S02.E09: The Beast in the Jungle

[pezgirl7]

I really enjoyed this show. I knew nothing about it going in. I saw it on Netflix and thought it looked interesting and gothic, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I realized in the first episode that it was partly based on The Turn of the Screw, which I haven't read, but I had seen The Innocents. So a little bit of the mystery was taken out of it for me. But they added/changed plenty of the story to keep it interesting. It didn't scare me at all, it was just sad. So sad. Like Flora said at the end, it was a love story, not a ghost story.

[Cranberry]

6 hours ago, natyxg said:

Dani's and Henry's episodes gave us nothing of importance. Her dead bf did nothing and meant nothing.

I think he was a symbol of her internalized homophobia. She repressed her sexuality for years thinking that if she just went with the flow, she'd eventually feel the way she was "supposed" to about Eddie. Then when she finally broke down and confessed to him, he was immediately killed, which gave her the idea that she was being punished for giving in to those feelings. Victoria Pedretti said in an interview that "a lot of the time when you see [Dani's anxiety], it is in relation to Eddie. That kind of sends her off. She's starting to feel good. And all of a sudden she's thrust back into memories of why she doesn't deserve to feel that way, and she has this deep fear. He throws her off into a spiral." It's only when she burns the glasses and consciously chooses to pursue a relationship with Jamie -- to accept that it's okay to want to be with a woman -- that he stops appearing.

[Chaos Theory]

Ok finished Hill House this week and wasn’t sure if I should post my thoughts here or there.  But since I am mostly comparing I will post here.   I still like this one better for a bunch of reasons.  I like the “Doomed love story” tone that Bly had.  And although the kids were incredibly unlikable on Bly there were only two of them and therefore I could tell them apart.  I had hella trouble telling which kid was which adult in Hill House and more then once I got them mixed up.   Plus the story ended too weirdly for me.  I honestly thought it was too much of and easy out I much preferred the sacrifice of Dani to the father on Hill House just giving a Haunted House to his son as the next owner.   It felt really off to me.   But hey I will still watch a third story if there is one.

Edited October 17, 2020 by Chaos Theory

[Duke2801]

The ending was sad, but also not. Because although the “grown ups” didn’t get a happy ending to their love stories, at least we know the kids went on to be normal and untraumatized from the events at Bly. And Flora ends up with a man she loves, and vice Versa. 
 

Overall I enjoyed this season quite a bit. I like that they did something different this time around, making it a drama/mystery with elements of a ghost story. As opposed to the horror/ghost stories of Hill House.

After I finished this episode I went back and watched the first 2 episodes of Bly again—everything made a lot more sense! And I picked up on some smaller details I’d missed the first time around (like Jamie not seeing the “crack” in the kitchen that Hannah told her to fix.... and that there were 4 candles lit in the church. 
 

The one small detail that didn’t connect for me was the stark difference in accents between older Jamie and younger Jamie—-I would think they’d have tried to match those up a bit better? 
 

But overall I’d rate this season a solid B+... maybe even an A- !

Edited October 16, 2020 by Duke2801

[Misplaced]

On 10/11/2020 at 10:11 PM, LilaFowler said:

Most of the acting was terrible (Pedretti has only two facial expressions and needs to work on that). 

 

Honestly, I couldn't stop thinking about the Porgs from The Last Jedi.  

(No, you cannot unsee that.) 

Edited October 17, 2020 by Misplaced
Spelling!

[bilgistic]

I guess I'm a sucker because I got chills when Flora said, "That's my middle name," and then the camera panned to everyone in the reception hall and it was the folks who had been at the manor. I cried. It was the payoff I needed. I know it was convoluted.

I didn't realize the narrator was Jamie. I boo-hooed some more when she was in her hotel room looking in the water for Dani's reflection and left the door open...and then Dani's hand was on her shoulder.😭😭😭

This season definitely wasn't as good as Hill House and really needed to be tightened up, but it was overall a good show. I'm so, so sad for Hannah. What an amazing actress and character.

[Sakura12]

I enjoyed this. I do agree that Hill House was a better horror story, but the title is Haunting and the house and the characters were all haunted in some form.

Hill House was more character driven while this one was more story driven. The lady of the lake story should've been a little earlier. Or we should've seen more of her and not just her footprints. 

I did like the love story between Dani and Jamie and that Dani did visit all the way across the pond. 

I thought Flora would be the one telling the story but she was far too old, well Jamie was too but I guess she lived some hard years after Dani died. And they made the kids forget. Which I suppose people can forget a traumatic time and think it wasn't real. But then I would think Jamie telling them the story would've caused them to remember. I know they were going for a happyish ending like Hill House but I would've liked to see Flora wake up and place a doll by her bathtub or something. I'm also surprised no one mentioned the ring the storyteller was wearing. 

