ground]
[Steven under his breath] "Fother mucker...." And we finally get a good look at a grown up Luke [Steven] "Hey Luke."
[Luke] "uh this isn't what it looks like." and it's just really sad to witness what's
become of this family in this moment. These two were so close when they were
kids. [Luke] "Just Stevie and Luke."
[Steven] "Cool kids!" and now this is it. [Luke] "I'm s--I'm sorry..." [Steven] "I know." And finally Steven goes upstairs to find
Nell standing silently in the corner of the room. [Steven] "You just stood there and
watched him loot me? Christ Nell." And he gets a call from his dad. [Hugh over the phone with lots of static]
"She was...at the house "She's dead..." "She's dead..." [Intense music] [Screaming grows louder] "Steve?" "Steve?" And I'll just take a second to point out
here in the midst of the spooks and the bummers that the title of this first
episode is 'Steven Sees a Ghost' and that is objectively hilarious because... [Steven] "I've never seen a ghost." [Jaunty italian sounding music plays] But anyway, from there we get to Episode
two 'Open Casket.' It covers much of the same events we saw in episode one
this time from Shirley's perspective. She's running her funeral home, convincing this child to be chill with an open casket service [Shirley] "I'm gonna fix her. That's what I do." Spending some quality time with Theo, and waking up with a start at 3:03 a.m. [Shirley] "Nellie's in the Red Room." We also learn her funeral home business is struggling financially because she tends to cut costs when she feels sorry for the
grieving families. [Kevin] "It's not relief Shirl, its charity." And once she receives the news about Nell, she decides that they're going to be handling the service [Shirley] "I'm hosting her funeral...that's that." Which includes explaining Nell's death
to her children, while her corpse is in the basement. [Jayden] "Why did she die?" [Shirley] "I don't know. I'm just so sad that she did." And dealing with the body. [Crashing sounds] In flashbacks we also learned that their
mother had designs for what she called their 'forever home' which the Crains
would build and move into when they could afford it with all the money they
made restoring old houses like Hill House. Also Shirley adopted some stray
kittens and it went... really badly [Screaming] Hey there's that window again? Also her mother's open casket funeral made quite an impact on her [Shirley] "You fixed her." And she spent a lot of time and money trying to help Luke get better, but at some point... [Shirley] "I'm sorry did you say $6000?" She apparently ran out of time or patience and stopped Luke from going to Nell's wedding [Shirley] "This is her day. You're not smearing you shit all over her day Luke." From there we get to Episode three, 'Touch.' In this episode we get to learn more about Theo. She's a child psychologist with a psychic
ability that works through touch, hence why she wears gloves most of the time. [Theo] "You're a lot like me Kelsey." [Kelsey] "Yeah?"
[Theo] "Oh yeah. Kids like us..." "Who've been through more than other kids..."we're great builders." "We make ourselves really safe...And no one ever gets in. And she uses that ability to discover what's
plaguing this little girl who has bad dreams about a monster called Mr.
Smiley [Theo] "I'm so sorry to just drop in on you like this. I was just in the neighborhood and..." "This is gonna sound really strange but would you mind if I took a quick look down in your basement." "...That's right and social services too. You
just have to trust me on this. I haven't been wrong before have I?" "I'm sure the guy will confess if you just...just get them here." Then she gets the news about Nell's death and she coaches Shirley on how to talk to the kids. [Theo] "Tell him you're sad too...Better they ask you than me." "Because I don't want to have to tell them that I'm fucking pissed at Auntie Nell" "Who should have known better...
better than most...what this does to a family." And in this episode we're shown
flashbacks of a young Theo discovering her power. [Liv] "You know your dad was telling
me a story about the wine you found..." "How'd you know?" [Theo] "I just guessed." [Liv] "These will help with the cold...and the other thing." And we see her standing up for her siblings when the adults around them act increasingly strange. [Mrs. Dudley] "Your little brother
was getting into trouble!" [Theo] "Wanna let go of his arm?" "He's playing Mrs. Dudley, why are you
yelling at him." And a young Luke really wanted to explore this dumbwaiter. [Luke] "Please come on, it's a perfect kid sized elevator." And it went...really badly [Luke screaming]
[Theo] "LUKE! LUKE!" We also saw more scenes of the adult
Crain's arguing about Stevens book. [Shirley] "Its blood money Steve. You're welcome to every red cent." And in the end Theo took the money. [Steven] "So what are you gonna do with the money?" [Theo]] "I'm gonna get my fucking PhD." Bless. And in the present day we see Theo go
down to the morgue to see Nell's body. Something she couldn't manage earlier in
the episode. She touches Nell and then... [Theo screams] [Scream fades into crying] She calls Trish for a hook-up and... [Trish] "I just feel kind of weird about how I left the other night." [Theo] "Is that what you want to talk about?" [Trish] "I mean I don't know. What do people usually talk about? Hello, how was your day? Stuff like that." [Theo] "I found out that a nine-year-old that I was treating was getting molested by her foster dad." "And this kid she built up so many emotional walls. She just needed help and no one was listening. So should we talk about your
day or would you rather come to bed." Then we get one final flashback of a young
Theo being spirited from Hill House on the last night. Hugh touches her and
she sees things she can't fully understand but... [Young Theo screaming] "Let go! Let go of me! Let go! Don't touch me!" [Adult Theo] "Touch me." Hey news flash? Then we get to Episode four 'The Twin Thing.' Episode 4 finds Luke in rehab from his first day there listening to a blind veteran talking about a burned up
dead girl with runny egg eyes, to his 90th day where he gets up and makes a
speech. [Luke] "I've never had this much time before...you know 90 days..so here goes." We also learn he's on step four of the 12-step program and it's kicking his ass. And we meet his friend Joey who's nine months clean. [Luke] "Your sobriety it's--it's full-term. It's a fully formed little baby anywhere..nine months is a palace." Also this happens: [Luke breathing heavily] [Nell] "Go!" In flashbacks we see a young Luke find a
hat and then get haunted by this tall floating specter. Also we learned about
one of his oldest coping mechanisms. [Luke] "Mom, Dad, Steven, Shirl, Theo, you, me." "It has to be seven...it helps if you touch each one..." "And count out loud...that keeps you safe.
