NOTICE: This story is told through both the past and the present, so anytime that the words of this post are italicized, it’s referring to a flashback in the episode; anytime that the words of this post are bolded, it’s referring to the present day in the episode; anytime that the words of this post are normal text, it’s my own comments and analysis of the episode.
WARNING: There are spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t watched the series yet and would like to, please stop reading!
(Rated TV-MA for nudity, violence, language, drug/alcohol use, and disturbing images.)
(The opinions in this post are purely my own as a huge fan of the show, and aren’t based on any professional knowledge or evidence.)
“Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House. And whatever walked there, walked alone.”
As the chilling first lines of the series open up, we’re introduced via flashback to the younger version of the Crain family: dad, Hugh, mom, Olivia, and their five kids, Steven, Shirley, Theo (short for Theodora), and twins, Luke and Nell (short for Eleanor).
Hugh and Olivia have moved their family for the summer into a hauntingly beautiful, albeit rundown, mansion known as Hill House in an attempt to flip and resell. But almost immediately, the mansion totally freaks the kids out.
Now, as a trigger warning, elements of the horror genre play a large role in this series. But once we begin to peel back the layers, we’ll soon realize that the true focus and underlying theme of this series is familial loss.
And boy, do the poor Crain family experience many deep, traumatizing, life-altering losses.
In the night, Nell has woken everyone up with a loud cry of fear.
Steven and Hugh go to investigate.
Nell informs them that she saw the “bent-neck lady” again.
Steven and Hugh try to reassure her that the “bent-neck lady” doesn’t exist.
But once everyone has gone back to sleep, they are inevitably proven wrong as the entity appears behind Nell.
So here we are right at the opening moments of the series and Nell’s already suffering some loss of her childlike innocence with the reoccurrence of the terrifying “bent-neck lady” entity (and no doubt, the other kids are as well).
This is a crucial factor in Nell’s story later on, affecting her negatively for the rest of her life.
Steven, now a successful paranormal fiction writer, is talking to Irene, a widow, about her recently deceased husband, Carl.
She describes how Carl died in a car accident after having gone over a guardrail and into a ravine on a particularly stormy night. He was hanging upside down, his arm badly broken, attempting to push the horn for as long as he could stand the pain to try and get help. But it never came, and he passed away.
Irene goes on to explain that she’s been experiencing paranormal things, most significantly the scene of Carl’s death, seeing him literally hanging above her bed on the ceiling at night. This scared her enough that she’s refused to sleep in the bedroom since.
Irene then says, “It’s funny, you think you’d scream after seeing something like that, but you don’t. You just stare. You just stare at it like you’re an idiot.”
I found this comment to be really interesting because she’s totally right.
When we dream or think about our loved ones, we tend to not be able to turn away, even from the worst possible memories and scenarios.
Steven receives a phone call from Nell but ignores it.
Nell has another visit from the “bent-neck lady”.
This time, it’s much more terrifying, as the entity (just as with Irene’s husband) floats above her, paralyzing her in fear.
Once again, this illustrates how Nell’s slowly losing her childlike innocence, which ultimately transforms her into the deeply troubled and grief-stricken young woman that she becomes.
Shirley, now a funeral home owner and director, is assisting a young boy, Max, and his family in the loss of his grandmother.
She also receives a call from Nell but ignores it.
Noticing how uncomfortable Max is, Shirley tries to talk to him about the process of having a funeral and the importance of saying goodbye.
But Max tells her a bone-chilling story of how he doesn’t need to say goodbye because his grandmother has been visiting him at night. He then says, “She just stares at me, and her eyes must hurt, because she doesn’t blink.”
First off—yikes (and yet another kid losing some of their innocence)! Imagine experiencing something like that.
But this is how we often respond to our grief, by conjuring up our loved ones in a variety of ways.
Depending on beliefs, did Max see a ghost? Or was it some fake manifestation of his grandmother due to the fact that he wasn’t truly ready to say goodbye? Was it all just a dream?
That’s for us to decide on our own. But either way, it’s interesting how our grief can affect us in such a way.
Later that afternoon, Shirley listens to the voicemail that Nell left her and is deeply concerned for her sister. Nell claims that she’s worried for Luke, but something’s definitely off about her as well.
As of right now, though, Shirley isn’t exactly sure of what yet.
Hugh and Mr. Dudley, one of the mansion’s groundskeepers, are working on one of the fireplaces.
Mr. Dudley gives Shirley a key, telling her he isn’t sure if it’ll work.