[Paloma]

Minority opinion here, but I was disappointed in this story, especially in comparison to Hill House. The problem wasn't the horror elements--there were plenty of jump scares for me in Bly Manor. But I was annoyed with the pacing, the repetition (especially in Viola's story), the insufficient character development in most cases (or the attempt to develop character by monologue, like Jamie), and especially the "explanation" in the final episode. I understand that they couldn't use the same adult actors aged up in the opening present-day wedding scene because it would spoil the mystery of who was narrating and who survived, but they could have omitted the opening present-day scene and instead just have the voice-over by the narrator, then end the last episode with the wedding scene with the adult actors from the story aged up. Even if Jamie was the narrator from the beginning (with the same actor's voice), it wouldn't necessarily have spoiled the ending. 

The other problem my husband and I had with the final scene is that if it took place in present day or close to it, that would make it at least 30 years later than the events at the manor when Dani was there--1987--and would mean that Flora would have to be around 40 years old at the wedding. Obviously this does not match up with the age of the actress playing the bride. At first my husband thought that none of the people at the wedding were the actual characters from the story--that present-day Jamie was just imagining their faces superimposed on others. But everything I have read about the ending says that his interpretation is wrong and that the people at the wedding were the actual characters: Flora, Miles, Owen, and Henry.

Also, if Jamie was invited to the wedding, why wouldn't Flora and Miles know her as someone who worked at Bly Manor? I know they were supposed to have forgotten the details of what happened at Bly Manor, but Owen said they did recognize Hannah in the portrait as someone who was there with them. And even if Jamie and Owen were invited by Henry rather than by Flora and her groom, it would be unusual for a couple planning a wedding to not know at least the names of who their parents invited, and usually the bride would ask who the people were if she didn't know them personally. 

Overall the framing of this story as one told by Jamie at the wedding of Flora without Flora or Miles having any recognition that this story was about them and their family does not make sense. I'm pretty sure the narrator used names, but even if she didn't the grown-up kids should have recognized the broad outlines of their story (not least the loss of their parents and their uncle being guardian). 

[kieyra]

3 hours ago, Paloma said:

The other problem my husband and I had with the final scene is that if it took place in present day or close to it, that would make it at least 30 years later than the events at the manor when Dani was there--1987

FWIW, I believe they date the wedding as 2007 in episode one. 

(I agree with the rest of your objections.)

[Paloma]

1 hour ago, kieyra said:

4 hours ago, Paloma said:

The other problem my husband and I had with the final scene is that if it took place in present day or close to it, that would make it at least 30 years later than the events at the manor when Dani was there--1987

FWIW, I believe they date the wedding as 2007 in episode one. 

Thanks, I missed that. At least now Flora's age at the wedding makes sense.

[Cranberry]

Main story happens in 1987; wedding is in 2007. Vermont started allowing gay civil unions in 2000, so Dani and Jamie got a good 13 years together before the Lady in the Lake took Dani. I saw it pointed out elsewhere that at the time of Jamie's retelling, Dani's been gone for about seven years, or ~half the length of the relationship. Clearly she's not over it as Hannah's friend's math said she should be!

[BellyLaughter]

Why did Jamie get so posh in her older years??! 

[Paloma]

19 hours ago, Cranberry said:

Main story happens in 1987; wedding is in 2007. Vermont started allowing gay civil unions in 2000, so Dani and Jamie got a good 13 years together before the Lady in the Lake took Dani. I saw it pointed out elsewhere that at the time of Jamie's retelling, Dani's been gone for about seven years, or ~half the length of the relationship. Clearly she's not over it as Hannah's friend's math said she should be!

Now I'm more confused. If the wedding was in 2007 and Dani had been gone for 7 years, that means Dani died in about 2000. So how could Dani and Jamie have had a civil union in Vermont and still have been together for years after that? I'm definitely not a math person, so maybe I am just miscalculating. 

[CrazyDog]

I finally finished this series last week, and I thought it was fantastic. I agree with others that I was expecting more of a traditional ghost / horror story, and it really wasn't, so it was a little disappointing as Halloween viewing, but only in that one aspect. 

That ending...so unbelievably sad, yet beautiful. The tie in with loss of memory, identity, dementia. I love that Dani and Jamie had years of happiness but Dani starting to fade away...tragic.

I did love the quote about how Dani would never drag Jamie down with her, and the somewhat happy ending of the ghosts being freed from Bly, like Hannah, and Rebecca and even Peter. Thank goodness Miles was saved too. I would have liked seeing Hannah have a bit more closure than just appearing one last time to send Jamie and Owen to the lake. I was waiting to see her again!

I like to think that Dani was not stuck at Bly and that she'll be reunited with Jamie when she passes.

The main thing I didn't care for was the framing of the wedding / storyteller- when she finally finished her story, it was so awkward, lol. And I didn't understand why Flora and Miles wouldn't have recognized Jamie, even if they didn't recall the specific happenings of Bly. 

But I loved seeing Henry dancing with Flora at the wedding, and the images of them as they were years before.

On 10/15/2020 at 3:28 PM, Neurochick said:

To me the real tragedy was that Hannah and Owen never got to Paris.

Seriously. Loved Owen and his restaurant though. 

[natyxg]

19 hours ago, Paloma said:

Now I'm more confused. If the wedding was in 2007 and Dani had been gone for 7 years, that means Dani died in about 2000. So how could Dani and Jamie have had a civil union in Vermont and still have been together for years after that? I'm definitely not a math person, so maybe I am just miscalculating. 

