S01.E07: Haunting

[AnimeMania]

Nora urges Dean to move on, but the past continues to haunt him. A shocking confession doesn't add up. Back at the house, keen eyes continue to watch.

Original Air Date: October 13, 2022  

[bilgistic]

I watched this all in one day today. Thanks, unemployment. I was kind of pissed at the beginning that it was so different from the real life story, but I got past that and just started enjoying it for the fluff that it is. The cast was fantastic and seemed like they were having a blast. Mia Farrow creeped me out, so good job there, I guess.

It was a little too twisty at the end for my taste, but eh.

[Anela]

I can't blame him for not being able to get over it. It would drive me crazy, too, wanting to know how did it. But, I hope he didn't write a watcher letter to the new owners.

The whole neighbourhood is so weird. Do they just get off on scaring people, or do they enjoy time in the house, when it isn't being shown? 

[peachmangosteen]

On 10/13/2022 at 11:52 PM, bilgistic said:

The cast was fantastic and seemed like they were having a blast.

This! Almost everyone was so awesome and perfect and, yes, clearly having fun, which I love and which makes it fun to watch as well.

[Kiddvideo]

Jennifer Coolidge stole the show, I thought, especially her last scene. Lol. That was great.

I’d had enough of the “gotcha! You’re the watcher!!” confrontations by the middle episodes. I realize it was meant to reinforce their slide into paranoia, but it was too much. We get it. You feel you can’t trust anyone.

My absolute favorite part of the series was them using “Hopelessly Devoted to You.” Add in some ominous undertones and it’s quite creepy.

[gesundheit]

Now I'm sad it's over! I want more twists and suspects and madness!

What a fun cast of characters. I'm honestly not as disappointed as I thought I'd be about the lack of resolution, although I still don't quite get the tunnels. I guess they were just going in there to obsess about the house?

If they want to give me their terrible dangerous NYC brownstone, I'll volunteer to be the one to suffer through living there! Maybe they'll give it to me for free since Nora's living the high life off making a few bland vases! WORLD FAMOUS!

I would totally watch another season but I'd be very sad have the show sans Theodora. I was sad to lose Mitch, too. And of course the dog and the ferret, R.I.P.

Edited October 16, 2022 by gesundheit

[bilgistic]

7 hours ago, gesundheit said:

Nora's living the high life off making a few bland vases! WORLD FAMOUS!

This was the most unbelievable part of this bonkers series. She made enough money for them to survive losing $1.4M on the house? With that pottery?

[gesundheit]

5 hours ago, bilgistic said:

This was the most unbelievable part of this bonkers series. She made enough money for them to survive losing $1.4M on the house? With that pottery?

Also, they had apparently kept their huge NYC brownstone this whole time and just went right back??

[peachmangosteen]

5 hours ago, gesundheit said:

Also, they had apparently kept their huge NYC brownstone this whole time and just went right back??

Out of all the nonsensical things, that one really got to me lol.

[kn51]

I enjoyed it just for the looney factor.  Just have to let go of logic. 

[Pike Ludwell]

So, why wasn't the room in the tunnel gone through? Why wasn't the tunnel fully explored? I know the police chief refused to allocate resources, but they could have done it on their own or hired someone. What about the cult that sacrificed a child next door? Was that just the kid's imagination?

Why not surreptitiously put a hidden camera by the mailbox?

And you'd think the couple would have learned to not keep running up to people and accusing them of horrible things. 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Pike Ludwell

[gesundheit]

11 minutes ago, Pike Ludwell said:

So, why wasn't the room in the tunnel gone through? Why wasn't the tunnel fully explored? I know the police chief refused to allocate resources, but they could have done it on their own or hired someone. What about the cult that sacrificed a child next door? Was that just the kid's imagination?

Why not surreptitiously put a hidden camera by the mailbox?

And you'd think the couple would have learned to not keep running up to people and accusing them of horrible things. 

That last bit was one of the most hilarious parts of the series, they just couldn't help themselves!

The props department didn't exactly help with this one (though maybe on purpose? because so much of the "any normal person would..." about this show was definitely intentional, but I'm not sure what was or wasn't), but I think the camera-on-the-mailbox thing wouldn't work because these were actually meant to be coming through the mail, despite the lack of postmark in close-ups. So the camera would've only "caught" the postal delivery person.