Sometimes you got to do it a lot." And we learn about the twin thing. [Luke] "Once I broke my foot and Nell called me a few minutes later and she was just..." "She was just watching TV and her ankle just went nuts." We also see a flashback or two of the past 90 days including a dinner with Steven and Leigh where Luke brought Joey [Steven] "Look I...I get it." "She's charming...might even say slick." [Luke] "Fuck Steve...I--I just wanted to bring a friend to dinner and you're not even giving her a chance." [Steven] "No I guess I'm not."
[Luke] Why not?" [Steven] "Fresh out of those...I gave them all to you. I just want you to be careful is all." In the present Joey runs away from the
facility and Luke goes after her and over the course of this episode...he seems
like he's getting sick or something. We see him break into Steven's place because
he's just desperate to find them some cash so he can get Joey off the street
for the night. [Steven] "Hey Luke." [Luke] "Hey--Hey Steve." And in the end Joey steals the money and runs away and
Luke is left alone while his condition worsens. He gets mugged and [Luke mumbling] "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7..." It took me a
minute to figure it out the first time I watched this episode but at some point
he started rubbing his neck and I realized...it's the twin thing. He's feeling Nell's death. Her broken neck, and her body slowly growing cold [Luke] "I fucked up okay but I--I didn't use--I didn't...and I'm so fucking cold and my...my arms and legs are so stiff." And on top of all of that it seems that other ghosts are still haunting him. [Liv] "Come home my love." Finally Steven comes to find him and... [Luke] "I'm so sorry I--I didn't--I--I--" "I couldn't--I couldn't help her." "But I-I didn't-I didn't use...I..." And he learns about Nell [Steven] "You gotta come with me Luke."
[Luke] "Wh-What?" [Steven] "Nell's dead..it was suicide." [Luke] "Stevie...it wasn't." And hey breaking news kids So with that let's take a minute to talk about nonlinear storytelling. Nonlinear storytelling or nonlinear
narrative is pretty much what it says on the tin. Storytelling told out-of-order,
where we are shown events non-chronologically Hill House is only a
recent example of this kind of storytelling, it's a tradition that goes
back to the likes of 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Slaughterhouse Five' among many, many others. In film we've got other examples of nonlinear storytelling like 'Rashomon,'
'Memento,' 'Pulp Fiction,' or the French short film 'La Jetee' which inspired Terry
Gilliam's '12 Monkeys.' On television there were shows like 'LOST' utilizing a
flashback structure to reveal backstory and more recently Netflix's 'The Witcher'
which in its first season followed several separate but parallel timelines.
There's a lot of reasons to tell a story out of order and a lot of ways to do it.
In the case of 'Memento' the film was told in two timelines one going backwards and
one moving forwards, with the two finally meeting in the middle. The effect was
that it created a confusion which mimicked the protagonists short-term
memory loss. Each time a scene began the audience had to reorient themselves in
time and place, much like the protagonist did. In the case of 'LOST' the flashbacks
were usually used to develop characters, and provide a deeper understanding of
motivations, and occasionally they clarified events that had happened
during the actual show's narrative. And The Haunting of Hill House utilizes this
nonlinear narrative to break our hearts into tiny little pieces. You see the
structure allows us to learn the nature of events from multiple perspectives.
Each perspective adding a new layer of truth and understanding to the narrative.
And that's because each member of the Crain family only knows their side of
the story. They're both informing us with their
perspective and limiting our understanding based on the extent of
their own knowledge. [Hugh] "You think you know what you saw? You think you--you know what you wrote?" [Steven] "What?" In episode 1 of Hill House we meet each member of the Crain
family, but only with limited glances at each of them, mostly from Steven's
perspective. That includes Nell who by all accounts is not doing well. And at
the end of the episode she dies. But that's just Stevens view. From Shirley
we learn a little bit more about the Crain family then and now, about the
distances between most of them, about Luke's attempts at rehabilitation, and
about Nell's corpse. From Theo we learn a little more about her abilities that
previous episodes had hinted at, and about the family's response to Stevens
book. From Luke we learn about 'the twin thing,' and his drug addiction, and current
sobriety, in spite of what we thought we saw of him in Episode one. And then
finally in Episode five we get to Nell. Episode five titled 'Bent Neck Lady'
walked up and casually punched me in the face. Because we've been hearing about
the Bent Neck Lady since episode 1 [Nell] "Do you remember the Bent Neck Lady?" "She's back." Over the course of the episode we
learn about Nell's husband Arthur Vance, we learned about their marriage which we
had already seen bits of in previous episodes, and of Nell's nightmares, and her
sleep paralysis, and then we get to learn about her husband's sudden and tragic
demise. [Nell crying and whimpering] And let me take a second in the middle of all of this to talk about Victoria Pedretti. Because this is kind of her first major role, and holy shit
she is absolutely gut-wrenching to watch. This scene in particular really hurts to
sit through. [Nell crying] "No!" And from there we just watch her spiral further and further. All she needs is help and to be heard, but her family can't remain present with her
through her grieving, because they have their own traumas and problems. In some
cases she lashes out. [Nell] "I just want to know...why?" Or demands more than they can provide [Nell] "I can feel him here sometimes." [Theo] "I am feeling serious fucking concern that is what I am feeling!" But it's clear that her relationships with her siblings are starting to fracture and more and more she keeps seeing the Bent Neck Lady. [Nell screaming] So Nell goes back to Boston to face Hill House on what is either the most misguided or misunderstood instructions from her therapist, but she goes back. [Nell muttering] "Its just a carcass in the woods." And by the way her therapist is actually named Dr. Montague and played by Russ Tamblyn who played Luke Sanderson in the 1963 adaptation of
Shirley Jackson's novels. So there's an Easter egg. And so we finally arrive at
the motel room we saw an episode one from her perspective. We see her
nightmare of Luke OD'ing which led to her calling Steven and Shirley like we
saw in earlier episodes. [Nell] "It's hard to understand...everything's so twisted and it's hard to explain but..." "I'm worried about Luke" And we see her call her dad from outside the house. [Hugh] "Nell, where are you?"
