The Haunting Of Hill House “Two Storms”

OK, that was rather impressive.

What was so impressive?  So much of this episode is made up of cleverly set-up long shots with camera movement swooping around and letting actors jump in and out of the scene as needed.  Perhaps most impressively was the way that when Hugh, a character we’ve seen so little of in the present, shows up at Shirley’s funeral home and momentarily sees his adult children as the children they were in the flashbacks.  And that’s before he wanders off to find the bathroom and ends up in a Hill House flashback.

So, both the present and the past are set during a storm.  In the past, a chandelier fell from the ceiling during a blackout and freaked the family out, particularly Nell who says she saw the Bent-Neck Lady.  Then Nell disappears.  Most of this episode’s focus is on Hugh, and he and Olivia go looking for Nell.  Olivia at one point spots a ghost boy in a wheelchair and old fashioned clothes before she…disappears.  Hugh keeps seeing her at the opposite end of whatever hallway he’s standing in, and then some windows explode, and when he finally finds her, well, the windows ain’t broken no more.

Nell then pops up, claiming she never went anywhere, and that no matter how loud she screamed, no one seemed to see or hear her.

And then, back in the present, well, there’s fighting going on at Nell’s viewing at Shirley’s funeral home.  It’s pretty much just the surviving Crains there, except for Shirley’s husband Kevin who seems to mostly hang out in the background, and Nell’s ghost pops up in the background as the Bent-Neck Lady as well…though Hugh maybe sees her at one point.  And maybe Steven does.  Of course, someone or something put some buttons over the eyes of Nell’s corpse.  And Luke keeps insisting it wasn’t a suicide.

But things go worse when Shirley brings up Steven’s books again, saying no one took the royalties.

Only Theo says she did to pay for grad school.

Oh, and Kevin did because Shirley does a lot of discount work and it kept their business open.  That was why he had a special checkbook just in his name.

See, Kevin had a reason for being there.

Plus, Theo kinda knew about that.

Hugh seems to be talking to himself.  Who is he talking to?  He doesn’t say.

And then Steven shouts the wrong parent died…and Nell’s coffin falls over.

That seems to calm everyone down as they put the coffin back onto its stand.  The Crains all leave…except for Nell.  Now a ghost, and one no one can see or hear.

That sounds familiar…