Hello lovely readers,
Welcome to my spoiler-filled review of episode 4 of Netflix’s adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House.
This show. Man, this show. The episodes seem to shift between scary and then super sad. “The Twin Thing” revolves around Luke and his struggles with addiction. It also started to connect more of the timeline as the corners are put into place.
Is Luke the most tragic of all the surviving Crains? As of this episode, he had the basement experience, and now the scary top hat guy. It’s no wonder he turned to drugs and such to cover up the terror he experienced as a child. Poor Luke. And that’s not to say that he gets a free pass from his choices, but it puts his struggles into perspective.
The beginning of the episode is young Luke recounting his experience with the basement monster. Luke’s complaining that no one believes him. We get to see how he came up with the drawings from a couple of episodes ago. He’s talking to someone off screen, and then he says:
The episode takes place time wise, near the beginning of episode 1. At the beginning of the episode, we learn that Luke is 90 days clean, and he is friends with a woman named Joey, who is nine months sober. He wakes up at 12:03, holding his neck and sees Nell. She commands him to “Go.” His friend left a note under his pillow that reads “Don’t follow me; she bailed on the rehab center. He decides to follow after her.
Luke pays for his trust in his Joey, and is left with nothing.
This episode confirms, at least partly, some of my suppositions during earlier episodes. The white, and now shining eyes, have a lot of meaning for this series. Not only that, but this episode in particular emphasizes the eyes. One of the addicts, a vet, tells a story about when he he found a little girl in a burnt out hospital with melted eyes. It affected him so much that he blinded himself with knitting needles to try and not see her, but now she’s all he sees. Luke also makes the comment to Joey that Nell can tell when a person has been using by the look in their eyes. And then, at the end of the episode, when Luke sees his mom, her eyes glow. It’s the eyes!
I believe that the ending of the episode strongly suggests that at least as of this episode, Mrs. Crain’s ghost is not the same loving and caring person we’ve seen thus far. She seems to be a force for ill will, and I think that you can tell by the eyes. At least that’s my current theory right now–she no longer serves as a protecting force, but one who is leading her family to their doom.
We also get to see some of Luke’s interactions with Abigail. Obviously, she is a ghost, but is she a good ghost or bad? She’s not a frightening character at this point, but appearances can be deceiving. I wonder if Abigail might have died outside of the house as opposed to inside. Did she die near the area where Luke first saw her? Will she play an important factor in the story? It would be weird to have a character who has been named multiple times in the series suddenly disappear. If this was an incompetent production, perhaps, but the work has been high quality, so I am confident that Abigail will have an impact in the series. Perhaps Luke will encounter her when the family comes back to Hill, and I wonder if he’ll have a re-encounter the man in the bowler hat.
I found that Luke’s seven-step protection plan was fascinating, and that he stuck to it so strongly. Heck, it was only when Luke stopped counting to seven that his “mother” approached him; he didn’t fully protect himself. I think that this supports the idea that the house corrupts. Hill House has been pretty good about not having story threads twisting in the wind thus far.
To be honest, I was surprised that Theo hadn’t been more supportive of Luke. She knew what he was going through as a child, and I would have thought that perhaps she would have been more tolerant. I suppose it’s just a twin thing, though.
Perhaps the most effective part the episode was how the night progressed. When you start to suspect that his rubbing of his neck, posture, and stiff, cold limbs was because he was experiencing Nell’s death, it was kind of chilling and extremely sad. Luke stuttering, trying to make sense of why he feels like he’s coming down from a high, hugging Steve, and telling his big brother over and over that he hasn’t used… And when Luke realizes that Nell didn’t commit suicide, it’s a great moment in a show that’s absolutely full of them.
I wonder if this is essentially what the bent-neck lady is. It’s a poor woman killed by Hill House. I think Olivia was killed in a different fashion than Nell, especially because mom’s dead appearance is different than daughter’s. Heck, maybe Nell has become another (or the new) bent-neck lady. The next episode is Nell focused, and it’s titled “The Bent-Neck Lady…” Is it coincidence that Luke complained about his neck and the next episode is Nell’s? Pfft. I don’t think so.
There’s still so much I don’t really understand at the moment, but I’m confident that it’ll all become clear by the end. Perhaps it shows how much a particular individual or creature has been corrupted by the house. Maybe the lights mean that the soul is lost, replaced by the evil of the house.
And another thought. Luke doesn’t have a high opinion of his father. You have to wonder what happened there. The Crains were, at one point, a loving family, so other than the haunting, what else changed? What happened between Mr. Crain and the rest of his kids? Hopefully we find out for sure in a later episode… and I’m sure it’ll be sad as well.
I can’t remember if I’ve written on the musical score at all, but it is fantastic. It’s haunting, beautiful, and sad. While it is a soundtrack to a horror show and there are tracks that fit within the genre, many of the songs are strongly piano driven, and would be just as home in something like an emotional drama, which makes sense since Hill House is not, strictly speaking, a straight horror production.
The camera work is still spectacular with effective framing and amazing sweeps. The camera conceals and reveals with incredible efficacy. I am continuously impressed by this show on a technical level alone.
As I dive deeper into the tragedy of the Crain family, I wonder if there will be a happy resolution, or will the house consume them all. I’d like to think that perhaps there will be some enduring happiness, but when the music won’t let itself have an extended happy movement, my hope for the Crain family lessens. I know it’s part and parcel of horror to be tragic, it’s hard to see such a family deserving such a tragic fate. I haven’t talked about the show’s poster at all, but I think it foreshadows the ultimate ending; the Crains will not escape.
Until next time,
Kevin
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