But Shirley takes it excitedly anyway and climbs a large spiral staircase into a hallway with a peculiar red door at the end.
Nell’s kneeling down in front of it, waiting for her.
They try to get the door open with the key, but it doesn’t work, even though it’s a master and should be able to open any door.
Shirley and Nell contemplate what could be behind the red door but can’t figure out what it could be. They run off to see if they can find any more keys, and once they’re gone, an eerie shadow moves from underneath the red door.
Steven and Shirley have a heated discussion via phone about Nell’s voicemail.
He then explains to Irene that he’s going to attempt to figure out if all of what she has told him is actually occurring, or if it’s just a result of her grief. He proclaims that he doesn’t believe in the supernatural and that he thinks what is happening is entirely explainable.
As an interesting side note, Steven’s supposed to represent the first stage of the five stages of grief: denial.
And boy, does he deny, deny, deny anything that’s going on, both now and in his past.
We’ll delve into this theory in later posts, but each of the Crain siblings actually symbolizes one of the five stages of grief.
I know that the five stages of grief do have some criticism surrounding them in regard to authenticity, but either way, I think it was a particularly brilliant addition to the series on the creator’s part!
Early that evening, while taking a break from investigating Irene’s home, Steven leaves a voicemail for Nell, telling her that he called to check in on Luke and found out that he’s been sober and doing well in rehab for several weeks now.
As he does, we see Nell as she rushes back into what appears to be a motel room, crying and clearly freaked out over something.
Poor, sweet Nell. Bless her.
That night, Theo, who seems to be an extremely confident woman at first, lures a new love interest, Trish, to the dance floor, and later, to bed.
But it’s quickly learned how closed off Theo actually is, between giving only short responses, to having a weird obsession with wearing gloves that she claims is due to being a “germaphobe”, to abruptly ushering Trish out in order to avoid any sort of deeper conversation.
Theo, as it turns out, has some serious emotional baggage.
Later that night, Theo approaches Shirley on the front porch (she lives in Shirley’s guest house).
They talk about Trish, what might be going on with Nell, and Luke’s addiction issues.
Theo tells Shirley about the importance of having boundaries and how she “just knows” that something’s up with their siblings, but doesn’t explain any further.
Theo’s quite a peculiar and interesting woman. I’m excited to dive into her more in later posts.
Meanwhile, Hugh is actively having a nightmare, where a woman’s hand wraps around him from behind and then proceeds to touch his face. However, he lives alone.
Hugh slowly turns to find Olivia, but her face’s shadowed other than her mouth.
Then, out of nowhere, she lets out a horrible shriek, and Hugh wakes with a start.
We can assume here, since Hugh now lives alone, that Olivia must have somehow died.
Visualizing our loved ones, especially in dreams, is completely normal.
However, unfortunately for Hugh (just as with Irene), it was in a much more sinister fashion.
Just as Hugh wakes up, his cell phone begins ringing.
He sees that it’s Nell and picks up. But it’s the middle of the night, so for whatever reason that she’s calling, it can’t be good.
She hesitantly tells Hugh that the “bent-neck lady” has returned, which immediately puts him on red alert.
He calmly asks where she is, and Nell, who we see is visibly distraught and fighting against something sits in her car.
But she lies, telling Hugh that she’s safely at home, in bed.
Hugh knows his daughter, though. He knows that something’s very wrong. So he urges her to go and stay with Steven until he can get a flight out there himself, telling her that he’ll see her tomorrow.
She agrees, but then very quietly says that she loves him, her voice trembling.
Hugh, noticing something’s off in her voice, quickly asks if she’s all right.
Nell says that she’s fine, but it’s clear that she’s anything but.
They tell each other goodnight and hang up.
Hugh and Nell have a particularly close bond, more so than he does with the rest of his kids.
I think a lot of that’s thanks to their—we’ll say, heightened sensitivity—to what has happened to them in the past, and how both deal with their grief very similarly.
But Nell’s indeed nowhere near home.
Instead, she has returned to Hill House, now a ghost of its former self, inviting her forward with a strange and eerie orange glow on the front porch.
It all feels incredibly wrong.
But she walks forward anyway, and we assume that she enters the mansion.
Hugh hurriedly packs a bag and seems to be talking to someone that isn’t there.
Most likely, it’s Olivia.
This is yet another normal reaction to grief.
I find myself talking to my dad all of the time, even out loud, like Hugh.
Hugh frantically enters Steven’s room and wakes him, telling him that they have to leave immediately.