[Nell] "I'm at home...in bed. I love you daddy." And then she walks into Hill House and into a dream. [Hugh] "Nellie your mom's looking for you." [Nell] "Mom?"
[Shirley] "Come on...she's over here." And whoever or whatever creates this vision...they give her exactly what she wanted. [Steven] "I'm sorry for everything I said." [Shirley] "I always should have believed you." [Theo] "You were right." She wanted to feel seen and heard and loved. [Luke] "Thanks for believing in me Nellie, it did the trick." And then the house gives her Arthur. Except it's not Arthur. None of this is
real and there's no one here. As we saw in episode one, there's the harsh reality
of Nell dancing alone in the empty house. But now we see her view of this moment.
And then the dream gets stripped away a piece at a time as the house sinks it's
claws into Nell. Her mother invites her up to the Red Room for a tea party
and slowly...bits of reality start to seep in. Her mother offers her this locket. The one Olivia had promised to give her someday when she was a child [Liv] "Its yours now." In the commentary for this episode Mike Flanagan said there was a cruelty in this moment, although the ghost of her mother thought it was a mercy. as reality comes back a little more Nell wears a noose and stands on the edge of this little landing [Nell] "Mommy?" And then all she has to do... [Liv] "It's time to wake up sweetheart." Is fall. And it's here that the real terror sets
in. Over this two-minute sequence we learn with a sense of inevitable, utter
horror, that Nell was the Bent Neck Lady the whole time. Every vision of her, was
just a vision of Nell's own future, haunting her whole life right up until
her death. You see it's all a matter of perspective.
Of course we still don't fully understand what happened at Hill House
when they were children. The last four episodes will slowly unravel that from
the perspective of the parents. But Hill House uses nonlinear storytelling to
engage us in the tale. To keep us asking not necessarily, what happened, but how.
Where we already know the outcome, but the journey to that destination is
revealed to us one layer at a time. Nell has a speech in the final episode about
time. [Nell] "I thought for so long that time was like a line?" "That our moments were laid
out like dominoes and that they fell one.." "...into another. But I was wrong. it's not like
that at all. Our moments fall around us like rain..." And so it seems in Flanagan's
world, the dead don't experience time in a linear way, and so neither do we as the viewers. Flanagan said in the commentary for that episode. [Flanagan] "this speech about...how time is not a line. This kind of rebuke of cause and effect..." "...within a ghost story...this concept was part of the original concept of the entire show." "And the format of every episode was all in service to this idea." And it works it works so well to
give us this whole story where each character's individual understanding of
events unlocks a little more of it for us. It's a cool way to build a narrative
one that breaks my goddamn heart, But there it is...so now let's talk about
writer, director Mike Flanagan. After watching Hill House I sought out
other works by Mike Flanagan, because the writing and direction seems so distinct
I wondered if maybe I had found a new favorite filmmaker. I didn't watch his
entire oeuvre but I watched most of it. and over all of those movies I developed
an appreciation for Flanagan style, so let's talk about the guy. Flanagan was
born on May 20th 1978 in Salem, Massachusetts. He only spent his first
three months there before moving somewhere else. Apparently he moved a lot
as a child, since his father was a member of the Coast Guard who would go off on
deployments for months at a time. Meanwhile Flanagan was apparently a very
sensitive kid he speaks of watching movies through his fingers and an episode
of Fraggle Rock with the tunnel of ghosts that scarred him as a child. He
says that around fifth grade he picked up the book 'IT' by Stephen King and
started reading and in fifth grade. [Flanagan] "I graduated finally to Stephen King and I thought that somehow that would be less" traumatic reading his books than watching
horror movies and I was so wrong." And then he kept reading anyway. he described it as an exercise in being brave or 'bravery in tiny increments.' Later in life
he developed a love for the genre when he realized that horror could be about
deeper themes underneath all the terror and disturbing imagery. He says he spent
much of his college years getting acquainted with all the classic our
everyone had seen already. His first film 'Absentia' was produced
through Kickstarter and made a big splash at festivals. From there he was
able to make his pet project 'Oculus' in 2013 starring Karen Gillan and
from there the man's been working ever since. He released 'Hush,' 'Before I Wake' and 'Ouija: Origin of Evil' in 2016. In 2017 he directed 'Gerald's Game' and then in 2018
he directed Hill House, followed by a sequel to 'The Shining' called 'Dr. Sleep'
that was released last year. Currently he's working on a season two of Hill
House it's going to be called 'The Haunting of Bly Manor' based on the
1898 novella 'The Turn of the Screw' by Henry James after that he's working on a
movie called 'Midnight Mass' which you might have spotted a book version of in
'Gerald's Game' or 'Hush' so after watching a lot of the guy's work I can say the
world of Mike Flanagan is haunted by small details, by objects. Anything could
become an object of fear in Flanagan's world. A bed, a mirror, a doorknob, a house.
