The Haunting of Hill House

[Z Buck McFate]

It was worse knowing how everything with Nell was going to pan out, all the emotional agonies she would experience in what remained of her life, and how the huge awful macabre picture all assembled together across the tapestry of her life. Just absolutely dreadful, and my skin crawled with the alternating scenes of her dancing through the house.

I can't think of a better actress for that part, too. She was amazing. (Granted, most of that is personal quirks and features she probably has inherently, but still - she was perfect). @ "achievement unlocked."

****

I haven't watched the trailer yet (too much of a spoiler), but:

 

[Totenkindly]

I can't think of a better actress for that part, too. She was amazing. (Granted, most of that is personal quirks and features she probably has inherently, but still - she was perfect). @ "achievement unlocked."

Yeah considering it was Victoria Pedretti's first "full-length" role of any kind... She actually bested some more experienced cast members, IMO, in that performance. I kind of resent to seeing her referred to as a "scream queen" because her work was excellent just in a standard "drama" format. Maybe my understanding is off, but scream queen typically just designates someone who gets pigeon-holed in horror flicks and tends to not be as successful outside the genre doing substantial dramatic / versatile work, which I think Pedretti is capable of.

I read now that she has been cast as author Alice Sebold in a film based on her rape experience, "Lucky" -- basically because she felt lucky to be alive considering the circumstances. (For those who don't know who she is, Sebold is better known for her fictional book, "The Lovely Bones," whose film adaptation was okay but not nearly as good as people anticipated.)

That would be an unnerving film. I read both and find it really fascinating how both of them involves a similar violation but they are told almost in opposite styles... one is metaphorical and abstracted, the other more minimalist and direct, if I recall correctly.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

She has a lot of range and depth. The scene with Miles and the spider is coming to mind, where he tried to scare her but she took the spider from his hand and - while letting it walk across her own hand - said something like, "It's a lot harder to scare me than most people think." Granted, it's acting (and a lot easier to be bold when there's a script and you know how things will end), but there are believable traces of a fierce courage that do a sort of dance with the palpable 'scared mouse' fear in her expression - she does it so well that I never feel an interruption in the suspension of disbelief. It's rare.

 

[Totenkindly]

We finished our watch/rewatch of Season 1 last night. It was nice to be in a place where I could no longer remember many of the details of the finale very well, so I could be resurprised in some ways. My son had the same kind of thoughts I did (shocker, I know), and we had a big discussion afterwards including the last 15 minutes -- especially because he's been reading the book over the last few days and is about half done with it and recognized some of the lines in the show as being from the book.

Our view of Season 1 is that e1 is probably the weakest, through little fault of its own -- it is the opener and has to establish a lot of the characters, mood, setting, etc., when we know next to nothing about the story. Things start to gel slightly by the end of it (with the shocker of the last minute). Then we get into the character episodes (2-5). Since Steve is KIND of the center of e1, we don't seem to learn as much about him per se as the deep dives on all his siblings in e2-e5. The strongest episodes of the season are e4-e6 (e4 = Luke, e5 = Bent Neck Lady, e6 = The Viewing). The last few episodes are decent, just not the high mark per se -- although I ended up quietly crying a lot through the finale as all the characters have experiences where Nell is influential in releasing them as they deal with psychological frailties unique to their personalities and experiences.

We both agreed that there is a huge tonal shift that we didn't really like in the last 10 minutes or so. It feels a bit like a copout.

The season ends in a rosy way, almost like a modern hour-long drama episode from "This is Us" considering the style of the music and heartfelt positive catharsis. It's way too much. There's so much good about the preserved tonality through the series -- the house feeds on its victims and all who come into its grasp, the ghosts are shadows of the people who died in the house, so it's bittersweet to see them, they are haunting images of the past and these "lost souls." SOme of the ghosts are more malevolent than others, others are more benign. Poppy in particular is a wicked ghost, maybe you can communicate with her, but she seems to take pleasure in inflicting harm as kind of a way to vent her own pain over dying -- so she says dark and awful things, even sometimes giving people a push (cough) or dragging Luke upstairs and sticking rat poison in him / leading him to do that, etc. But this is all done under the baleful dominion of the house, it is like being in the belly of a beast that is slowly digesting each of them and casting a pall over it all.