The lack of curiosity about the tunnels was also total madness, yes. "Oh, we just boarded it up, no biggie!" Brilliant move. Clearly no possible clues down there!

[TV Glotzer]

On 10/16/2022 at 12:07 AM, gesundheit said:

Maybe they'll give it to me for free since Nora's living the high life off making a few bland vases! WORLD FAMOUS!

Re: her boring Ikea-worthy pottery and stupid art dealer.  You can't get invited to "Miami Basel" and "Geneva Basel."  There are 4 related international art fairs:  1) Art Basel; 2) Art Basel Miami Beach; 3) Art Basel Hong Kong; and 4) Paris+ par Art Basel.

The original fair in Switzerland takes place in, you guessed it, the city of Basel.  Not Geneva, another Swiss city which is only a few hours away.  "Geneva Basel" hilariously makes no sense.

[archer1267]

Quote

I was kind of pissed at the beginning that it was so different from the real life story, but I got past that and just started enjoying it for the fluff that it is.

I wish I could have done the same! I think if they'd called it anything BUT "The Watcher" it would have been better. I knew it wouldn't be a documentary exactly, but I expected the series to be fairly true to the original story. But once Murphy et al conflated the John List case with the house, it was a bridge too far for me. (Plus, a teenager makes a TikTok video complaining about her dad and not only does the whole town know and ostracize him, but he loses his job over it? C'mon.) Way too many plot points that went nowhere, like the tunnel and why "John" was in cahoots with Mia Farrow's character. 

On another note, I read the story in The Cut years ago and was mesmerized. It's hard to believe that even with FBI agent(s) involved - and a relatively small suspect pool - the perp was never caught.

Edited October 17, 2022 by archer1267

[limestation]

On 10/16/2022 at 12:35 PM, gesundheit said:

Also, they had apparently kept their huge NYC brownstone this whole time and just went right back??

That's only one in a long line of things that just didn't make any sense! 

Every time I watch one of these offerings from Netflix - especially from resident hack Ryan Murphy - I curse the time I waste on it. Most of them are like this pathetic mess: poorly written with insane convoluted plot twists. And now Netflix is talking about putting in ads?!!! I know it will be for the cheaper fee but still! When this shit is the best you put out, it would be insult-to-injury to add commercials to the mix.

[Pike Ludwell]

3 hours ago, gesundheit said:

That last bit was one of the most hilarious parts of the series, they just couldn't help themselves!

The props department didn't exactly help with this one (though maybe on purpose? because so much of the "any normal person would..." about this show was definitely intentional, but I'm not sure what was or wasn't), but I think the camera-on-the-mailbox thing wouldn't work because these were actually meant to be coming through the mail, despite the lack of postmark in close-ups. So the camera would've only "caught" the postal delivery person.

The lack of curiosity about the tunnels was also total madness, yes. "Oh, we just boarded it up, no biggie!" Brilliant move. Clearly no possible clues down there!

The letters jumped out to me as not normal mail. (Also, were there even stamps on all the letters? I don't remember. But definitely no postmarks.)  If it were me, I definitely would have hidden a camera out there just in case, and figure out a way to do it so snoopy neighbors don't see it being done.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Pike Ludwell

[Anela]

1 hour ago, limestation said:

That's only one in a long line of things that just didn't make any sense! 

Every time I watch one of these offerings from Netflix - especially from resident hack Ryan Murphy - I curse the time I waste on it. Most of them are like this pathetic mess: poorly written with insane convoluted plot twists. And now Netflix is talking about putting in ads?!!! I know it will be for the cheaper fee but still! When this shit is the best you put out, it would be insult-to-injury to add commercials to the mix.

Yeah, it's too much. I'm not interested in ultra-twisty shows, anymore. I was also creeped out by the real story, when I read it, and Ryan Murphy just made it into another American Horror Story, with a different beautiful mansion. He always has a serial killer show up. 

[Vivigirl10]

On 10/15/2022 at 11:07 PM, gesundheit said:

Maybe they'll give it to me for free since Nora's living the high life off making a few bland vases! WORLD FAMOUS!