Jamie got home talking about their domestic partnership and found Dani staring into the bath all weird. I thought she died not long after that.

[natyxg]

On 10/15/2020 at 8:02 PM, Cranberry said:

I think he was a symbol of her internalized homophobia. She repressed her sexuality for years thinking that if she just went with the flow, she'd eventually feel the way she was "supposed" to about Eddie. Then when she finally broke down and confessed to him, he was immediately killed, which gave her the idea that she was being punished for giving in to those feelings. Victoria Pedretti said in an interview that "a lot of the time when you see [Dani's anxiety], it is in relation to Eddie. That kind of sends her off. She's starting to feel good. And all of a sudden she's thrust back into memories of why she doesn't deserve to feel that way, and she has this deep fear. He throws her off into a spiral." It's only when she burns the glasses and consciously chooses to pursue a relationship with Jamie -- to accept that it's okay to want to be with a woman -- that he stops appearing.

Yes, but this is a ghost story and if you see a ghost you expect them to play an actual part in the plot. Not to mention that thematically I'm not sure how any of that fits into this particular story. I understand intellectually what they were saying in Dani's and Henry's episodes, but I feel like if they were cut nothing would be missing, and that's not good.

[Anela]

So the bride was Flora? She forgot everything? I can see her having an American accent, if they moved to the US: I was a baby when my parents brought me here, then mum took us back to England when I was three. I had an American accent, and kept it for a little while, but I now have a strong English (London area) accent, and can't do an American accent to save my life. 

The episodes did go on too long, some of them anyway. Like they were just trying to fill time, and settled on nine episodes, when it could have been less. I like that Carla Gugino was the gardener, but I'm confused as well. How did Viola inhabit her, and leave the property? How did Peter plan to do that with the little boy? They couldn't leave when he was inside Rebecca. 

[natyxg]

56 minutes ago, Anela said:

So the bride was Flora? She forgot everything? I can see her having an American accent, if they moved to the US: I was a baby when my parents brought me here, then mum took us back to England when I was three. I had an American accent, and kept it for a little while, but I now have a strong English (London area) accent, and can't do an American accent to save my life. 

The episodes did go on too long, some of them anyway. Like they were just trying to fill time, and settled on nine episodes, when it could have been less. I like that Carla Gugino was the gardener, but I'm confused as well. How did Viola inhabit her, and leave the property? How did Peter plan to do that with the little boy? They couldn't leave when he was inside Rebecca. 

I think the difference was supposed to be in the "it's you, it's me, it's us". If you invited the ghost in full time you could leave. At least that's what Peter thought. Either way, Viola was the "gravity" that pulled all the ghosts to Bly, so either way I imagine that "rule" didn't apply to her. No one was pulling her to Bly the way she was pulling the others.

[Anela]

1 minute ago, natyxg said:

I think the difference was supposed to be in the "it's you, it's me, it's us". If you invited the ghost in full time you could leave. At least that's what Peter thought. Either way, Viola was the "gravity" that pulled all the ghosts to Bly, so either way I imagine that "rule" didn't apply to her. No one was pulling her to Bly the way she was pulling the others.

Thank you. 🙂

[raven]

On 10/15/2020 at 6:28 PM, Neurochick said:

To me the real tragedy was that Hannah and Owen never got to Paris.

Oh, these two broke my heart.  Totally agree.

After what I thought was a terrible episode 8, I thought Bly Manor wasn't going to stick the landing but it was mostly successful.  I was engaged for most of the series, including this episode, where I worried constantly that Dani-as-Viola would kill Jamie.   I was hoping, though not expecting, that their love would keep Viola at bay forever or possibly send her away.  I'm glad they got they years they did and I admit to tearing up a few times.  Their montage of happy years was beautifully done.   I remember thinking in one of the earlier episodes "Jamie's good people" and the actress was really very good.   Though I understood Dani's backstory and why she did what she did, I thought her characterization was less successful, though I totally bought into her relationship with Jamie.  Still, she was supposed to be a focal figure and she seemed barely there for a lot of the series, though maybe that was part of the point?  Her fading away was sad and well done.

The ep centering on Hannah was the best and so, so sad.   Oh, HANNAH.  You deserved so much better.  I hope Owen found some happiness and not just with his restaurant (The Batter Way?  was that the name?)

I thought the kids were pretty good, actually.  The kid playing Miles had more to do and he was able to switch from Peter to Miles and back pretty well.

Speaking of which - hey, Peter, you murderous asshole!  I don't care about you!  Why did the show feel they had to give him a terrible, abusive childhood?  It didn't make me feel badly for adult Peter.   It was a failing of the show that we didn't get more on Rebecca.  Yes, beautiful, kind, intelligent women fall for men who are complete shits, it happens.  Still it seemed the show was trying to go for her having a wild side (Dani's remark that they looked like Bonnie & Clyde; Rebecca happy to have sex in the closed wing of her employer's home, wearing a dead woman's fur coat, etc) but it wasn't conveyed well at all IMO. 