Steven, freaked out by Hugh’s panic, watches as an unseen force tries to open the bedroom door.
Once it appears to be gone, Hugh makes Steven promise not to open his eyes no matter what he hears and carries him out to the car. As they do, someone or something chases them.
I think this is a nice parallel to how the kids have lost so much of their innocence already, and Hugh’s just trying his best to protect what’s left of Steven’s here at this moment.
But if we look carefully in the background as they rush out to the car, we can see ghostly figures all around, thanks to Steven peeking anyway.
This is a wonderful form of symbolism for how much grief the mansion itself has witnessed.
When they reach the car, the remainder of the Crain family (minus Olivia) is in total panic.
They’re all asking Hugh where Olivia is, Steven screaming at him, but all Hugh says is that it’s “not Mom”.
They rush away into the night, leaving Hill House far behind them.
Still actively investigating, Steven answers a phone call from Hugh, and they argue about how they have no reason to talk to each other, an obvious amount of tension between them.
But Hugh insists that Steven look out for Nell.
Steven tries to tell Hugh that he “isn’t living at home right now”, but Hugh hangs up on him.
Steven continues his investigation for a little bit longer of Irene’s bedroom before finally going to bed.
As he does this, we see Nell strangely waltzing around the abandoned mansion, seemingly in a trance.
Later that night, at exactly 3:02 A.M. Eastern Time, Hugh and every Crain sibling (besides Nell) wake from a nightmare.
Shirley mutters, “Nellie’s in the Red Room”, as she jolts awake.
Steven, now fully awake and deciding to continue his investigation, discovers piece by piece that everything Irene had described, at least to him, had very normal explanations.
The next morning, Steven tells Irene about everything that he discovered, dismissing what she saw.
Irene, offended, then says, “And the man, hanging from my ceiling?”
Steven goes on to explain, “The mind is a powerful thing, ma’am. Especially the grieving mind.”
Irene, in disbelief, says, “I know what I saw!”
Steven continues, “The water and the car horns…you’d be picturing how he died, as much as you wouldn’t want to. And when you push that stuff down, it comes out at night. You couldn’t help it.”
Look at him, denying everything once again!
Steven, noticing Irene’s reaction, backtracks a little bit and tries to comfort her instead by saying, “When I said I’ve never seen a ghost, that’s not exactly true. I’ve seen a lot of ghosts, just not in the way you think. A ghost can be a lot of things. A memory, a daydream, a secret. Grief, anger, guilt. But in my experience, most times, they’re just what we want to see.”
This really struck me and I think that it was beautifully written.
When someone describes seeing a ghost, that doesn’t always mean just the cliché figure with a white sheet over its head. Ghosts appear in so many different ways.
I think I hear or see my dad all of the time, whether out of the corner of my eye in my parent’s bedroom, in a crowd full of strangers, or in a whisper in the wind.
It’s always, as Steven puts it, just what we want to see. We try to manifest our loved ones in any way that we possibly can if only to be with them one more time.
Irene, extremely upset now, replies, “Why would I want to see my Carl like that?”
Steven, sympathizing with her, says quietly, “Because it’s better than never seeing him again. Most times a ghost is a wish.”
Ouch…right in the heart.
Jumping back six years prior, Shirley angrily tosses a manuscript of Steven’s book on Hill House down in front of him.
Steven’s wife, Leigh, asks what’s going on, and Shirley explains how Steven has tarnished their family’s reputation with this book.
Steven, equally angry, says that he has every right to talk about their childhood experiences, no matter how it made their family look. He then reluctantly admits that his novels aren’t selling and that he thought this was the right call to make in order to become successful and finally be able to start his own life with Leigh.
Shirley, however, thinks that he’s making a huge mistake and is making Olivia (as well as the rest of the family) look completely crazy.
Steven blames it all on what he believes are explainable factors, though, particularly that Olivia was mentally ill, and nothing more.
Denial, once again! Come on, Steven. Seriously.
Shirley, upset, replies, “You sent me the book…now you know what I think. You publish this, you know what it costs.”
What it costs is not only the family’s reputation, but more importantly, the reality of having to revisit the pain that each of them has gone through.
Jumping back to their childhood, Steven and Hugh sit in a lawyer’s office, discussing what happened at Hill House.
Hugh, despite the lawyer’s suggestions, says that the kids won’t take the stand in court. He refuses to allow the jury and the public to tear them apart, even at his own expense. He also says that no one, especially the press, would be allowed to visit the grounds of Hill House, even though that would look bad in the eyes of the jury, who already suspect Hugh of murdering Olivia.