Flannagan does such a wonderful job over maintaining the mottled mix of emotion through the season. You are a little weirded out by the ghosts, while being somewhat sorry for them. Even the "good ghosts" like Olivia and Nell are still under the pall generated by the house, which means that Olivia can be twisted into believing that keeping her kids safe can be accomplished by killing them so they never have to go into the outer world and be gnawed on by life, or Nell is constantly confused by time as a linear concept, to her all moments are the same cascading around her and it's harder for her to communicate clearly with the living.

The series, to be consistent, should end with the house being a dark and brooding presence, with some bittersweetness over what was gained by the survivors but also all the lost souls trapped within the house's walls. The house itself will never be good, and the ghosts are lost there through its possessive claim on them and their life essence... yet the show tries to suddenly end in this upbeat way. Each character comes to a desire to embrace life, but it's almost too rosy and too much. Theo is one of the worst, by discarding her gloves in the trash; as a symbol she will be more vulnerable and open herself up to other people by removing the barrier of the gloves is positive in the broadest sense because she's been SO closed off, but she shouldn't be throwing them out because they still serve a practical purpose, she DOES get a lot of intense awful existentially dark signals from bare contact and she will still need them. She just needs to be more selective about how she engages, rather than thrusting EVERYONE away. Ending with the ghosts all being like a big happy family together in the house feels kind of ridiculous, because they are all mostly dead and trapped there DUE to the house; it's like trying to make a happy ending about camaraderie for a bunch of little mice being digested together in the belly of a large cat; in the end, they are all still there because the cat capriciously gorged upon them and has ruined them, there is nothing positive in the big picture about that.

I feel like Flannagan learned his lesson for Season 2, and THAT season ends beautifully, with bittersweet feelings of loss and love, because love can't help but bring grief as its price since nothing lasts and the survivors must learn to live with the memories of the lost and even find warmth/comfort in those memories that are almost palpable.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

We finished our watch/rewatch of Season 1 last night. It was nice to be in a place where I could no longer remember many of the details of the finale very well, so I could be resurprised in some ways. My son had the same kind of thoughts I did (shocker, I know), and we had a big discussion afterwards including the last 15 minutes -- especially because he's been reading the book over the last few days and is about half done with it and recognized some of the lines in the show as being from the book.

Our view of Season 1 is that e1 is probably the weakest, through little fault of its own -- it is the opener and has to establish a lot of the characters, mood, setting, etc., when we know next to nothing about the story. Things start to gel slightly by the end of it (with the shocker of the last minute). Then we get into the character episodes (2-5). Since Steve is KIND of the center of e1, we don't seem to learn as much about him per se as the deep dives on all his siblings in e2-e5. The strongest episodes of the season are e4-e6 (e4 = Luke, e5 = Bent Neck Lady, e6 = The Viewing). The last few episodes are decent, just not the high mark per se -- although I ended up quietly crying a lot through the finale as all the characters have experiences where Nell is influential in releasing them as they deal with psychological frailties unique to their personalities and experiences.

We both agreed that there is a huge tonal shift that we didn't really like in the last 10 minutes or so. It feels a bit like a copout.

The season ends in a rosy way, almost like a modern hour-long drama episode from "This is Us" considering the style of the music and heartfelt positive catharsis. It's way too much. There's so much good about the preserved tonality through the series -- the house feeds on its victims and all who come into its grasp, the ghosts are shadows of the people who died in the house, so it's bittersweet to see them, they are haunting images of the past and these "lost souls." SOme of the ghosts are more malevolent than others, others are more benign. Poppy in particular is a wicked ghost, maybe you can communicate with her, but she seems to take pleasure in inflicting harm as kind of a way to vent her own pain over dying -- so she says dark and awful things, even sometimes giving people a push (cough) or dragging Luke upstairs and sticking rat poison in him / leading him to do that, etc. But this is all done under the baleful dominion of the house, it is like being in the belly of a beast that is slowly digesting each of them and casting a pall over it all.

Flannagan does such a wonderful job over maintaining the mottled mix of emotion through the season. You are a little weirded out by the ghosts, while being somewhat sorry for them. Even the "good ghosts" like Olivia and Nell are still under the pall generated by the house, which means that Olivia can be twisted into believing that keeping her kids safe can be accomplished by killing them so they never have to go into the outer world and be gnawed on by life, or Nell is constantly confused by time as a linear concept, to her all moments are the same cascading around her and it's harder for her to communicate clearly with the living.