You can only take suspended disbelief so far!  And she even dressed in the same bland, off white pallet as her pottery!

Once I set aside my expectations that this was at all going to follow the true story, I did find it fairly entertaining.  I'm even fine with the ending being left unsolved.  The characters were flushed out enough by then to keep you guessing, and I was o.k. with that.  To a certain point.  There seemed to be at lot of insertions into the story that were just unnecessary and maybe they could have explained those at the end, even while leaving the Watcher a mystery.

If none of the neighbors was truly the Watcher, why the weird obsession not only with the house but also why were they so over the top hostile to its' owners?    

Was the John List story in fact, true?  Was there any credibility to the cult?  Why tie in the cult theory to the List family (drained of their blood and the empty bottles)?  

Who was living in the room down in the tunnels?  That part couldn't be figured out? 

And why the need to end the show with a robed figure popping out of the stairs at Karen?  

[TattleTeeny]

I kept expecting a reveal that someone was a ghost, a la Sixth Sense, for a variety of reasons -- use of color (Nora almost constant very pale clothing, or whether a preponderance of blue meant anything), the way Nora was sort of drifting around in the house with Karen at the end, Theodora (named for Haunting of Hill House, I guess? [also name related: Dakota being named for the apartment in Rosemary's Baby]) the PI's gloves, which she was not wearing in the hospital. I guess I hoped some kind of twist would make it worth it? I didn't like it very much overall, though I guess it was entertaining enough to watch the whole thing. 

But why, why, why did Dean not scream at Theodora when she "confessed" that she did it all? Did he think her "explanation" justified that his child's pet was cruelly and brutally murdered?! 

Edited October 18, 2022 by TattleTeeny

[peachmangosteen]

Just now, TattleTeeny said:

... Theodora (named for Haunting of Hill House, I guess?) the PI's gloves (which she was not wearing in the hospital). 

I guess maybe the gloves were also just a nod to Theo on Hill House. Ryan Murphy must have really liked that character lol.

[DanielleBowden]

Only Dakota knew about the camera in the bedroom (which, ick, not sure how anyone - Nora, Dean or Ellie - gets past that violation of trust). But, no one else would have known to send a girl up there, unless she really was a ghost.  Did Richard Kaplan allude to John Graff being the real John Graff in that last Preservation Society meeting when asking about his family?  Did Theodora take her gloves off in the confession because she "came clean" and we are supposed to think Big Mo was lying? Why would we believe Big Mo anyway? There are more ways into the house as John Graff was in the window with the new family as well.  I thought maybe we were getting a Sixth Sense or The Others situation with the Preservation Society being ghosts or the house itself being purgatory or hell. Was Nora following Dean in the last scene or was she also watching the house?  Not sure why you wouldn't sell your multi-million dollar NYC brownstone to fund the NJ house or at least borrow against that instead of the mob. How much were those vases? I thought the tunnel would lead to a bigger payoff but that went nowhere.  I love Bobby Cannavale always and forever.  I loved his cocky swagger in the early part of the series (except when directed at his daughter).  I guess we are just supposed to feel just as confused at Dean and Nora and that there are no answers, but I feel not satisfied.

[TattleTeeny]

It's all just leaving me with so much WHY?! (And a little bit of "so what?")

[Bobcatkitten]

I so enjoyed the ride but hated that there was no resolution at all. 

Edited October 18, 2022 by Bobcatkitten

[Shermie]

On 10/17/2022 at 1:23 PM, TV Glotzer said:

You can't get invited to "Miami Basel" and "Geneva Basel."

I like how the writers assume the viewers knew what those terms referred to. Even if we assume they were fictionalized versions of real prestigious art shows, the average Joe or Jane isn’t aware of them.

On 10/17/2022 at 4:24 PM, Kiki620 said:

why the need to end the show with a robed figure popping out of the stairs at Karen?

No kidding. And that wouldn’t be enough for the police to investigate? A dog killer who pops out of the staircase wearing a creepy robe? Yeah yeah, her ex is the police chief or something and has the FBI in his pocket or some such. I guess there’s not one legit concerned person in that community who would believe Karen. Which makes sense, I guess, since nobody in these shows ever has friends or family members who aren’t involved in the plot.