I can buy the kids forgetting but I thought Henry remembered what happened.   I didn't dislike him exactly but, as amusing as smirky Henry was (that wide smile LOL) I just wanted to smack him and tell him to stop it with the guilt and self pity already.  The kids wanted/needed to know about their parents and he's the only link.    Glad he got off his ass and rejoined the family.

The wedding and Flora reveal felt rushed.  I think that could have been done so that so much wasn't squeezed in at the end.

So though I have complaints, I liked it overall.  The acting was generally good and the house/grounds were beautiful yet spooky and depressing.

 

 

[xander874]

Did we ever see plague doctor ghost before episode 8? He would have been great to pop up for a scare here and there. And I wish we had seen other ghosts. Like the soldier we glimpsed once. Henry even mentioned having an imaginary soldier friend so I assume that’s who it was. But no payoff. 

[Dani-Ellie]

The plague doctor pops up a lot as a hidden ghost. Much like in Hill House, this series is filled with ghosts hiding in plain sight in the background of scenes, only this time the ghosts aren’t random extras, they’re the ghosts mentioned throughout the show. The easiest sighting of the plague doctor is in the first episode, watching Dani as she makes her (terrible) tea in the middle of the night the first night she’s at the house. The camera actually lingers on him a bit when she leaves the kitchen.

You can Google “Bly Manor hidden ghosts” to find articles/videos pointing out the hidden ghosts throughout the series.

[Jax7917]

But did the lady in the lake haunting start when Rebecca got there ? And what about all the years before . Did their parents deal with this ?

Also , they never further explained the cause of the parents death . Didn’t Henry’s alter ego hint that he had a hand in their death ? 
 

Can someone explain the memory aspect of the show in general ? And why didn’t Flora and Miles remember anything ? Was it because they were young when it happened or did it have to do with living in Bly manor and the memory loop aspect ? 
Also , I do think Owen mentioned that flora and miles remembered living at Bly Manor .. so was Bly manor not really the name of it and was just made up for the story ? Because when the woman at the wedding asked if she flew to England , would she be able to go to Bly Manor and Jamie said it didn’t exist . 
 

I apologize for the 47477 questions lol 

[Jax7917]

Did Flora not question who the woman telling the 10 hour long story at her wedding was ? Surely she was invited for a reason . And I don’t know why flora and miles wouldn’t remember anything at all . They weren’t 4 years old when all of this happened . I believe Miles was 10? And Flora was close to that , and the experience they had was long lasting and pretty significant to forget . And I can see losing the accent , but would you lose it completely if you came to America at 10 years old ? 
 

As for Jamie , I didn’t think the storyteller looked anything like younger Jamie . I thought she looked more like Dani , which is why I guess I kept thinking Dani was the person telling the story . 

Edited October 24, 2020 by Jaclyn88

[TexasGal]

17 hours ago, Jaclyn88 said:

 

Also , they never further explained the cause of the parents death . Didn’t Henry’s alter ego hint that he had a hand in their death ? 

 

I think the parents died in an accident in India.  Henry feels responsible because they went there after his brother discovered the affair.  Much the way Dani felt responsible for her fiancee’s death because he stepped in front of the truck after she broke off their engagement.

[CailynA]

Unpopular opinion I guess, I really enjoyed Bly, maybe more than Hill but at least just as much. My hubby definitely prefers Bly. Son seems to be between us liking each for their own reasons. 

Hill was a bit too much family drama for me though I like the ghosts but also wish we'd learned more about them. I like that we learned more about the ghosts of Bly but it went so fast after Vi started killing them and her story dragged.

Bottom line I will watch both series again.

 

[foxfreakinmulder]

I loved Hill House and recommended it to everyone and was so looking forward to another season. But I was disappointed in Bly Manor, it was entertaining enough and I really liked some of the characters but I wanted scary not a love story.

I was happy to see some of the same actors and thought Henry Thomas was great and loved his huge grin which was creepy as hell. I thought the kids did a good enough job especially the boy.

I do hope they continue on with "The Haunting Of..." and continue to use the same actors similar to AHS. 

[kieyra]

33 minutes ago, not you again said:

I thought it was like watching paint dry, and the actress playing Dani, her overbite was so bad as to be distracting. 

I have to admit, I kept noticing it as well and being distracted. Not to be shallow, I just don't remember ever noticing it during the actress's role in HHH. That may even be why I was distracted by it. I've rewatched HHH many, many times.

I remember wondering at one point if they had put her in some kind of prosthetic so she'd look different for the new series. But now I wonder if it's just a matter of the way she was styled/made up and what angles they shot her from between the different series.

[markx]

I loved the episode - just when it seemed the season was wrapped up, we got a nice little ghost story covering the years that followed.

I think the season as a whole was good, though wavered in the middle - the "tucked away" seemed confusing, I didn't care for the story with Peter and Rebecca, and I'd rather have seen more of Dani experiencing the horror and torment (e.g. more creepy games from the children). Meanwhile Hill House seemed to me to be consistently good until the last episode, where explaining everything just seemed tedious and removed the horror.