The series, to be consistent, should end with the house being a dark and brooding presence, with some bittersweetness over what was gained by the survivors but also all the lost souls trapped within the house's walls. The house itself will never be good, and the ghosts are lost there through its possessive claim on them and their life essence... yet the show tries to suddenly end in this upbeat way. Each character comes to a desire to embrace life, but it's almost too rosy and too much. Theo is one of the worst, by discarding her gloves in the trash; as a symbol she will be more vulnerable and open herself up to other people by removing the barrier of the gloves is positive in the broadest sense because she's been SO closed off, but she shouldn't be throwing them out because they still serve a practical purpose, she DOES get a lot of intense awful existentially dark signals from bare contact and she will still need them. She just needs to be more selective about how she engages, rather than thrusting EVERYONE away.

The gloves thing bothered me too. Even if her difficulty were primarily the boundaries/attachment issues (or however one might label the issues that most people are vulnerable too) - if it wasn't compounded by this extra sensory ability - baggage doesn't go away with a decision to not be a victim of it anymore. The path to healing is a Sisyphus-like, circuitous commitment to address the rock (instead of relying on all the coping and defense mechanisms we initially turned to in order to avoid that struggle) and finally - to the best of our ability - push on it, knowing we're going to end up doing it again and again, and that the lasting progress will be painfully slow. And whatever progress we DO make will retrograde if we take a long enough break. Getting 'better' isn't a single choice, it's the result of thousands (maybe millions) of smaller, steadfast choices. All of that is difficult enough; in her case it IS compounded by this extra-sensory sensitivity - making the 'single choice' resolution that much more wildly unrealistic.

While it's possible Flanagan was shooting for extra-sensory sensivity being the reason for the other issues - and 'taking off the gloves' was intended to indicate that she was going to start tackling this extra obstacle, instead of simply avoiding it - then her character should have been simpler (which admittedly would suck and make the overall story more dull, but that's what it would take to forgive 'gloves off ending'; wildly simplistic resolutions are only satisfying for wildly simplistic problems).

Ending with the ghosts all being like a big happy family together in the house feels kind of ridiculous, because they are all mostly dead and trapped there DUE to the house; it's like trying to make a happy ending about camaraderie for a bunch of little mice being digested together in the belly of a large cat; in the end, they are all still there because the cat capriciously gorged upon them and has ruined them, there is nothing positive in the big picture about that.

Or if it is possible to exist in some pocket of that big stomach without being digested (tormented), that needs an explanation, to become credible. And such an explanation would almost require an entire season in itself, to be satisfying enough. The strength of the whole story would depend on how strong that explanation is; it would have to resonate on some spooky, profound level.

eta: Oh spoiler function, why do you forsake me? Wait nevermind, it's working now.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I'm one and a half episodes into Midnight Mass. I really like the character development so far.

About the priest:

it seems clear this guy came back from his trip a much younger version of himself? The doctor's mother called him by the priest's name - which doesn't especially stand out because she has dementia - but Dr. Gunning made a point of saying her mother had been on the island since she was a little girl, and the mother seems to be the only one old enough to know what the priest would look like as a much younger man. Plus: at the beginning of the first episode one of the pictures on the wall of the Flynn home (?) looks like a much older Linklater in Catholic priest wardrobe. And Dr. Gunning commented during the potluck that old priest used to stand and stare at her like this new one does.

Regardless of whether it's a younger version, the bad mojo seems to revolve around this guy. He's the one who dragged a footlocker into his home with something alive/moving inside it.

I'm stopping for the night just as Bowl is walking past the vacant house. The beginning of this scene is done well (so creepy) - and if I watch it, ill end up binging the whole series tonight.

I noticed that the woman listed on the cast to play Dr. Gunning's mother is a much younger woman, so I'm guessing they'll be significant chunks of previous island time coming (of when she and the priest were younger).

 

[Totenkindly]

We'll probably watch more this week. We ended up watching the final four episodes of Season 1 of Mr. Robot today, to get to a decent closure point, and now we can jump back over to Midnight Mass.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I actually couldn't bring myself to watch that scary scene alone, so I waited until I had someone to watch it with. I'm rewatching from the beginning, and noticed a few things:

The picture of the priest as an older man is actually in the priest's home, not the family's home. (Not a big detail).