12 hours ago, DanielleBowden said:

Was Nora following Dean in the last scene or was she also watching the house? 

 I wondered that too. Did she know Dean was at the house and was lying to her, or was she also watching the house? 

I don’t like when shows like this end without a resolution. Seems like I invested 7 hours for nothing.

[Anela]

I've heard of Art Basel (Miami), but only because of a pretentious guy who was on another message board. He was obsessed with partying, and younger women, and that was apparently something he visited every year. 

[Cheezwiz]

I enjoyed the last bit with Jennifer Coolidge moving into the house. Total hoot and actually quite scary - especially the hooded figure emerging from the stairs.

I really wish they hadn't dropped the tunnel plot thread, and I don't understand what the John Graff & Pearl characters were supposed to be up to - were they really just using the tunnels to spy on the home renos? It was clearly him running through the tunnel, and when he emerged at Pearl's  he said "they're on to us". No idea what any of the neighbour characters were really supposed to be about.

It was a bit disappointing not having any resolution whatsoever, but at least the actors looked like they were having a good time.

On 10/17/2022 at 1:24 PM, Kiki620 said:

Was the John List story in fact, true? 

The John List story was based on a real-life murder (completely separate from the real-life Watcher House), but details were embellished for the show. It also happened in Westfield New Jersey in the early 70's. List was a religious man who moved his family (three kids, wife & his mother) into a very large mansion. His wife was an alcoholic, his Mother was overbearing, and he was way in over his head financially. He eventually lost his job, and wound up murdering his entire family. Their blood was not drained as depicted on the show. Instead, he neatly arranged their bodies on sleeping bags in the living room. Because he had cooked up a story ahead of time that the family was going away to visit an ailing relative, no one suspected anything was amiss for more than a month. He escaped and managed to successfully elude the authorities for almost two decades. He was finally caught after his story was featured on America's Most Wanted in the late '80's. The kicker to the story was that the mansion they were living in featured a stained glass dome that was reportedly a signed Tiffany original. It would have solved all of List's financial woes. The house mysteriously burned down just a year or two after the murders.

So weird that both of those creepy stories happened in Westfield. Wonder what's in the water there.

[DanielleBowden]

5 hours ago, Cheezwiz said:

I enjoyed the last bit with Jennifer Coolidge moving into the house. Total hoot and actually quite scary - especially the hooded figure emerging from the stairs.

The dumbwaiter was the scariest part for me.  I had to cover my eyes b/c I thought her no longer alive puppers was going to be under that dome.  I thought that it was Nora and Dean messing with her until we saw what happened to the dog.  I don't see either one of them going there.  

[zentropa]

This may be a minor plot point but I am still scratching my head over the Dakota character. He was Leonora's son right? Why wasn't he at her funeral? And did the homeowners ever figure out their relationship? I thought they were all together at the police station when he was interviewed, but it was never mentioned. You'd think they'd be a little surprised/taken aback by that knowledge. Oh well! Messy plot holes everywhere. Is Ryan Murphy just lazy or is there something wrong with him?

[Cheezwiz]

55 minutes ago, zentropa said:

This may be a minor plot point but I am still scratching my head over the Dakota character. He was Leonora's son right?

Leonora? Do you mean Theodora, the Private Investigator? Their characters were not related at all as far as I know. Theodora only had one daughter and a little granddaughter.

We also saw a scene with Dakota at home with his Mom, who was definitely not Theodora.

[Kiddvideo]

When the hooded figure rose from the stairs she’d just run down, I completely lost it. I was laughing so hard I thought I’d wet myself. Seven episodes and with 10 minutes left in the series they introduced a supernatural element. As if people needed another option as to whom (or what!) was behind the letters.

As much fun as I had watching it, this show was a hot mess. 

[jmonique]

Has Ryan Murphy ever spent time around actual people? ALL of the neighbors went from 0 to batshit crazy within 15 seconds of being introduced. 

This would have been way creepier in any other showrunners' hands.

[UsernameFatigue]

While for the most part I enjoyed the series, like others felt that there was sooooo much that just didn't make sense. Right up to and including the last frame where Nora is following Dean in her own car. They have moved back to the city, and NOW they get a second car? Lol. 