Something as simple as a hat can become a source of horror in a world built by
Flanagan. And death or the ephemeral and monstrous manifestations of it...are
hungry. [Nell] "This room is like the heart of the house...Not not a heart, a stomach." Evil is something that consumes. It
digests. The rest of the time it waits, hungry and unseen for the time to strike.
Flanagan talked a bit about his fascination with death in an interview: [Flanagan] "You know it's like my--my grandfather died and my parents are like," "well now he's always watching over you." "And I was like well that sounds really horrible
[Podcast host laughing] "Like...always?" "What did he do wrong? And like the
mysteries of the universe are rolled out in front of him, but they're like 'no...we
really need you just to like...just watch" "over...keep an eye on Mike--watch over Mikey yeah." And you get the feeling watching his films that he might be working through something. exorcising some demons and putting them up on screen. He said that
many of his films are just recreations of things that scare him. The horror
comes from the scary imagery sure, but it also comes from within these broken
people. Also he keeps casting the cutest children on this earth and doing horrible things to them! Jesus leave the babies alone Michael!! And he loves to write a monologue. Often he'll film them in single unbroken takes, nowadays he
apparently often shoots these scenes without extra coverage, so the edit must
remain on that single take. And speaking of long takes let's take a minute to
talk about episode six of Hill House titled 'Two Storms.' The show was
apparently pitched around the idea that in the middle of the season there would
be an episode that appears to play in real time. [Flanagan] "One of the things that I found
when when you're going through a" "profound loss, especially an unexpected
loss...time itself in the air in the room" "and everything changes...it's such a
heightened reality that you find yourself in." "And so this episode was
always meant to capture that." It was filmed in five long takes. Three taking
place in the funeral home, and two inside Hill House. Both sets were built with
this episode in mind, constructed on adjacent stages with a hallway joining
them so Timothy Hutton as Hugh Crain could walk from one set to the other on
camera. On March 26th, 2018 the production shut down
to start rehearsing the episode. Initially Episode six was going to be
filmed last, but due to budgetary reasons it was moved up, which shortened the
amount of time everybody had to prepare for it, and then on April 6th they began
filming. Over the episode there's a lot of technical wizardry that one would
never think about or see. An entire crew literally running behind the camera rig
to remain out of frame, a special lighting grid timed to follow the actors
and keep them properly lit as they move around the sets, swapping out the dummy
of Victoria Peretti's corpse with her younger counterpart. Or one shot where
all the other Crain siblings swap out with their younger versions, and then
swap back. Carla Gugino had to continually appear on opposite ends of
these hallways which involved the actress or a body double walking across
camera only to duck into some hidden door and run to her next mark. Sometimes
the children were literally picked up by crew members and carried off camera
because the kids couldn't run fast enough to get out of frame. Also when
Victoria Pedretti appears throughout the episode as the Bent Neck Lady and
disappears within the same take, apparently her Bent Neck Lady makeup
involved contact lenses to make her eyes look white, and she couldn't see a thing,
so she would have to be guided to her marks by crew members, and then pulled
out once her moment was done. During the third shot of the episode which lasted
17 minutes in the funeral home, they needed to use a special rig called a 'pee
wee dolly' so they could track the actors from sitting to standing.
Apparently the regular Steadicam rigs don't adjust to different heights
without somebody stopping the camera to fiddle with the settings, so they had the
special dolly and they only had the one, and over the course of the day the dolly was
getting harder and harder to maneuver around the set. They learned later that
the special wheels which didn't leave marks on the carpet, were also not meant
for carpet, so over the course of the day and several months of rehearsal prior to
filming, the mechanism had gotten gummed up with carpet fibres, they pushed
through and didn't tell the actors it was breaking in case the knowledge
affected their performances. When they finally got the full scene, the dolly
broke immediately afterwards. Also my favorite little factoid might be that
none of these takes are perfect it was just about what mistakes they could live
with. Mistakes like this one. I mean the meat of
the episode can't be ignored either in all of this. It largely amounts to the
day before Nell's funeral when the family finally gathers together to absorb their
loss. They fight, they reminisce, and they make mistakes. Nobody is at their best in
this episode, but they are at their most human. Meanwhile in flashback we see a
night when a storm battered the house and Nell disappeared. And in the present
it seems like Nell's ghost is trying to get their attention. To what end we can't
yet discern, but she's trying to be heard by them, seen by them. And the part I find
particularly gutting is this final moment here with Luke by Nell's casket
which toppled mysteriously a few minutes ago. And we hear little Nell's voice as
the adult Luke in the present walks away. [baby Nell] "I was right here..." "I was right here the whole time..." "None of you could see me." "Nobody could see me." Hey that hurts. On the subject of 'Two Storms' Flanagan said: "I don't know if I'll ever be as proud of
anything as I am of this episode of this show." "I'm always gonna be amazed that
this worked...I never want to do it again" I mean whatever the case may be,
I think Flanagan is an interesting filmmaker, also um...there are hidden ghosts.