Hugh, determined and angry, then says, “I want the gates and the doors locked at all times. And I want to know every day that it’s empty. No gardeners, no staff, except for the Dudleys. I want it to sit there and rot.”
I think that this is another sweet example of how desperately Hugh wanted to protect his kids and his wife.
Loyal and selfless, Hugh has decided that no one would go down for what happened besides him.
But what exactly did happen?
We come to find out a little later on in the series, but there’s just something about Hugh’s bravery here that really touched me, and reminded me of my own dad.
I think he would have done the exact same thing.
Later, Steven and Hugh are in the car, and Hugh apologizes to Steven for witnessing that meeting with the lawyer.
Steven, worried about their future, is scared about the idea that Hugh might lose the case, and in turn, lose his kids.
Hugh tries to comfort him by saying that he’ll win. But it seems the outcome’s bleak.
Steven leaves Irene’s and heads for home. But “home” for Steven’s not what his family thinks anymore.
He calls Leigh, telling her that Nell might show up at the house.
Leigh, annoyed, tries to end the conversation quickly.
For reasons unknown just yet, it appears that they’re currently separated.
This too is a form of grief, as Steven’s suffering the potential loss of his marriage and his home.
Jumping back to their childhood once again, before the fateful night that the Crain family leaves Hill House, Steven sits in the kitchen as Mrs. Dudley, the other groundskeeper of the mansion, enters.
She explains a bit of the history of the mansion, but is obviously afraid of it, stating that she refuses to be in the house, or anywhere near it for that matter, after dark. As an extremely religious person, she tries to warn him that the only way to stay safe there is to have faith in God.
Olivia interrupts, trying to calm some of the tension, and explains that Steven’s aware of Christian beliefs, but has also been taught many others.
In her own way, I think that Olivia is trying to protect some of Steven’s childlike innocence here.
Perhaps she felt Mrs. Dudley had no right to interject her beliefs on her son. Or maybe she was just worried that Mrs. Dudley might be scaring him.
Later that day, Steven goes to visit Luke in his treehouse, where he discovers that Luke has been seeing a strange girl in the woods surrounding the mansion, named Abigail.
Luke, still unaware of what’s actually going on, has created many interesting drawings.
But as Steven studies them, he notices how disturbing they are.
However, he writes it off as Luke having an imaginary friend.
Obviously, something really creepy is happening here.
Who’s this girl that Luke’s seeing? And what’s with his drawings?
But yet again, Steven’s so inclined to deny and have an excuse for everything.
That night, Steven arrives at his new home, which is a simple apartment complex in a quieter part of his town.
As he enters the lobby, he notices to his surprise that Luke is coming down the stairs. And then he notices what’s in Luke’s hands: his own iPad and one of his cameras.
Luke quickly says, “It’s not what it looks like.”
Steven, disappointed, gives Luke all of the cash that he has and tells Luke that he can have the camera, but he needs the iPad.
Luke apologizes once again, saying that it really isn’t what Steven thinks. He gives the camera back as well and then leaves.
This is a truly sad exchange. These two brothers still love each other, but as with the rest of the family, their relationship’s incredibly strained.
In many ways, they’re probably grieving their childhood and grieving the relationship they once had, as well as the relationship that they possibly could’ve had, if it weren’t for what happened at Hill House.
Steven enters his apartment and is equally surprised to find Nell standing there, alone and in the dark.
He starts questioning her, and when she doesn’t respond, he makes the assumption that she made a big deal out of nothing, got Luke out of rehab, and watched as he robbed him.
Steven becomes angry with her but turns away to take another call from Hugh.
Something’s very wrong with Nell, but Steven doesn’t notice.
Hugh, breaking up on the phone, tells Steven that Nell was lying and that he had arrived at Hill House and found her.
Nell whimpers in the background behind Steven as Hugh tells him, “She’s dead…she’s dead…”
Steven, turning pale, turns around slowly, only to find Nell directly in front of him now.
He watches in horror as her face decays before his eyes.
Then she screams, the force knocking Steven to the ground, and disappears.
As Steven lies there, dumbfounded, Hugh’s heard distantly on the phone, repeating Steven’s name over and over again.
As tragic and terrifying as this moment is, what’s most important here is that Steven has finally seen a ghost.
And this time, he can’t deny or explain it away.
This time, he knows that he saw a ghost for real.
Because this time, it was one of the people that he loved the very most.