The one thing I absolutely abhor is when writers kill off animals. It is lazy writing, and annoys the heck out of me. I figured both the ferret and the dog would bite the dust, and was hoping to be proved wrong. No such luck. 

[qtpye]

7 hours ago, UsernameFatigue said:

The one thing I absolutely abhor is when writers kill off animals. It is lazy writing, and annoys the heck out of me. I figured both the ferret and the dog would bite the dust, and was hoping to be proved wrong. No such luck. 

You know that when they bother to show an animal in a show like this, it means that the poor thing is doomed.

The son seemed to have no point. He was living a blissfully oblivious happy life no matter what was going on with the family.

I am sure the art snobs loved paying 10 grand for the wife's vases that everyone else would assume they bought for $50 bucks at the Pottery Barn.

[bilgistic]

10 hours ago, jmonique said:

Has Ryan Murphy ever spent time around actual people?

Considering that his frequent co-writer is Gwyneth Paltrow's husband, I'm going to say no.

[Maurina]

Oh FFS, what a mess. There was SO much talent here - the actors, the cinematographers, even parts of the script - but the whole thing from start to finish is a train wreck of mismatched genres, unrealized resolutions, wildly careening themes, and an inability to find a balance of comedy-horror-drama. It just doesn't work. I enjoyed the house itself (in a long line of "hate the movie/show, love the set/location" this house it GORGEOUS), but frankly this whole thing is so all over the place that it's just not compelling.

Sad waste of major talent.

[cpcathy]

Since I said Ryan Murphy was a hack in the first episode thread, I shouldn’t be surprised that this was really bad? It’s like the writers didn’t get together at a table and discuss a through line for the plot. They just threw anything against a wall and see if it sticks! 

23 hours ago, bilgistic said:

Considering that his frequent co-writer is Gwyneth Paltrow's husband, I'm going to say no.

I guffawed at this. I’m a fan of her ex, so her propping up the new husband as a writer (I thought he just produced, frankly) is so cringe. 

[Cosmocrush]

On 10/19/2022 at 11:20 AM, zentropa said:

Is Ryan Murphy just lazy or is there something wrong with him?

For some reason I've seen almost all his stuff (except AHS after S3) and I'd say definitely the latter.  😉

[Laurie4H]

I hate when animals are killed.  Especially dogs.  Yeah I know it’s fake lol but whenever there is a dog I have to check ahead of time to find out if it dies.  This was in the last episode so I dealt with.  
So many questions already asked.  Like them keeping the brownstone etc.  Also thinking the young security kid was the watcher.  Those letters were being sent supposedly since the 90’s before he was born.  Did they think he was a copycat watcher then?  How did Theodora get so much info?  A banker would tell her all about Deans money and how he didn’t make partner?  Can he legally divulge that info?  Did anyone think for a minute there was something weird between Dean and the daughter?  No explaination of why the neighbors were so obsessed with renovations of the house.  

[Chickabiddy]

So, I posted way back in episode five (feels like a lifetime ago) that I have fanatically enjoyed the show because I treated as parody….along the the lines of “ The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl  in the Window. At first I felt it was unintentional parody, and then around episode six, I started to think the director just gave up and said, “Screw it. Let’s go all in for satire.”

However, after this last episode included practically every horror film, suspense film, whodunnit film trope out there in the last 10 minutes….I mean black phantom rising out of the fucking staircase? I have to say I think the joke is on us. This whole fucking series has been one giant Easter egg. It’s like a more subtle Scream for grown-ups. A complete fucking horror film farce. Hard to believe with such a stellar cast of actors.

However, maybe at a certain age, the actors are all like, “Screw it, what’s the point of getting old in Hollywood if you can’t fuck with the audience.” And apparently they all had so much fun, they left the door wide fucking open for Season 2. That series ending had more loose threads hanging than a cheap ass sweater from Target. And on a sidenote, how many people realize that John List was lying about going to work, and instead he was going to sit in a park every day before he killed his family. Sound vaguely familiar?