Just keep an eye out, there are hidden ghosts all over the place in Hill House. That
one right there is played by Bruce Greenwood. It's a cool little detail, and
a lot of the set design for Hill House included faces because Flanagan said he
wanted it to feel like the house was watching them. So now with that out of
the way let's talk about the rest of the show. Over the next few episodes we learn
a lot of things about what happened at Hill House. The house being overrun with
black mold, and Hugh's panic over how they were ever going to be able to fix
it up enough to actually sell it as a renovated home. He also hurt his hand
when he accidentally stuck it into a running fan, so that's what's with the
bandages on his hands that we've seen sporadically since episode 1. We learned
that the house has an effect on people, one that can often grow over time.
Mr. Dudley tells Hugh about how Mrs. Dudley stopped spending the night at
Hill House after she lost her baby, and grew increasingly scattered, saying she
could hear her baby crying at night in the house. She got better when she
stopped staying in Hill House after dark. Meanwhile Olivia Crain has been growing
increasingly erratic due to the house's influence. [Hugh] "You're just tired."
[Liv] "It just snuck up on me all of a sudden." From her side we see visions of ghosts and a blurring of waking and dreams. [Nell] "But are we safe with you mommy? Are we really?" [Steven] "Mom?"
[Olivia gasps] The house and a few of its darker spirits exert an influence on Olivia [Poppy] "No more bad dreams, no more screaming meemies." "You'd wake 'em up and you'd keep 'em just perfect. Just like they is." [Olivia whispering] "I would." Eventually they convince her that the only way to keep her children safe and happy...is to kill them. Of course the older children have already been
corrupted by the world in her eyes. It's too late for them. [Liv] "You grew up so fast...kids need their mommies and then they don't." So she has a tea party with Nell,
and Luke, and Luke's imaginary friend Abigail. And there have been references
to the baby that the Dudley's lost and to their current child who we never hear
named, only vaguely referenced in passing. [Mrs. Dudley] "My little one is better with me I know it well." So when Olivia holds a tea party for the kids and the tea is laced with rat poison.... [Choking and coughing sounds] We realize that Abigail isn't imaginary. And eventually we learn this is the Dudley's child. [Mr. Dudley] "She wasn't in her bed." [Hugh] "I didn't know." But Hugh comes in and interrupts the tea
party before either Luke of Nell can take a drink. And in his panic,
he throws Olivia against the wall...hard. Then one by one, he spirits the children
out of the house, but now we know that phantom we saw in episode 1 was actually
Olivia limping after them with her now sprained ankle. Then Hugh takes all the
children to a motel and goes to talk with the police his answers are
understandably strange and vague since it would be difficult to explain the
true nature of the night's events. [Sheriff Beckley] "The three hours you waited, after you discovered her body, before you called us..." "What happened in those three hours Hugh?" [Hugh] "I was in shock...I was mourning." And that goes pretty poorly for him. He loses custody of the children who go to live with their aunt, but more importantly he
loses their trust because he refuses to be honest with them about what really
happened. [Steven] "And then you hold back information!"
[Hugh] "If I held back anything it was to protect you kids." [Steven] "I don't need--Why do I need protection from the truth!?" And without that information all the Crain kids form their own understanding of what happened back then. Of what was wrong with their mother and what really happened to her. [Steven] "I saw the police reports. Her skull cracked like a melon." "There was blood all over the library carpet." [Hugh] "Okay Steve--"
[Steven] "And a contusion on the back of her head from being shoved into a wall?" And they all learned to cope with the
grief and trauma of those events and this show has a lot on its mind when it
comes to grief. [Steven] "Most times it ghost is a wish." About how it makes time move
differently, or about how it marks a family. [Theo] "Because I don't want to have to tell
them that I'm fucking pissed at Auntie Nell," "Who should have known better...better
than most...what this does to a family." Of course many of you might already know
that Mike Flanagan said each of the five Crain children represented one of the
five stages of grief. Steven is denial, Shirley is anger, Theo is bargaining, Luke is depression, and Nell is acceptance Arguably Nell only really reaches that stage after her death, but there it is. And with the rest of the Crain kids, still stuck in the unfinished process of grieving. They've never really dealt with the trauma of what happened back at Hill House, or what's happened since. Instead they've been building up coping
mechanisms one could go so far as to call them walls. [Theo] "We're great builders. We make ourselves really safe and no one ever gets in." In Episode seven when they hold
Nell's funeral Luke gives a touching eulogy. [Luke] "I was born 90 seconds before Nell.
But she was always my big sister." And then he sees Nell's ghost as well as the ghost of his mother at Nell's grave [Nell] "Don't." [Intense music] [Luke struggling] [Olivia] "Stay."
[Luke struggling] [Luke struggling] Steven tells him to get it together
because he's been seeing things too, but he believes it's just their mental
illness that runs in their family. [Steven] "I don't want to bury you too, you understand?" We also learn that present day Hugh's scattered, talking to himself thing, is actually him conversing with an imagined version of Liv. Not the real Olivia, or even her
ghost, it really is just him talking to himself, trying to coach himself through
dealing with his children, trying to get it all right...
just this once. [Liv] "And I'm sorry I wasn't there...and it's the regret of my life...I'm so, so sorry that I couldn't fix it." Also shit is getting weird
around the funeral home. [Intense music & Theo screaming] [Knocking sounds at different volumes coming from all over the place] And then at the end of episode seven
Luke runs away. We learn in Episode eight he went to Hill House to burn it down
which goes.... [Crashing sounds] Not well And right now I just want to take a minute to talk about these traumatized idiots with their shit coping mechanisms bouncing off each
other like pin balls. I love these idiots. All of these idiots.
