Hi friends! On this TV Tuesday I’m going to be talking all about The Haunting of Hill House. 

This show is crazy weird, I’ve seen the first episode twice and damn. It does leave you very curious as to what the heck is going on.

The show starts in the past where we meet our main characters as children. We learn that they have moved into this house that their father is going to fix up and sell, but there is something definitely wrong with the house. Everyone keeps seeing this lady.

We jump into the present day and all the children have grown up. We meet Steve first, he’s the oldest and is a writer, a paranormal, thriller writer it looks to be. He’s onto writing his next book when his sister Nell keeps calling, something is up with her and that’s how we start to meet the rest of the siblings. We also learn that Steve wrote a book about their time in the Hill House which really stirred things up with the family.

We meet Shirley who works for a funeral home, and she’s the second oldest. We don’t know too much else other than she let her sister Theo live with her and the two have the same feelings about Nell, well technically all three of them do. It sounds like Theo is the third and then Luke and Nell are the youngest.

From what we’ve gathered as we haven’t really met Luke, he seems to be in rehab.

So because something is wrong with Nell and no one wants to listen, except for her father who tells her to see Steve and be safe. What we learn by the end of the first episode is that Nell was never in LA close to Steve but she went back to the house because when she calls her father I believe she says the lady is back. Their father calls Steve, who thinks he’s seeing Nell in his apartment, but really it’s some sort of ghost because their father tells him Nell went back to the house and she’s dead. Uhm okay what?! This is what I mean by intriguing, now I want to know what happened in that house, and why they’re all so off putted by Nell.

Nell is definitely gone. Steve calls Shirley to tell her that she killed herself. At first she can’t believe it but then once the body is brought back there is no way to deny it. I have this weird suspicion they all knew because all of the siblings seems to share dreams.

Her husband who also works at the funeral home with her thinks it’s crazy for Shirley to want to do her own sister’s funeral, but there is no arguing with her.

So there she goes making Nell look like the day she got married.

I love the backstory that this show gives these characters. I like how it relates and we can see how each interaction they had as children reflects their adult life.

I’d love to earn how Luke, who looked like this sweet kid, turned into a drug addict because everyone in the present day hates him.

We learn about their mother, we know she died, but we aren’t sure from what. All we know is one night something bad happened and their father took all five children away from the house, what I’m guessing is away from their mother. They all know something is up, and you can tell they haven’t stopped blaming their father for their mother’s death, or the fact that he won’t say how she died.

But you can see where Shirley decided she wanted to work in a funeral home, when the guy at her mother’s funeral helped her face her fears of seeing her dead mother. Scenes like that really round out the show.

There are definitely creepy undertones, like the bugs coming out of every dead person’s mouth, that is weird, but I’m sure is going to have some significance to the show.

The show also jumps around through time a lot, but it’s not as chaotic as it sounds, it actually had some reason to time jumps.

I like that each episode is a little dive into each character. The third focuses on Theo and we learn that she’s a child therapist. We can see that she’s really good with kids and understanding them, they show that she always has been. We get to see her and Luke’s childhood bond and a good bond that they have. He claims that no one believes him when he tells people things. When Theo and Luke are playing around and he gets stuck in the basement, my god was that scary. He claims to be attacked by something and of course Theo is the only one to believe him.

They put a lot of effort to show Theo shaking hands with people, since we’re told and shown that she’s a germaphobe. It’s almost like she can read and see things by touching someone, it’s very strange, yet also very intriguing. Oh I just got it, she wears gloves to protect herself from reading and seeing people, oh my god.

So are we led to believe that their mother had this ability too? She seemed to know and gave Theo her first pair of gloves and tells her she’s “sensitive”.

I also have to say that the actors who play the children are so spot on to their adult counterparts, it’s freaky how alike they look.

I wasn’t sure Theo would be able to ‘read’ Nell now that she’s dead, but she reads her alright, no idea what she saw but damn was it frightening.

We also learn that Shirley’s husband has been what? Paying Theo? This is an intriguing backstory.

We’re also getting some more to the last night at Hill House, it’s coming together slowly, but damn, what a night. We get some backstory on Luke, but his episode is so dialogue heavy that it loses it viewer every once in a while.

We finally learn that Nell and Luke are twins and this explains their closeness, it explains why he feels really weird and sick once she dies.