Yes, I might be completely off base, but if I think of it this way, it keeps me from having to take the seven episode tripe seriously and try to make sense of it and the 6000 different directions that tried to go into at the very last minute. 🙄😘

p.s. not even going to revisit the comedy gold  of Nora’s wild success with her pottery. Others have covered it far better. But I do love how we never saw a pottery wheel, a studio or Nora with her hands even remotely dirty. Ghost did a far better job on that note. 😜

Edited October 23, 2022 by Chickabiddy

[cpcathy]

47 minutes ago, Chickabiddy said:

p.s. not even going to revisit the comedy gold  of Nora’s wild success with her pottery. Others have covered it far better. But I do love how we never saw a pottery wheel, a studio or Nora with her hands even remotely dirty. Ghost did a far better job on that note. 😜

She would get clay on her beige outfits! 
Plus doing her art would cut into her precious wine drinking time.

[Maurina]

8 hours ago, Laurie4H said:

I hate when animals are killed.  Especially dogs.  Yeah I know it’s fake lol but whenever there is a dog I have to check ahead of time to find out if it dies.

THANK YOU.  I appreciate the website "doesthedogdie.com" for this very reason.
But even with the warning, John Wick freakin' destroyed me. And no I don't like seeing a ferret meeting a sad fate either.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Maurina

[DB in CMH]

Nothing that hasn't been better covered by other posters. What a fucking mess. I especially hated that you could see the wheels turning. The conversation at the end of episode 6, right after the "one month later," was some of the hackiest writing I've ever seen.

Yes, we sold the house! We're so happy! Oh no, a phone call. Who could that be? 

Like, Jesus!

[peachmangosteen]

11 hours ago, Chickabiddy said:

p.s. not even going to revisit the comedy gold  of Nora’s wild success with her pottery. Others have covered it far better. But I do love how we never saw a pottery wheel, a studio or Nora with her hands even remotely dirty. Ghost did a far better job on that note. 😜

She actually was using a pottery wheel very briefly in one of the episodes, which is actually even funnier, like they were like throw in a 2 second scene of her making one of her stupid vases.

[Leia1979]

I'm confused. Didn't Karen (Jennifer Coolidge) admit to sending the letters? So did the Brannock family not get real Watcher letters?

I'm kinda disappointed my theory didn't pan out. Having all the neighbors be part of a mysterious LLC that continually sold high, terrified the new owners, and bought low would have at least made sense. I was also fully expecting Nora's pottery sales to fall through just like the house offer last episode (that I assumed was fake just to screw with them more).

Instead, this seems like a very tame mini-season of AHS with a mix of explainable things (multiple letter writers, at least some hijinks caused by one or more people sneaking in via the basement tunnel) and possibly supernatural things (people becoming weirdly obsessed with the house, harder to explain appearances like the dead daughter from 1995).

[pasdetrois]

Great actors but maddening, endless twisty "story." With each twist I expected a character to heave a weary sigh. We FFed through quite a bit of the last episodes. But I was relieved at the relative lack of gore.

I'm left with lingering envy for the staircase in the house. It was eerie to listen to same of the same rantings I hear in my aging neighborhood, almost to the word: saving old trees, the loss of neighborliness, "islands," wood countertops, property lines, etc.

[iMonrey]

Quote

I'm confused. Didn't Karen (Jennifer Coolidge) admit to sending the letters?

No, she admitted to giving their story to Page 6. 

I thought this was a fun little series. I'm not all that pissed off there was no resolution, and that's something I'd normally hate. I kind of took the ending to mean there was just something about the house that drove people to desperation and each former owner was responsible for gaslighting the next. 

That said, having different suspects every episode did get sort of redundant, after about the third or fourth time they went down some rabbit hole and convinced themselves the culprit was so-and-so. You can only do that so often.

The thing that didn't make sense to me was why Karen was so desperate to list the house again when she was the one who sold it to them in the first place. All along I figured she just wanted the commission and it sort of made sense she would drive them to sell, but then she ended up buying it for herself, which makes no sense. If she wanted it for herself why did she sell it to them in the first place?

Edited October 24, 2022 by iMonrey

[Peanut6711]

On 10/17/2022 at 12:06 PM, gesundheit said:

The lack of curiosity about the tunnels was also total madness, yes. "Oh, we just boarded it up, no biggie!" Brilliant move. Clearly no possible clues down there!

