The Haunting of Hill House breakdown: Season 1, episode 2-5
By John Dotson
Episodes 2, 3, 4 and 5 of The Haunting of Hill House weaves all the history of the Crain family into a terrifying thread that ends with a shocking finish. Here is a rundown of the complete first half of season 1 on Netflix.
Before we go any further be aware Spoilers for The Haunting of Hill House will follow. This weekend we recapped the season premiere which delivered an unsettling gut-punch of a finale. Today, we’ll be breaking the entire first half of the season which also leads to a mindblowing conclusion at the end of episode five. Sadly, it’s Nell who ends up breaking our hearts once again.
The interesting part about the first half of this show is how it dissects the complete history of each of the children. Where episode one mostly focused on the skeptic side of Steven and his inability to believe the things his siblings witnessed at Hill House, episodes 2 through 5 take us through the haunting journey of each child. All leading to an explosive episode five focusing on Nell’s life leading to her eventual death.
Open Casket
The episode titled “Open Casket” strictly focuses on Shirley and her upbringing around Hill House leading to the present day. As good as the episode becomes, this is also the least eventful of the series. Most of the plot deals with her fascination with the dead and how she found herself in the business of running a funeral home.
We learn that when she was younger at the Hill House she found a group of baby kittens in a storage building next to a graveyard by the house. Shirley goes onto nurture these baby kittens in a box in her room all throughout the episode but slowly each one of them dies. There’s a very touching moment after the first one dies where her mom Olivia is helping her do a eulogy for the cat. In the scene, she explains to Shirley how every death is a person’s story waiting to be told, which clearly shows the influence of her running a funeral home. We also learn that Shirley is the reason why her brother Luke did not attend Nell’s wedding which backfires for Shirley when Nell describes the occasion as “almost perfect” because he was not there.
There are a few tidbits I expect to pay off later. 1) The reason Shirley’s husband decided to open his own bank account and not tell her, 2) who was screaming and banging on Theo’s wall when she woke up Shirley, 3) the significance of the forever house at the end of the episode– which the porch light turns on by itself at the very end.
Touch
The 3rd episode of The Haunting of Hill House titled “Touch” dissects the mentality and toughness of Theo. As the episode opens we learn she is a child therapist, which given her family life and her own struggles makes her ironically experienced. We learn that her current patient is being haunted by an entity she calls “Mr. Smiley”–which is absolutely the most unsettling name one could choose.
The episode also discusses a gift that her mother describes as “touched” which suggests that psychic powers are not uncommon in her family. The episode also breaks down how she became so guarded and this comes out during a conversation with her patient as she describes that a good way to protect one’s self is by building safe walls. This directly correlates with why she kicked out the woman who she slept with and didn’t show any feeling for doing so.
As the episode draws to a close we see her use the abilities to visit the home of her patient and when she touches objects, she comes to a horrifying discovery– her patient created a surrogate monster as a coping mechanism for being unable to say her dad was molesting her. Theo saves the girl by getting the police involved and when she gets home, she starts to take her walls down by reinviting the girl over and spilling her heart to her about the death of Nell. In the end, we see Theo visit Nell’s body at the funeral home. She takes off her gloves and touches Nell’s head. Most filmmakers would’ve cut to what she sees but instead, we get a chilling performance from Kate Siegel as her face slowly evolves to an expression of terror. Theo falls to the ground and starts crying in devastation.