There's something extra in the priest's expression when he visits Dr. Gunny's mother - he almost certainly knew her, and she meant a lot. And it occurred to me when Dr. Gunny mentioned that he'd always "looked at [her] funny," just staring, that maybe he's her biological father.

There's a good chance most people catch these things before me. I'm just excited to be watching Flannagan again.

 

[Totenkindly]

Had posted my Midnight Mass thoughts here:

Midnight Mass

Watched the opener today. We thought it was decent enough, albeit slow. As you know Flanagan, he likes to take the early time to set up the characters. It usually pays off later. The color palette is lovely, focused on faded blue hues set against golden glowing hues. It's really nice. Definite...

www.typologycentral.com

We haven't (re)watched Bly Manor yet but after a friend texted me last night as he works through it, I ended up rewatch the final episode of Bly because I just was in that kind of mood. It just really gets under my skin in a deeply emotional way.

As far as that ending goes, I saw some reviewers complaining about the recasting bit (between the main narrative and the frame story) -- but I'm still not sure what the issue is. It does lose a bit in terms of emotional connection to actor appearances unfortunately, but I didn't see it purely as a gimmick. Most of the complaints that tried to accept the appearance changes complained about the accent changes -- but wasn't it simply a total anonymization/scrub of the original storyline, to preserve anonymity? Who says the accents and otherwise that we heard in the show body were even accurate, if even the name of Bly Manor had been changed to preserve its identity? Like, ANYTHING might have been changed in the retelling, aside from the core story. It doesn't really hold up as a complaint to me.

And then complaints about the final shot including the hand.... I don't think Flanigan clarifies anything about the reality of that hand, but some reviewers criticized it to the degree of it downgrading the show for them because of what they inferred it meant. I think at best it can be stated that the narrator feels the presence of a loved one, without clarifying whether it is perceived or actual. I don't think the show really takes a stance on how far that hand goes, we can only note that there are no other shots that would support a more tangible reading of it since in consciousness the narrator is always searching but never finding tangible signs.

I think it just gets me because at least the narrator feels like they had something/someone they had lost. I don't even feel like I have had that much in life -- I've never found the love that would help define me through its loss, looking back now. I had one that I tried to make work for many years but feel now it was a mismatch and went as far as it could, but the bond was never that pervasive or deep as what appears here... it was always on their terms. I am struck more by the thought of searching and longing for an elusive hand that has never been present regardless and thus there is no comfort expected even in that.

 

[Totenkindly]

My son and I binged "Bly Manor" this weekend, 5 episodes yesterday and 4 today. We did not discuss until it was over, as he wasn't sure if I'd spoil if while explaining things.

It turned out he was confused during much of it (even including Episode 5, which he totally bulloxed his understanding of). So we had a good talk after and once he understood what was happening, he thought the series made a whole lot more sense. Basically it was a number of things: (1) all the time jumps, (2) all the jumps between reality and pocket memories. (3) sometimes these jumps were made by living people, other times made by ghosts, so how do you differentiate, (4) which are ghosts and which represent internalized guilt [there's at least two of the latter, although I differentiate them by whether or not they occur on the manor grounds], etc.

Responding to this now since I had not, since my son commented on being confused over Miles' status:

The ending is actually far more hopeful than the book. Though I'm a bit confused about what happened to Miles. I'd thought he was a goner, and there was a scene in the last episode where Peter apologized to a teary Miles as if it were a done deal ...but then there was a living Miles leaving with Flora and Henry. At first I thought it must be someone else leaving in Miles' body, but that didn't happen. I guess I'll figure that one out on the second go-round.

It's a little confusing, but I think the gist is: A ghost can temporarily possess someone without permission, but the person can kick them out and/or it doesn't last long. However, with "You, Me, Us" or some other declaration of consent and a willingness to do so, then the ghost becomes a permanent inhabitant if it so desires, while the human part is stuck in the pocket memory / happy place. This was foreshadowed by the conversation back at boarding school in Episode 2, about possession and consent. However, the ghost can also leave -- as Peter did with Rebecca in Episode 6 or 7, where she gives him her body so they can be together... but he lied to her and she had trusted him. he sticks her in a "happy memory" (his misleading promise that "they can be together") but then decides that he is miserable without her, so he drowns her body in the lake... and then the fucker vacates it as she's dying because he doesn't want to go through the experience, so Rebecca jolts back to herself right as she's drowning and fully experiences her own death. Peter is such a shit.