And DNA!  I couldn't believe they didn't bring someone in to go over that room with a fine-tooth comb. 

On 10/17/2022 at 2:14 PM, archer1267 said:

I wish I could have done the same! I think if they'd called it anything BUT "The Watcher" it would have been better. I knew it wouldn't be a documentary exactly, but I expected the series to be fairly true to the original story. But once Murphy et al conflated the John List case with the house, it was a bridge too far for me. (Plus, a teenager makes a TikTok video complaining about her dad and not only does the whole town know and ostracize him, but he loses his job over it? C'mon.) Way too many plot points that went nowhere, like the tunnel and why "John" was in cahoots with Mia Farrow's character. 

On another note, I read the story in The Cut years ago and was mesmerized. It's hard to believe that even with FBI agent(s) involved - and a relatively small suspect pool - the perp was never caught.

Ditto everything you said!  I totally agree. It's a very intriguing real story, but this fictionalization was a big miss. I, too, did some serious eye rolling when the List case with this house was thrown in.  I almost checked out there. It just felt like AHS: Murder House Part 2.   I think one of the interesting angles to the real case was the fact that there was no creepy history with the house and the only other letter was 1 that the previous owner got just before moving.  

[monagatuna]

On 10/22/2022 at 12:16 PM, Laurie4H said:

I hate when animals are killed.  Especially dogs.  Yeah I know it’s fake lol but whenever there is a dog I have to check ahead of time to find out if it dies.  This was in the last episode so I dealt with.  
So many questions already asked.  Like them keeping the brownstone etc.  Also thinking the young security kid was the watcher.  Those letters were being sent supposedly since the 90’s before he was born.  Did they think he was a copycat watcher then?  How did Theodora get so much info?  A banker would tell her all about Deans money and how he didn’t make partner?  Can he legally divulge that info?  Did anyone think for a minute there was something weird between Dean and the daughter?  No explaination of why the neighbors were so obsessed with renovations of the house.  

There's an actual website that addresses this (I think it's called doesthedoglive dot com or doesthedogdie dot com, something like that). I noped out of what seemed to be a pretty good horror movie when the main character lied to her landlord about having a cat, after finding that site. I agree with all that it's lazy writing. I was listening to an audiobook a few weeks ago that honestly wasn't that great, but I give the author props for not killing off the pet cat at the end. Cat was alive and well and had been taken in by the protagonist's best friend.

[MaggieG]

On 10/17/2022 at 4:24 PM, Kiki620 said:

If none of the neighbors was truly the Watcher, why the weird obsession not only with the house but also why were they so over the top hostile to its' owners?    

Out of all the ridiculous things on this show, this confused me the most. Why are all the neighbors so unhinged? Was there not one person that lived there that was normal? It makes me think they were all somehow in on driving every new buyer away from the house but for what purpose?

[Sweet-tea]

On 10/22/2022 at 10:25 PM, Maurina said:

THANK YOU.  I appreciate the website "doesthedogdie.com" for this very reason.
But even with the warning, John Wick freakin' destroyed me. And no I don't like seeing a ferret meeting a sad fate either.

Same here! I get so nervous when I see dogs in suspense or horror films. I’m afraid they’ll die. I knew it was coming when I saw the dog barking in the basement, but it still bummed me out. 

Agree about the puppy in John Wick. I didn’t realize it until I was in the theater. I was so upset! But the whole movie is based on the dog dying so it didn’t seem as gratuitous as in horror movies. 

The scene of Jennifer Coolidge screaming and running down the street like a bat out of hell was hilarious. 

I didn’t understand the last scene. Were they trying to imply the wife was in on it?

I didn’t follow the original story it’s based on, but it sounds like the writers took a lot of liberties. So why not actually resolve it at the end? It would’ve been more satisfying for the viewers.

Mia Farrow’s character was so weird I thought they were going to make her the watcher, especially during the last scene with her and the other group members. Why have that if not to throw suspicion somewhere? Who was the fake John Graf guy? If the Theodora confession wasn’t true, who hired him? So many unanswered questions. 

One thing that unsettled me out from the beginning was the creepy, soulless voice of the watcher. Did they use some kind of voice distortion device? 

Edited November 4, 2022 by Sweet-tea