Which is apparently something of an unpopular opinion, since a lot of people
really hate Steven and Shirley, but we'll get to them in a minute. There's a scene in episode 8 when Hugh talks about witness marks [Hugh] "They're scars...little marks inside the clock...scrapes, lines, divots from tools..." "gears...pieces removed from the clock..." "They're basically evidence of repairs that have been done to the clock and what the clock was." 'Witness marks tell the story of the
piece if you know how to read them." Because here's the thing about trauma
when it's left to fester. When truths are withheld and five
children grow up to be adults who had to process the suicide, or possible murder
of their mother, on top of all the other fucked up shit they experienced at Hill
House, which they had to rationalize somehow. Some of them believe it was real,
others think it was a dream, or a hallucination, or an overactive
imagination. But keeping the truth from them...I mean they were gonna be messed up
either way but it probably didn't help. The time they spent at Hill House
where they experienced terrible things, and then they were told those things
didn't happen, or they were just dreams, or they were told nothing at all...All of
that on top of the way it ended... It damaged them. It damaged all of them. And all of them process that damage in different ways but they are still
walking around carrying those scars... Those witness marks. None of them have
properly dealt with their trauma and so many of their interactions with each
other are harsh, or even cruel, as their various traumas bounce off of one
another. They're all pretty much a hair-trigger away from a total meltdown,
keeping it together by the skin of their teeth. Some manage by setting boundaries,
some managed with drugs, or therapy, or rationalizing every strange thing into a
neat little box that can be categorized and filed away. So with that let's
take a minute to talk about Steven and Shirley. Because I don't think I need to
explain Theo to you. Honestly Theo's great. Hard edged, but with a heart
of gold. Using her psychic powers to uncover cases of child molestation.
Honestly she could have her own TV show. [Law & Order theme] I'd watch it Also this scene? [Theo] "I didn't see him. I didn't...I didn't see him. I didn't see him! I didn't see him!" This scene hurts my soul. I don't think you need me to explain Luke.
Poor, poor Luke? I mean we know he made some mistakes in the past, but we don't
actually see the worst of them beyond him convincing Nell to buy him some drugs
and showing up high to Nell's wedding. It sounds like he did worse things, but he's
so contrite! He knows how bad all of his actions are as he struggles with that
'fearless moral inventory' and trying to do right by his friend and his family.
Luke's easy to love because he's so open and vulnerable, you just want to wrap him
up in a blanket and protect him from the shit he's going through. And I definitely
don't need to explain Nell. Sweet, tragic Nell? Doomed to exist in purgatory after
her death and haunted by that death for her entire life. Sure she did a couple
less than great things, but it seems like all she wanted was for her family to be
together and be happy. [Shirley] "It's funny Nellie was always trying to get all of us together in one place." I think a lot of the weird shit the family experiences,
particularly in Episode six is just Nell trying to get them to stop fighting. Also that one time Nell came out of hiding to shame sister-kind? [Screaming] ...Yeah But sometimes trauma doesn't make you sweet, or vulnerable. Sometimes it makes you mean, or it makes you cold. Sometimes it makes you Shirley, and it makes you Steven. I have a harder time with Shirley honestly, not because I don't understand her, but
just because that kind of Type A controlling behavior? Well...I've known a
few people like that, but I do understand why she does everything she does. And I
will say she has a few moments in Episode six that get me like this one: [Shirley] "I have to fix her makeup." Also this scene is hilarious. I have fought with my sisters like this. It's so fucking funny. [Theo] "Did you just punch me in the boob?"
[Shirley] "Yeah...yeah!" Yes she cheated on her husband Kevin. A brief, but harrowing mistake and then she kept it from Kevin for years, which is a much bigger mistake, but a
very human one. As human as Luke's drug addiction or Theo's walls that she
builds to keep the world out. I get it. And I hope after the events of this
season she gets better and maybe a little less controlling? Also I really
love her relationship with Theo. I love their banter in the early episodes. [Theo] "I'm a giver."
[Shirley] "You're like a guy." "Worse than a guy, you're like a frat guy." I love how they fight.
did you just punch me in the [Theo] "Did you just punch me in the boob?"
[Shirley] "Yeah." I love how they resolve it. [Theo] "And I felt...scared. I felt so fucking scared that I was gonna lose the only sister that I had left." "I'm so so so sorry...I'm so sorry..." "Please....Just please." Just perfect. So now let's talk about everybody's least favorite character Steven Crain. Fun fact I took a
nonfiction writing class in college and our teacher discussed the struggle that
most nonfiction writers deal with. Whether or not to publish the
autobiographical works that might include their friends and family. Not
everybody likes to read about themselves from somebody else's perspective, and my
teacher talked about how some writers said they literally wouldn't publish
some pieces until the people in them were dead, and others just published the work. [Shirley] "The fuck...Steve." I don't hate Steven for writing the book. I can see how it was probably really cathartic to write and sure he published it for somewhat
mercenary reasons, offering to share the profits with his siblings, which is about
the only thing he could do at that point. Could he have not published the book?
Kept it as a mental health exercise? Sure. But he didn't and I get why he wrote it.
I'm not mad at him for that. And I'm not mad at him for the moments when he
lashes out at his siblings, because they all lash out at each other. They're all
just damaged people, ill-equipped to handle the cards they've been dealt. I am
mad at him for lying to Leigh for years about the vasectomy though. That really
sucks. To go so far that they're seeing fertility doctors and talking like this? [Leigh] "We're taking temperature and mucus levels. We've been planning and pacing intercourse." Hey Steven that sucks. You should have told your wife that you
were scared to pass on whatever mental illness you thought ran in your family.