As we’ve learned from the first episode is that he’s in rehab and is 90 days clean. What we learn from his episode is that he’s made a friend there, Joey. She’s 9 months clean and you can tell he looks up to her, but something in her snaps and she leaves the rehab centre, well of course Luke goes after her. Once you leave the centre you can’t go back, which I think sucks, that’s a rather harsh rule. So once he finds Joey, who is high, they have nowhere to go. He tries to go to Steve, but both Steve and his wife are so done with all the lies Luke has put them through. It’s sad to watch as we, the viewer, haven’t seen all the things Luke has done to completely understand how over it they are. Instead we’re left feeling sad because this is the first time we’re seeing it.

This is why Luke is stealing from Steve, for money for a motel… only once he does get money Joey takes off. Now he’s left alone to his own devices.

We also learn that their mother committed suicide, Luke was 6, so that can damage a child, but he’s also always seen this weird figure in a bowler hat, which coincides with his twin who always sees the lady with the bent neck.

Nell’s episode was one of my favourites. Watching her fall in love with her husband, Arthur, was beautiful. I loved every moment of it. They are so cute, and the way Arthur is with her is beautiful.

Nell has sleeping issues and so she goes to get it checked out and that’s where she meets Arthur. She has these episodes where she can’t move once she’s woken up and Arthur is so sweet about helping her through it. One night he goes to turn on the light and just dies. They say it was a random aneurism, but Nell knows it has something to do with the Bent-Neck Lady that she’s been seeing again. She even gets Theo to use her hands to see if she can see anything, but Theo doesn’t really want to. This is where we see Nell’s spiral downward. After her husband passes, she really starts to lose it. As she spirals, she sees the bent-neck lady, and this propels her to go back to the Hill house.

What we learn when she goes back is that she didn’t really kill herself, but the house killed her. For when she goes she sees everyone she’s lost, and everyone she’s cared about. She re-enacts her wedding, and then she sees her mother, and it’s her mother who helps her tie the noose… then ultimately pushes her. The house took their mother, who then took Nell. Freaky.

Man, when all the siblings and their father get together for Nell’s viewing, holy are they so awkward. It’s very real, but man is it ever painful to watch. I love how they all stand like feet away from the casket, like they can’t get too close because if they do it becomes real. Or maybe they all have a phobia of dead bodies, they are very disturbing.

Well, we learn what that money I thought was Theo getting from Shirley’s husband, was actually royalty money from Steve’s book. They each got a cut, but they “agreed” not to take it. That’s when we learn that Theo took it to go to school, and Shirley’s husband, Kevin took it to help their business without her knowing. What a showdown that whole scene was, damn.

Oh my god, Nell has become the bent-neck lady. Their father now sees it, scary. At least Luke and their father are in agreement that they don’t think Nell killed herself, it really has something to do with the bent-neck lady.

Gah, talk about freaky, the lights go out, Nell has buttons on her eyes, no one knows who put them there, then her casket falls. Oooo boy. Spooky.

Nell’s funeral is of course sad, and everyone is mad at everyone. I’m hoping that the funeral can bring them back to each other but I doubt it, these people are so far gone. They are all so stubborn it can be so hard to watch.

I feel so much for Luke, it’s his twin, I couldn’t imagine losing a twin, but I think he’s doing really well. He ends up seeing her as a dead person, and she tries to drag him into the coffin, and Steve is oh-so loving and tells him he needs to stop talking the crazy talk because he doesn’t want to bury him too, gee thanks Steve.

That’s when their father let’s Luke know that he sees their mother every day.

Damn, so now Theo and their father see dead Nell too. Creepy.

Holy, talk about exposition. The guy who helps their father restore the house, back in the day, takes to talking about all the creepy stuff that happened to him, and his family when they were living in the house. So now we know that this house is completely haunted, and that they never spent a minute in the house after dark.

So their father is hiding something the day their mother died, we just don’t know what yet. All we know is that the red room that has been locked all this time, has been unlocked.

We’re slowly learning what happened to their mother. We know that their father was involved somehow, the kids, especially Steve, thinks that their father did it. Maybe he didn’t downright kill her, but he knew that she wasn’t well and he let it go untreated, which I’m assuming led to that night and she had a major breakdown causing her death.