[natyxg]

On 10/28/2020 at 5:22 PM, markx said:

I loved the episode - just when it seemed the season was wrapped up, we got a nice little ghost story covering the years that followed.

I think the season as a whole was good, though wavered in the middle - the "tucked away" seemed confusing, I didn't care for the story with Peter and Rebecca, and I'd rather have seen more of Dani experiencing the horror and torment (e.g. more creepy games from the children). Meanwhile Hill House seemed to me to be consistently good until the last episode, where explaining everything just seemed tedious and removed the horror.

For me this is one of the problems of this season. I felt like 80% of the season was spent explaining shit from the past, while Dani, who was sold to me as the protagonist originally, spent almost the whole time oblivious, and literally spent one complete episode tied up crying and another one bring dragged/choked by Viola.

[Aliferously]

Um, that was easily resolved. Just poof, all those ghosts gone.

Things I wished were clarified:

Who was the little boy? Why was he at the house? Was he someones child somewhere down the line? I felt that needed some clarification.

I love that Henry went from absent uncle to forever guardian in under what, ten minutes.

Adult Flora didn't look like she was born in 1980. Not sure what year the aftermath was set in, but I'm guessing fairly deep into the 21st century. 

Dani flying back to Bly to drown herself in the lake didn't make much sense initially but then it did. I guess Viola had seen enough and done enough and felt like she needed to rest on the grounds on which she was born. I like the Alzheimer theory upthread too.

Poor Jamie. To be the last one standing in a ghost story. She is and will always be my favourite character in this series.

I did like the song at the end, but it's a rough time and it's the small things that get to me.

I did watch part of Hill House and all of this but am only now noticing that Victoria Pedretti has one brown and one green eye. 

 

[Cranberry]

1 hour ago, Aliferously said:

Adult Flora didn't look like she was born in 1980. Not sure what year the aftermath was set in, but I'm guessing fairly deep into the 21st century. 

The wedding took place in 2007.

I did watch part of Hill House and all of this but am only now noticing that Victoria Pedretti has one brown and one green eye.

She actually doesn't; Dani had one brown eye and one blue eye only after taking Viola in.

[Hava]

I liked this season purely because it had somewhat of a happy ending in that the kids and Owen were able to escape Bly without any lingering effects. I was so worried that the show would end with the house still haunting them in some way, so that was a relief. 

I was not impressed with Victoria Pendretti's acting, although she has been getting rave reviews for this. Something about her affect took me out of her scenes. 

I am still confused about the "rules" regarding the ghosts. Like, were all the ghosts able to be so present as Hannah was? Hannah was a ghost, but she still interacted with the people and the world around her as almost completely normal. 

Why did Dani carry Viola with her when they left Bly but Miles didn't carry Peter?

Why did Rebecca have to ask Flora for permission to possess her in the lake when previous times it seemed like she didn't?

Why was Dani scared of hurting Jamie as Viola when, in the end, it turns out that Dani would not hurt anyone like Viola did?

[Aliferously]

Note to self: read entire thread before posting nonsense five minutes after watching the last episode. I was impressed with this series and I'm sorry there won't be any more. 

I think Hannah was a recent ghost? Everyone else had died so long ago that they went largely unseen and/or unheard. The house kept haunting Dani long after she left it, though. I don't think she really knew Viola's entire backstory, just felt her overwhelming grief and sorrow and that's what got to her in the end.

They sure did dispatch of those ghosts quickly, even Peter and Rebecca. I wasn't sorry to see either of them go though.

It was strange that the children would suffer no after effects from living there. Miles is ten, surely it wasn't something he just clicked on and off once he left or wasn't in therapy for for years afterwards. And that Dani and Jamie would not stay in touch with them. 

The scene at the wedding reminded me of Cold Case episode endings. 

You know what I'm going to miss most (and which I rewound a few times before starting the last episode) are the opening credits. I find them strangely mesmerising. 

 

 

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Aliferously
added finale thoughts

[Ilovepie]

On 10/20/2020 at 2:06 PM, natyxg said:

I think the difference was supposed to be in the "it's you, it's me, it's us". If you invited the ghost in full time you could leave. At least that's what Peter thought. Either way, Viola was the "gravity" that pulled all the ghosts to Bly, so either way I imagine that "rule" didn't apply to her. No one was pulling her to Bly the way she was pulling the others.

Can someone explain how they all know this “it’s you, it’s me, it’s us” rule? It seems awful convenient.

The weeding scene with “older Jamie” just wasn’t necessary for me. The people look nothing like their younger selves, and older Jamie didn’t even sound the same. It made absolutely zero sense for Jamie and Owen to be there - I mean really - two servants from a house in another country that you lived in 20 years ago that you apparently don’t remember showing up to your rehearsal dinner? Huh? 

I feel like this might have worked better if the actresses that played Rebecca and Dani had been switched. The actress who plays Dani has such a wide eyed innocence about her it would make more sense she would be taken in by Peter.