And you know I didn't love Steven right away. [Steven] "I prefer preternatural." The first inkling that he would be one of my favorite characters was this moment [Steven breathing hard] Steven kept a pretty tight grip on his
composure right up until this moment, and something about the way he just falls
apart here? [Steven] "Positive ID....That's...That's Nellie and she's dead!" Really got to me. A first glimpse beneath that hard shell
of rationality he'd built up, and then that scene with Luke in Episode seven? [Steven] "I don't want to bury you too, you understand?" Or in Episode eight? [Steven] "I miss my mom." But it's this moment in the final episode when Steven crawled into my heart and stayed there. [Hugh] "Look at me." For a moment you can see the terrified little kid that still lives in there. That kid who needs some kind of support from his dad because he's just so fucking scared and like...yeah... I love Steven you guys. Sorry! He's an idiot, but he's a sympathetic one to me. And I love all the Crain kids. I really do.
One of the remarkable things about Hill House was how eloquently it built up
these characters, and made us understand each of them and their motivations. Was
it occasionally a little on the nose? [Shirley] "You fixed her." Maybe... But damn if it wasn't
extremely effective. Some may be inclined to say 'Well Nell had it worse because
of the Bent Neck Lady' or 'Luke with his addiction and THAT.' But trauma isn't a
contest and there are no winners. The different levels of their experiences
don't really matter when it made all of them who they are today. So at the end of
the day, we have a show about trauma and grief with characters that represent the
stages of it and... Hey seriously what was what the fucking window?!?! [Steven] "I am home I thought. And stopped in wonder at the thought." "I am home...I am home. Now to Climb." I love that little monologue, taken in part from Shirley
Jackson's original novel, much like the speech we hear at the opening of the
first episode and the end of the finale. [Steven] "Silence tlayy steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House." That same narration bookends the beginning and end
of the novel, except the show made one small variation, but we'll get to that.
Episode 10 of Hill House 'Silence Lay Steadily,' finds the Crains
back home, or in what was once a home. At the beginning of the episode, we see a
flashback to a scene from episode 1 [Nell] "What do you think is in there? Maybe its a cotton candy machine. Or a pony." And we see another scene from episode 3, [Banging sounds] Only now do we understand that Theo was in the Red Room. The strange banging on the door, the twisting of the knob, those were her sisters on the other side of that door. And in the present the house sinks its teeth into each of the Crain children [Theo] "Shirley!" [Theo gasps] And it's Nell who saves each of them. One by one she pulls Steven, Shirley, and Theo out of their Hill House nightmares. And they find themselves in
this room, with a familiar looking window. Meanwhile it appears that Luke injected
himself with rat poison. Of course we learn he didn't really do that...
that Hill House made him do it...In the same dreamlike way it made Nell hang
herself, and Olivia throw herself off of that balcony. So one by one the other
Crains are woken up from their dreams, and they all gather around Luke to try
and help him. [Shirley] "...his pulse!"
[Theo] "No, no, no, no..." And we're treated to one more vision, as Luke sits on the brink of death, he wakes up in the Red Room, at a tea party with Abigail, Nell,
and Olivia but it's not really Olivia anymore. People on the internet have all
figured this out, but the Hill House ghost of Olivia wears that red
bathrobe. When Liv was alive, she wore a blue bathrobe. This is what survives of
Olivia now. This warped spirit who literally wants to love her children to
death. So she tells Luke that he's home, that he's awake, but the most important
bit is Nell. [Nell] "Go." Whatever control she exerts in this house, she's still using it to reach him here. [Nell] "Don't." And Luke begins to fight against whatever this dream is, until Nell is there to get him out. And then we get to...my favorite scene
in the show. [Steven and Shirley overlapping dialogue]
[Luke breathing heavily] [Shirley] "You just woke up." [Luke] "She...saved me." I love this scene. [Nell] "I feel a little clearer just now." I love it so much. [Nell] "We have..."
[Theo] "Nell?" [Nell] "All of us have..." Initially none of them understand her. or even what's happening and Luke really needs medical attenetion. But as they keep talking... [Shirley] "I feel like I've been here before..." [Nell] "We have...all of us have...so many times and we didn't know it." And Nell tells them that time's been out of order. That time is not a line. [Nell] "Our moments fall around us like...rain or...snow...or confetti." And she tells them that they've all been
inside the Red Room. [Nell] "This room is like the heart of the house. No not a heart, a stomach." That strange narrow window was the one detail the house couldn't hide from them.
A clue for a watchful audience member. [Nell] "It put on different faces so we'd be still and quiet...while it digested." And after she explains it all to them, Nell finally gets a moment with each of her siblings. [Luke] "I don't know how to do this without you." [Nell] "I learned a secret." "There's no without." "I am not gone...I'm scattered into so many pieces." "Sprinkled on your life like...new snow." iI's not like the manufactured moments the house gave her before her death. [Theo] I'm so sorry our last words were in anger." [Nell] "They weren't our last." It's real and heartfelt [Shirley] "I'm sorry I didn't answer the phone." [Nell] "But you did...so many times." [Steve] "I'm sorry if I didn't listen and I'm sorry..." [Nell] "Wouldn't have changed anything...I need you to know that." And she tells them. [Nell] "Forgiveness is warm...like a
tear on a cheek." "Think of that and of me when you stand in the rain." And as quickly as she appeared...she's gone. And on the other side of that door,
Hugh and Olivia's ghost talk about being parents. [Hugh] "Even if they're broken, or
addicted, or joyless, or yes even if they die..." "We have to watch it all because
we're parents and...that's the deal we make." "Whatever that life is we bear witness." [Liv] "It's a horror."
[Hugh] "It doesn't have to be." Which like...I'm not a parent but Flanagan is and I thought this was a beautiful little meditation on parenthood. So Hugh makes a deal with Liv, he says he'll stay there with her if she lets the kids go. [Hugh] "Journey's end."