Shit, someone is knocking at Shirley’s door, and windows; talk about creepy. It gets pretty intense right after she and Theo get into a massive fight, I’m really hoping they can reconcile.

Luke has gone missing, and they think he’s gone to the house. I’m actually scared for him.

W-o-w. So we learn that Steve got a vasectomy… and the whole reason his marriage failed was because they couldn’t get pregnant… holy shit. He’s so worried he’ll pass on the family curse onto his children. Lord.

I still believe the house is haunted, and their father has such strong feelings that it is too. He’s trying desperately prove it to Steve, but Steve is so sceptical. So the house is what made their mother sick… and now Luke has gone there to burn it down, but their father knows that will only make the house angrier.

Damn, the performance that Theo gives when she tells Shirley why she kissed her husband after feeling Nell’s body and feeling nothing, just numb, it was kissing Kevin that she started to feel again. You truly felt for her.

Oh, no. Luke does make it to the house, he soaks the main room with gasoline, goes to light it and nope, no fire… but their mother shows up. No! Don’t take Luke.

Uhm, what?!? So their mother saw that Nell and Luke were going to die years before they actually died, what?!? She knew it was going to happen, is that why she was there to open her arms to them?

OHHH! Okay… let’s unpack this. So their mother starts to see older Nell and Luke dead in her dreams so in order to “save” them she has to wake them up as children. So what does she do, she puts poison in their tea for an impromptu tea party in the middle of the night, which I guess as kids they don’t find weird.

The ghosts of the house are haunting their mother and it gets to be so much that that’s why their father has to leave the house, and that’s where the beginning of the season ties into the end. Their father tried to save them from their mother, and he got there just in time because they were about to drink the tea, the poor girl Abigail (that Luke could only see for so long, but I think was Mrs. Dudley’s kid [yes I was right about who she is]) drinks the tea and dies.

Their father pushes their mother, and that’s how she gets the bump on her head, but once she realizes what she’s done it’s too late, and all she wants is to “wake up” and that’s when one of the ghosts pushes her over the banister and she falls to her death.

I love the storytelling, I love how we know parts of the story and we’re filling in the blanks… the whole seeing adult Nell and Luke is weird, I didn’t really care for that plot, and I get where it fits into the story, but I just feel like it was added as an afterthought. But this story arc has been very well thought out, otherwise.

Okay, so the season ends with the family all back together, but there’s this strange back and forth that doesn’t compute with anything we’ve learned.

We get all these different points of view from each of the characters that all lead to the red room.

We see Steve where he and his wife are still together, she’s pregnant, and he’s trying to recount the night he and his father went to save Luke… but apparently Luke died… but it’s all a dream.

We then see Luke, who went to see his friend and she wants him to get high with her, and he says no, but apparently he already has, with a needle in his arm… but he wakes in the red room.

Shirley and Theo go to the house together.

Oh.My.God. James Laferty is a freakin’ hoot! He’s hilarious, I love him as an actor, but he will always be Nathan Scott to me though.

Woah, woah, woah, so at first we’re led to believe that Shirley and James’ character never met… but really they do and they had an affair. She regrets it so much that she ends up seeing herself dead in a coffin, and she wakes up in the red room.

Theo is with her girlfriend and she’s not wearing her gloves and she can’t feel anything. That’s when she gets swarmed with hands and also wakes up in the red room.

We even see Nell as she was and not dead.

And Luke is dying… they all are dying… huh. They’ve all gone back to the house to be back with their mother, so they can wake, because they’re all safe, and apparently that house is their forever house.

The kids end up escaping the house once more and we’re taken back to the night they escaped the first time and Steve can see what truly happened, and see what the house really is.

Interesting, their father wanted to burn the house, but the Dudley’s refused to let him because their daughter is still alive in the house and it’s the only way they would see her. I get it, but so strange.

Wow, so their father decides to pretty much die to stay in the house with their mother and Nell. I have to say this has been quite the journey for Steve as a character. He went from being so cynical to it all to believing it all. All the siblings go through so much, but it just feels like Steve had the most transformation, because each of them already knew something was up with the house.

I loved that ending. It was so pure and honest. All the siblings faced their fears, spoke the truth and learned how to love and forgive, not only each other, but themselves as well. This was truly some beautiful storytelling brought to life by beautiful acting. Definitely recommend this!