I generally like gothic atmospheric stuff like this, so for that, I liked having it during this Halloween season. I’m not really into horror, so ghost-lite is okay for me too. I just think this season wasn’t as strong as Hill House. There wasn’t enough story so it kind of dragged. But if there is a third, I will definitely be watching.

[natyxg]

1 hour ago, Ilovepie said:

Can someone explain how they all know this “it’s you, it’s me, it’s us” rule? It seems awful convenient.

I feel like when Viola had just given birth to her daughter and she was telling the baby about their future life together, she did say that. "It's me, it's you, it's us", and that was the "birth" of the whole thing. I could be remembering wrong, but I think that was it.

Dani and Jamie knew about it because Dani saw how Peter possessed Miles, and how Miles had to say that to invite Peter in. The real question is how Peter figured it out. I have no idea. When he first possessed Rebecca he did say that he felt like she was pushing him out and implied that maybe she had to invite him in in order for him to be able to stat, but how he knew about the you-me-us thing and that whole thing would work with the kids and they would be able to leave the house and all that, I have no idea. I actually don't know if Viola would still have pulled their ghosts back even if they had been invited in by the kids. Peter knows it all just cause the plot needs him to, imo.

1 hour ago, Ilovepie said:

The weeding scene with “older Jamie” just wasn’t necessary for me. The people look nothing like their younger selves, and older Jamie didn’t even sound the same. It made absolutely zero sense for Jamie and Owen to be there - I mean really - two servants from a house in another country that you lived in 20 years ago that you apparently don’t remember showing up to your rehearsal dinner? Huh? 

I haven't read the original so I don't know if there was a wedding in The Turn of the Screw, too, but I do know that there's a narrator and all that. So part of it was them following the original. And I think there were different actors for Older Jamie and Younger Jamie and all that just to "trick" the audience, so people wouldn't know from the get go who was who, but i know who everyone was right away lol. This time, trying to be diverse didn't help them, I think. If everyone had been British and white it would've been harder to pick up on the fact that they are at the wedding and who was who, but I knew from the get go that the narrator was Jamie because Hannah was black and Dani was American (so the accent didn't fit). And the guy giving the toast at the wedding looked a bit Indian, like Owen.... that meant that the bride was Flora because she seemed the right age. No mystery here for me at all.

I agree on the rest, though. I didn't understand at all why Jamie was there, even less so after they said that Flora forgot everything. I wonder if they cut some scene that made things make more sense in this regard.

[natyxg]

6 hours ago, Aliferously said:

The house kept haunting Dani long after she left it, though. I don't think she really knew Viola's entire backstory, just felt her overwhelming grief and sorrow and that's what got to her in the end.

Now that you mention this, how the fuck did Jamie know Viola's story, so she could narrate it? Maybe they could've said that Dani got her memories when Viola possessed her.. but Viola had lost her memories by then.

I think they dropped the ball a bit in the last couple of episodes, in terms of making things make sense.

[Ilovepie]

1 hour ago, natyxg said:

Dani and Jamie knew about it because Dani saw how Peter possessed Miles, and how Miles had to say that to invite Peter in. The real question is how Peter figured it out.

Did Jamie see that though? I’m fuzzy about when she and Owen showed up.

And that’s my real problem - no way would Peter know that. I guess we’re supposed to to just accept it, but it seems like a plot hole to me.

I don’t have a problem with having a narrator, I just thought the way it was handled was clunky and unbelievable......

[kieyra]

I rewatched this for Halloween and to try to give it another shot, but it just doesn’t hang together for me. There’s something wrong with the way it’s edited together and paced (as many people have said, the Viola story should have been at least teased throughout), and there are so many plot holes. I still feel like the Viola flashback scenes looked cheesy and cheap and in B&W. Jamie telling the kids their own story still made no sense.

I came away with more appreciation for the child actors, and for Hannah and Owen, but with an even worse impression of Peter Quint and his unintelligible evil pirate mumbling. They had to have Hannah exposit multiple times about how terrible it was that Rebecca would fall for him, even though we weren’t shown any particular reason she did in the first place. He was always a smarmy butthole.

I know a lot of people liked it for the Jamie/Dani love story, but it felt like a lot of the development of that relationship happened offstage or something. (I know Jamie at one point gives Dani an insanely long monologue about her life, but my attention has wandered every time I’ve tried to get through it.)

[ClareWalks]

On 10/24/2020 at 7:53 AM, Jaclyn88 said:

And I can see losing the accent , but would you lose it completely if you came to America at 10 years old ? 

I studied linguistics and accents get "locked in" pretty much at around age 12-13. Generally you can tell if someone moved somewhere else at around that age, or earlier or later, based on the depth of their accent. Ten years old could definitely totally lose an original childhood accent. If they'd moved a few years later there would probably be a trace of it lingering, unless they'd taken lots of speech therapy to get rid of it. After 18 your accent can become a little less pronounced but that's about it. So to answer your question, they moved right in the nick of time! 🙂

[Mabinogia]

20 minutes ago, kieyra said:

(I know Jamie at one point gives Dani an insanely long monologue about her life, but my attention has wandered every time I’ve tried to get through it.)