[Liv] "In lover's meeting." And so Hugh frees them from the Red Room, and there's this little moment here as
Hugh and Steven carry Luke out, where they definitely spotted Hugh's corpse and.... oof that hurts But they all get out of the house. Shirley, Theo, and Luke pile into a car and head for the hospital. But Hugh and Steven stay behind for that
final piece of truth, he'd kept secret this whole time. [Young Hugh screams] [Hugh] "Why are you here? Did you
see? "What happened?!" [Mr. Dudley] "Our daughter...snuck out of her bed tonight...and we thought maybe..." We learned about the death of Mr. and Mrs.
Dudley's daughter Abigail, at Olivia's hands. [Mrs. Dudley] "What happened? Who hurt you baby girl?" And his deal with them to keep Hill House so they could visit and see her again. [Mrs. Dudley] "Keep everyone else away. Let it starve...but leave it here...so I can see her." And then for those who didn't realize it already, we come back to see Hugh's body lying on that little balcony and his ghost tells
Steven [Hugh] "Some things...can't be told you live them...or you don't." And he entrusts Steven with the house and with the promise to keep it. And he tells him: [Hugh] "I want you to know you, and your sisters, and your brother...never been prouder of anything." [Steven] "Dad?" [Young Hugh] "I was so lucky to be your dad." And then he goes to join Liv and Nell and this shot haunts me to this day because...just look at
their faces. Look at Nell's face! She's not happy that the house got him too,
after she spent this whole episode protecting her siblings from it, the
house got her dad and just... There's so much happening in those final moments we see of her. And then Steven leaves the house...slowly but surely...with a wall of ghosts watching him go. But he does get to leave Hill House here. He gets to see Luke alive and recovering at the hospital. And he gets to go home to Leigh,
as we hear this voice over again. [Steven] "I am home I thought. And stopped in wonder at the thought." "I am home. Now to Climb." So in interviews, and commentaries, and podcasts, Flanagan was asked a lot about the way this show ended. About if there would be a season two with the Crain family, and the choice to end their story. Some people debated whether or not the Crain story did end happily. Theories were abound about whether or not they ever actually escaped the Red Room In one interview he said: In the same interview he says: In the commentary he talks a lot about the ending of Six Feet Under. The final scene is a montage that skips ahead into the future to show us where they all end up. Flanagan found that ending pretty impactful, and he said he was hoping his ending would have a similar impact. So we see Steven and Leigh
begin to work towards fixing their marriage. We see the Dudley's come back to Hill House in their final moments to be with their children again. We see Shirley tell Kevin the truth. We see Theo with Trish, moving out of Shirley's guesthouse and leaving her gloves behind. And we see Luke celebrating two years of
sobriety, And Steven tells us again in voiceover: [Steven] "Silenc lay steadily against the
wood and stone of Hill House..." "And those who walk there...walk together." After everything this family went through, and experienced, and did to themselves, and each other, they get to be together, and they get to move on. And so here's the thing with this show. The THEME that I pulled out when I tried to unpack it. These characters spend so long bottling up their emotions, and their anger, and not listening to each other, and when they finally start actually talking and listening, they start to heal. There's no right way to forgive a person who hurt you, and all of the Crains hurt eachother. Luke lied and stole from all of them, Theo blocked people out, Nell lashed out, Shirley was controlling, and Steven published a book that hurt them. And that's not including their parents. One lied and withheld the truth for years, and the other, towards the end of her life, was erratic and literally attempted to murder two of her children. Its hard to watch this show sometimes and see how
cruel they all are to each other, each with their own set of scars and traumas
bouncing off each other the way they do. And here's a tough pill to swallow:
People in your life will hurt you. In little and big ways. Your family, your
friends, or your significant others, and you will hurt them, because people are
imperfect broken things. And everyone is carrying around scars from something. And that damage might cause you or those around you to do regrettable things. [Theo] "People fuck up. I guess you don't get that...You don't really get it...Until you fuck up...Really fuck up." What can define you is
how you deal with that hurt. You can hang on to a bitterly for years, you can deny the parts of it that are too painful, you can try to put the pain away, or simply lose yourself to it, or you can finally talk to one another, and listen....
like really listen... Until you can accept it and move on. There's no right way to forgive somebody. And some people don't necessarily deserve your forgiveness. But in the case of the Crain family who Flanagan felt had earned their happy ending. [Nell] "Forgiveness is warm, like a tear on a cheek." There's a poem by Merritt Malloy that I think of when I watch this show or when my best friend calls me up to say "hey I got sad about the bent neck lady today." The poem is
called epitaph Or to put it another way: [Nell] "I loved you completely," "and you loved me the same..." "That's all." "The rest is confetti." so I'll say right here and now I think
other people might pull out very different themes from the show. Some
might say it's a show about parenthood, and about having to let your children
grow, or...I don't know the forgiveness stuff is just what I get out of it the
most? Basically this outline is 26 pages long
so I figured I would let the other stuff about the 'forever home' and all that
rest. Feel free to tell me your own theories about stuff I didn't get to in
the comment section. And thank you to my patrons whose names you saw in the
credits, for anybody who was so inclined I have a patreon and it's linked in the
description. And that's all for now thank you all for watching and see you on the next one
I really enjoyed that. Now I want to watch the whole show yet again.
Wow, this is tremendous. I'm 15 minutes in.
A video essay that does The Haunting of Hill House justice (and that's saying something).
Just finished watching it. What a great delve! It definitely gave me a lot more appreciation for the last couple of episodes too.
Anyone have a copy of this, it is copyright claimed