The Haunting of Bly Manor (Spoiler-Filled) Review

Spoiler Warning: This review presumes that you have finished the entire season of The Haunting of Bly Manor (and, while it won’t get into the plot specifics, you should have seen The Haunting of Hill House as well). I will discuss specific plot points up to and including the finale. So, if you haven’t finished the season, go back and watch it. Trust me, it’s worth it for the stunning final episode.

I finished The Haunting of Bly Manor only moments ago, and, wow, what an ending. But before we get to the beautiful way the series ended, let’s discuss the uneven journey it took to get there. While Hill House was a series that shined bright before it sputtered and failed to stick the landing, Bly Manor suffered from several episode of “Netflix Bloat,” serving up reveals episodes after the audience figured them out (well, I guessing the rest of the audience, like me, figured a number of the key plot points out early, as the series laid out the entire completed puzzle within episode five), and spending time on diversions that offered little in the way of payoff in the end.

Before we touch on the shaky elements of the story, let’s get into what worked well. This story was not, as we all assumed it would be, a ghost story. Yet, it was definitely a horror story, exploring the emotional pain, despair, guilt, and grief that comes with the loss of those we love. In that vein, as adult Flora astutely declared at the end, it was a gorgeously displayed love story – between Jamie and Dani, but also between Owen and Hannah. In fact, I could have done without a lot of the ghostly horror elements of the tale and would have loved to see the series more focused on the deeply emotional elements of its tragic love stories. When the story lingered on the fear that comes with taking (or, in the case of Owen and Hannah, not taking) the chance to be brave and risk your heart by committing to love another, it was as good as anything I’ve seen on television in the past several years. And the depth of the emotions on display among those two couples? Incredible.

Much of that comes down to the perfect marriage of writing and performance. And Bly Manor had an embarrassment of riches when it came to matching the character to the perfect actor for the part within its core four adult characters. While those who watched Hill House were well aware of the exceptional talent of Victoria Pedretti (Dani, who ended up being the heart of that series and the soul of this one), the additions to the cast of Amelia Eve (Jamie), Rahul Kohli (Owen), and T’Nia Miller (Hannah) created a brilliant foursome to share the immense emotional weight of the season. The tragic nature of each love story only worked because the series provided us with enough time to fall in love with each of the characters ourselves. And while I wish we had been given Jamie and Owen-centric episodes (rather than spending time with Henry or Peter, two barely three-dimensional characters that didn’t work within the over-stuffed ghost side of the narrative), it was still crushing to see both left heartbroken and alone by the end of the series. Although, unlike with Hill House, where the tragic sacrifice of the finale grated and didn’t mesh with the narrative and character arcs of the story, this time around, it felt just right.

The difference between the two – both of which saw central characters sacrificing their lives so that others, ultimately, could survive and thrive – was that Bly Manor didn’t attempt to tie the story up in a neat little bow at the end. There wasn’t a nice tableau telling us that everything was ok now that the titular house had its sacrifice and all the rest of the characters lived happily ever after with little rhyme or reason for it. Rather, it opted for what I’m calling the Titanic treatment: Showing us that life goes on, and no one ever truly leaves you (a key theme that ran throughout the season, albeit one that got a bit muddled at points), but that they are always waiting for us, just beyond the veil. Owen, by the looks of things, never found love again after losing Hannah, but he kept that love alive in his restaurant and the knowledge that he’s living out their shared dream. Jamie had a rougher go of it, although, much like Rose at the end of Titanic, it appears she’s destined to see Dani again, as Dani continues to watch over her even though she cannot be seen by her wife – at least not yet. It’s a truly lovely message to end a series on, and, as we all struggle with the new normal of our current world, a bit of hope that our loved ones aren’t really gone doesn’t go amiss.

But for all that I loved about the series (and a spectacular finale can paper over a number of missteps), this wasn’t a wholly satisfying show. When I heard the series was planning on tackling “The Turn of the Screw,” I was excited to see what Mike Flanagan and his team could do with such a classic ghost story. After all, the best elements of Hill House were when the series leaned into the horror. Throw some creepy children and ghosts together? Should be a blast. But it turned out that the elements pulled from Henry James’ novella were the ones that didn’t work in the end. And yes, a lot of that is due to the war between the ghost story and the love story, wherein one was much more successful from a narrative and character perspective. However, if Flanagan and Co. weren’t able to figure out how to craft a compelling ghost story alongside the emotionally satisfying romance, they should have taken steps to pare back the haunting elements and focus on the other definitions of haunting that don’t involve actual ghosts but the metaphorical kind (again, those were the beats within the story that worked, so why not lean into them).

By episode seven, I was over dealing with Peter Quint and his awful gaslighting. I didn’t care to learn about his tragic childhood as a sort of explanation for all the bad things he did – which, in case you forgot, included KILLING MULTIPLE PEOPLE. No amount of crying and begging for forgiveness can change that he was and is the villain of the piece. And while Rebecca’s story was horribly tragic, I also didn’t particularly care all that much to dig deeper. And then there was Henry. Again, Henry Thomas is a strong actor (although that accent – yikes), but there wasn’t enough to the character to make us care about him or his sad lot in life. By the time the show opted to let us into the story of just what had gone on to turn him into a depressed drunk, well, it was already pretty obvious. And that was the problem with a lot of what happened in episodes six through eight – they simply explained characters motivations and events that could (and should) have already been deduced the moment Hannah was shoved into the well in episode five. That was the key moment, and we didn’t need another three episodes tying up ends that weren’t all that loose. And we absolutely didn’t need an entire episode explaining the origin of the lady in the lake. Good god did we not need that.*

*I’ve always been a proponent of the show, don’t tell, method of storytelling, and spending fifty minutes watching an explanation for why the lady in the lake kills people was something I didn’t need. It could have easily been presented to us quickly, allowing us to understand the tragic circumstances of it – and to explain Dani’s sacrifice and how it put a ticking clock on her life. Yet we wasted time with a character that ultimately mattered to the story only in the sense that she exchanged Flora’s life for Dani’s. Which was all we needed to understand in the end. Show, don’t tell. Considering how well the finale stuck to that edict, I was shocked to see how poorly the show tackled episode eight.

But then there was the finale. What a finale. And I found that I didn’t much mind that I sat through three hours that weren’t really needed. I was just so moved to watch Dani and Jamie find happiness – even knowing it would end in tragedy. And to see Owen escape the pull of Bly and accomplish his dreams – even if Hannah was only able to watch over him now in a photo. And knowing, right about episode three, that the Storyteller was really Jamie in the future (and surmising that it was Flora’s wedding and Owen was giving a toast), well, it gave me some hope that even among the ghosts and grief and pain and guilt that plagued so many of the characters throughout the series, things might end on a positive note. And they did. It’s better to have love and lost, because someday you will be together again.

The Haunting of Bly Manor wasn’t a perfect season of television. But it stuck the landing – and it stuck it with a perfect ten.