People keep mentioning this monologue/backstory of Jamie's and despite having watched the entire season, paying attention (not playing on phone or internet while watching) I, for the life of me, cannot think of a single thing about her other than she is the gardener, and for some unknown reason she's in love with Dani. And the funny thing is, I like Jamie. She's just after Hannah and Owen for me, and yet I cannot remember her monologue at all, other than I guess it took place when she took Dani to see that moon flower. 

[kieyra]

16 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

People keep mentioning this monologue/backstory of Jamie's and despite having watched the entire season, paying attention (not playing on phone or internet while watching) I, for the life of me, cannot think of a single thing about her other than she is the gardener, and for some unknown reason she's in love with Dani. And the funny thing is, I like Jamie. She's just after Hannah and Owen for me, and yet I cannot remember her monologue at all, other than I guess it took place when she took Dani to see that moon flower. 

I think there was something in there about someone working in a mine.

That’s literally all I’ve got.

Some (most?) of the monologues in HHH worked really well and kept my attention, with the exception of the caretaker dude. My absolute favorite is when 

Spoiler

Imaginary Leigh absolutely rips Steve to shreds. The actress fucking nails it. 

Not sure if it’s the same writer here, but yeah, zzzz. I think the actress also uses a bit of a lulling monotone.

[Mabinogia]

2 minutes ago, kieyra said:

I think there was something in there about someone working in a mine.

That does sound vaguely familiar now you mention it. I think part of the issue here is that the backstories, with the exception of Viola kind of, had nothing to do with the story. With Hill House the backstories were the story, it all wove together well. These backstories felt more like filler. Clearly the writers didn't have enough story to fill the entire 9 eps and had to pad them out a bit, or at least that's how it ended up feeling. There was very little story here and a lot of ado about nothing. 

I think they should have cut the character backstories and given us more backstory on the house. Who all lived there between Viola and Wingraves? When did people start disappearing? Did the town talk about the creepy house where people kept vanishing? I'm way more interested in the haunting of Bly Manor than in the haunting of the stupid governesses of the Wingrave kids. 

[Meedis]

On 10/10/2020 at 4:15 PM, jmonique said:

Goodness, this was sooooooooo slow. The Craines had a lot of kids, but at least they helped move things along.

Also, the actress who plays Adult Flora not even bothering to try to adopt a British accent, unlike all the others and their wide array of accents, made me laugh.

Are you referring to the bride?   I heard her say that her middle name was Flora and she thought gardener was relating the haunted tale to her.   I didn't think she was the main Flora.

[CCTC]

12 hours ago, Meedis said:

I heard her say that her middle name was Flora and she thought gardener was relating the haunted tale to her.   I didn't think she was the main Flora.

They had a scene at the end where they showed everyone at the wedding party and than an image of what they looked like in 1987, including Flora the bride, Miles, Owen, and the father.  The reveal did make more sense on why it moved Flora to tears, because it probably triggered something in her subconscious even if she does not remember the events at a conscious level.

I did also think it was odd that older Jaimie sounded like she was now some blue blood English lady, when her final scenes with Dani were not really that many years before that.  It seemed like it was a bit of cheating by the show producers to keep people from knowing who she was by having her talk and dress in a completely different manner.

I did like Hill House better, partially because I watched it first and it was more of a novel set-up, but also did have some more creepy imagery and did a better job of doing a slow burn and growing dread the first part of the series.  However, I think Hill House fell apart a bit more the last two episodes and did not live up to its full potential and probably had too neat of an ending.  The last two episodes of Bly could probably have been shortened into one 90 minute episode (I think they could have cut down the origin story and the post-lake events), but I do think it might had a more poignant ending with Dani's sacrifice than with

Spoiler

 the father simply staying at Hill House the end, which seemed a bit quick and not something that seemed it would have satisfied the house.

Regarding the origin story - might go and respond in that episode, but it either should have been shorter and more of a prologue before they returned to present day and Dani being dragged to the lake, or they needed to do a better job of fleshing out the characters and making them seem real rather than the barely two dimensionally way they were presented.

I did like it, but it could have probably been two episodes shorter.  I felt the same way about Hill House as well.  It did not quite have what it needed for nine episodes.  I think I might have merged two of the sisters and had one less sibling.

[zibnchy]

On 10/28/2020 at 1:17 PM, kieyra said:

I remember wondering at one point if they had put her in some kind of prosthetic so she'd look different for the new series. But now I wonder if it's just a matter of the way she was styled/made up and what angles they shot her from between the different series.

I feel like Victoria Pedretti must have done something to piss off her stylist (or whatever they're called. costumer?) for this show because those 80's fashions (clothing and hair) were not kind to her. Sure, 80s fashions hurt all of us but a TV stylist ought to know how to work with the actor's body type etc and make sure they don't look, um, dumpy. We don't want to see frumpy dumpy characters. If we wanted that we could just go look at pictures of ourselves from the 80s.

That said, I hated Pedretti in You, I never saw Hill House, and expected to hate her in Bly. And I didn't. Pleasantly surprised. Is she a great actress? Possibly not but improving maybe? Maybe the 3rd season of You has potential to be better. Hope springs eternal.