Anyway, Miles did consent and thus was taken over by Peter as long as Peter wanted him. But then Viola merges with Dani, all the ghosts are freed and follow the natural progress. Normally spirits don't linger behind, but Viola had been the "black hole" of Bly so to speak from which none of them could naturally escape. They couldn't leave the premises as ghosts and they couldn't just naturally pass to wherever the dead normally go not at Bly. Hannah disappears. Rebecca disappears. Peter disappears. They all feel themselves going and have a short period to say goodbye but then they are gone.

Since Peter is gone now, Miles is released from the pocket memory he had been suppressed in. He's still alive. But this was the only scenario he would have lived in.

Getting back to Dani and Viola, they're merged so they can leave Bly. For whatever reason -- maybe because Viola wants to just feel alive rather than a ghost or because Dani has so much to live for / is strong in her own way -- Dani stays in control. They are merged (Dani isn't suppressed) and they both feel temporarily at peace, at being alive rather than dead. But Viola is so strong-willed and intrinsically tied to Blair that she slowly haunts Dani again, taking over.

[I forget if I mentioned it earlier, but it really evokes my haunting recollections of Heroes Season 4 I think, where Peter's brother Nathan died at the end of Season 3 but the heroes used a multiplicity of powers basically to recreate Nathan in Sylar's body (it took a few different powers). So basically Sylar forgot who he was and has become a simulacrum of Nathan. Only a few people know. Even Sylar (who looks and acts like Nathan) thinks he is Nathan...but slowly Sylar is fighting to get out and increasingly pushes back against how he was reshaped. Peter keeps wanting him to fight because he loves his brother, but he just can't and eventually Nathan turns back into Sylar. It reminds me a lot in the emotional beats of what Dani and Viola are struggling through.]

Anyway, Viola is merged with Dani but will take her over, so Dani drowns herself to keep Viola back at Bly... but now it goes both ways. Dani-Viola might have Viola's self-serving will but she also has Dani's love for people, and thus her ghost never hurts anyone again even when they go walking.

As a side note, Rebecca is much more compassionate -- despite being in a bad romance -- and sacrificing than Peter. This might make her more vulnerable to Peter's requests unfortunately. This is obvious because she doesn't go through with the plan to steal Flora's body. But note that she also had the horrible experience of DYING by drowning, with Peter's betrayal... but she is willing to put Flora in her happy place and take over her body for her, to drown a second time, to spare Flora that dreadful experience.

I've seen this series three times now. There is definitely a strong case to be made while one of the other two series might be stronger... but I don't care. I've watched Hill House three times as well and Midnight Mass once... and I think for me personally this is the one I love the most. I recognize it as being closest to my own personal life themes and so it emotionally resonates with me. (Essentially, love and possession being opposites -- I first recognized this when reading the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, which I probably mentioned earlier; but also how love inevitably leads to loss and that is both the pain and the beauty of it, the depth of love will just lead to deeper loss but you must endure the loss to experience the love. I cry so many times watching this series, especially at the end -- there are so many relationship of love here that lead to some kind of grief (Peter and Rebecca, Owen and Hannah, a few others I probably shouldn't spoil but the obvious one that fills the whole last episode) for various reasons, some because they were bad love and others because they were beautiful love. I think my own personal grief in my life is that I will never experience the kind of love that leads to that depth of loss in my own reality. But it's also why WandaVision and Kubo & The Two Strings both kill me as well. "What is grief but love enduring?"

I think Bly Manor is definitely a "watch it a second time" for it really emotionally to kick in.

My son had some trouble articulating his feelings about Flanagan but basically he thinks that he doesn't feel much on first watch for individual scenes but then develops tremendous feeling looking at a work of his (series) as a whole, especially on second watch, once you understand what is happening -- coupled with Flanagan's tendency to be weaving a particular texture and looking at the story from a big picture perspective. Rewatch the first ten minutes of Bly and it totally takes on a completely different feeling and poignancy. You will also see reverberations and repeated ideas / elements across the season once you know what is happening.