[CailynA]

On 11/1/2020 at 10:28 AM, Ilovepie said:

The weeding scene with “older Jamie” just wasn’t necessary for me. The people look nothing like their younger selves, and older Jamie didn’t even sound the same. It made absolutely zero sense for Jamie and Owen to be there - I mean really - two servants from a house in another country that you lived in 20 years ago that you apparently don’t remember showing up to your rehearsal dinner? Huh? 

The rehearsal dinner is odd for Older Jamie though not as much Owen since it seems he did stay in touch with them. Henry brought the kids to see him at his restaurant so he must have stayed in touch with them some, Jamie being at the wedding itself didn't bother me at all. My parents invited people I'd only met once in my life before. I also don't know that I'd call Jamie a servant, I mean she was an employee as she was the gardener but that's not a position I'd call servant, though I could see that argument for Owen as the cook. Maybe that's just a personal thing though. Also some people invite all out of town guests to the rehearsal dinner.

 

Question I'm still trying to figure out, did Dani and Jamie settle in the States or the UK? It just seemed odd that Dani would fly back to Bly and Jamie would be able to get a flight right after her, with neither of them changing clothes. It makes more sense if they settled in the UK and they just had to drive/take a cab there.

[CCTC]

21 hours ago, zibnchy said:

I feel like Victoria Pedretti must have done something to piss off her stylist (or whatever they're called. costumer?) for this show because those 80's fashions (clothing and hair) were not kind to her.

They probably could have done a better job with that, but I did think they did a good job of capturing the 80's styles without doing the broad brushes that you normally see when you see the 80's styles shown.  There was not an excess of acid washed jeans, big perms etc., but the cut of the clothes and things  like the style of hair clips, the short boots, seemed authentic to 1987.

[ShadowHunter]

On 11/2/2020 at 7:26 PM, zibnchy said:

 

That said, I hated Pedretti in You, I never saw Hill House, and expected to hate her in Bly. And I didn't. Pleasantly surprised. Is she a great actress? Possibly not but improving maybe? Maybe the 3rd season of You has potential to be better. Hope springs eternal.

I didn't like Pedretti in S2 of You either and I feel like that carried over. I liked her on Hill House but hear not so much.  The child actor who played Miles was great especially when he was possessed by Peter.  I do think this season needed an extra episode though. 10 would have been fine Quint would just show up saying I learned this and this lol. I would have liked to have seen some of that. Yea it would have been good to show more of his relationship with Becca before he got jealous. Still he was smart in telling her how smart she was. He didn't think it was funny she was cleaning up vomit and she deserved better. I said this in another post but I think Oliver Jackson-Cohen would have been a better choice to play Maxim in Rebecca. If we get another season I hope he returns. Hannah was a great and heartbreaking character. She was so elegant in the way she spoke. The ghosts being stuck in memories was fascinating. Walking into other people's memories. 

 

 

On 11/1/2020 at 7:00 PM, kieyra said:

 

I know a lot of people liked it for the Jamie/Dani love story, but it felt like a lot of the development of that relationship happened offstage or something. (I know Jamie at one point gives Dani an insanely long monologue about her life, but my attention has wandered every time I’ve tried to get through it.)

I didn't like them so I guess we are the few. I tried but I couldn't care. Owen and Hannah were more heartbreaking to me. That was a relationship I cared about.

The scene where Peter possessed Rebecca and led her into the lake to die so he wouldn't be alone was sad, creepy, Gothic, and disturbing. When she was crying over seeing her dead body that was rough. I liked the actress and hope we see her in S3 if we get another haunting. I would be surprised if we don't.

I didn't mind this was more of a Gothic love story cause we never really see that much anymore. It reminded me of Dark Shadows. Hill House had more scares but still a lot of family drama as well.  I loved the music and especially the creepy music box version of O Willow Waly. The scenery was beautiful and very haunted house. It did have some flaws though I was not surprised Hannah was dead and I knew Becca would not possess Flora. It was obvious Henry was one of the kids biological Father. Some things you can see coming a mile away. Still it was a good watch. 

[Mabinogia]

17 hours ago, ShadowHunter said:

Hannah was a great and heartbreaking character. She was so elegant in the way she spoke.

I seriously want her to read me every book ever. Her voice is so soothing

 

17 hours ago, ShadowHunter said:

I liked the actress and hope we see her in S3 if we get another haunting. I would be surprised if we don't.

I did like the actress playing Rebecca, even if the character was basically just a bit of whatever. 

I kind of wish the show had focused more on the twisted, gothic, co-dependent and completely messed up relationship between Quint and Jessel (more so the way it was in the book, in that they were both very complicit rather than the show where Rebecca was more a victim than anything) than the rather bland Dani/Jamie thing. I get what they were trying with Dani "losing herself" over years, but the fact that they had so many years together kind of dulled the whole "tragic love story" of it. 

If nothing else I will appreciate this season for introducting me to T'Nia Miller whom I had never heard of before but will look out for in the future.