Too Scary; Didn't Watch - THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE: Part 1

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

This episode is part 1 of a series of 3. The remaining two episodes are available on our Patreon. Follow the show: @TSDWpodcast on Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. Find merch on our website. Rate Too Scary; Didn’t Watch 5 Stars on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review for Emily, Henley, and Sammy. Advertise on Too Scary; Didn't Watch via Gumball.fm Podcast artwork by @EllaTalkinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. This episode was originally released in March of 2022 as a bonus episode, and it is the first episode of a three-part series. So to get the rest of the episodes, you can join our Patreon at patreon.com slash TSDWpodcast. This is Emily, Henley, and Sammy, and you're listening to Too Scary, Didn't Watch. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Too Scary, Didn't Watch, March bonus episode number one. That's what this is. That's what this is. That's where you are. That's what this is. That's what this is. That's where you are.

That's where we are. Hello. It's nice to be here. It's great to be here. And I feel like this episode is one that we have been talking about probably since like the inception of this podcast. Wow. You know, we stick to mostly movie recaps, but had talked about at some point doing series.

And we did Squid Game. But like truly from the beginning, I feel like people were like, oh, you should do. Haunting of Hill House. The Haunting of Hill House. Which is what we are doing now. And we love Mike Flanagan. But we haven't done any of his movies, have we? Like Ouija?

We have. We did Hush. Which one did we do? Oh, Hush. Oh, we did Doctor Sleep as well. So we haven't done Oculus and we haven't done Gerald's Game. But yeah, we've done a lot. We've done a good amount of Mike Flanagan.

And I just I love him. Yeah. Yeah. I love him. Yeah. You guys, little known fact is that I worked at Paramount Television Studios while we were making Haunted Hill House. And I don't know whether we've really ever talked about that in great detail. But I have some behind the scenes, you know, little knowledge about this whole show. I didn't work on it directly. It was

not assigned to me, but I was able, you know, I picked things up in the ether and... Through the grapevine. You heard the goss. I heard the goss. I heard the goss and it's, it was a complicated show to make make it was really hard to make i think um obviously the results fruitful results but i just know from a production

standpoint it was really tough and complicated i mean there's so many kids in it anytime you have this many kids right scheduling gets really tricky because, you know, they're very strict about hours for kids. I mean, it's still like kids can work like eight hours straight, basically. Which is pretty crazy. Pretty crazy. Seems like too long. They also have to do like school. Yeah.

I, you know, I don't I don't know. I think that the main thing that I remember, honestly, is that I remember one of the people who was working on it being like it's always these shows that end up being the best the ones that are like so hard and like complicated and like the like the most difficult never get picked up exactly exactly greenlit for five seasons right you're like i hope this is a disaster because this was a fucking nightmare yeah exactly and then they were right. And then it just teaches like everyone in the higher up positions like, oh, okay, this way that we did this was the right way. The universe feeds on suffering.

Let's do it again. I'll give you some stats about this. This series is created, obviously, by Mike Flanagan. Written by Mike Flanagan. Well, it's based on a book by Shirley Jackson. Actually, I didn't write down the names of all the writers. Are there multiple writers or did Mike Flanagan write all of it? I think it's like kind of a normal TV show where there's a writer's room.

And I just didn't write down the writer's names. I genuinely don't remember. No idea. It feels like Mike Flanagan does a lot, though. So I wouldn't be surprised if he just fucking wrote the writers names. I genuinely don't remember. No idea. It feels like Mike Flanagan does a lot though so I wouldn't be surprised if he just fucking wrote the whole thing. I feel like he wrote the whole thing with like one other person or something crazy like that. It's a lot of writing. He seems like he loves writing.

Yeah. Mike Flanagan loves writing. Because we've talked about Midnight Mass and how there's just endless monologues in that and it's like he just loves to freaking he loves the written word yeah there's too much that that pulled me out of it real hard um but no there's a lot of writers on this yeah there are series so i'm not gonna i'm not gonna name them

all sorry you'll be anonymous go to the IMDb IMDb IMDb but it is starring Mikhail Hausman which I looked up how to pronounce it and that is the correct pronunciation it's spelled like Michael Huseman Mikhail Hausman oh he's from he was in the invitation right yes and yeah

Game of Thrones Nashville famously that's what I know him from Nashville Yes. And yeah, Game of Thrones. Nashville. Famously. That's what I know from Nashville. Connie Britton's love interest in season two or something. Oh, wow. Carla Gugino, Henry Thomas, Elizabeth Reeser, Oliver Jackson Cohen, Kate Siegel, Victoria Pedretti and Timothy Hutton. Wowie. I feel like this was the first time I saw a lot of these actors. And Mike Flanagan likes to use the same actors a lot.

And so now I feel like... Would you say that one of them is very not hot in an obvious way? No, I wouldn't. That's a deep inside joke if anyone wants to. I think some eagle-eared listeners might recall in our Invisible Man episode. Oh my God, I'm sorry. Emily's cat Mabel is looking right into the camera. Like so close, so close, like sniffing the camera. So close.

But going in and out of frame. Oh man. Oh, it's really funny. Yeah, in the Invisible Man man episode we had a big debate about whether or not oliver jackson cohen is hot and i just am a firm yes and emily's a hard no hard no i think he's hot i do think he's not hot you think he's hot henley you're the tiebreaker i think he's hot i decided i gotta find more people to ask and you know i think it's because this is the first thing i saw him in and his character in this is so he's so i decided i gotta find more people to ask and you know i think it's because this is the first thing i saw him in and his character in this is so he's so great in it and he's not a

like psychopathic killer that's like traumatizing his ex-wife and so it's more like also is like sort of a huge dork and like looks not hot. I like how that's your that was your biggest thing. You're like, he's just too much of a dork to be a villain. It was such a reveal. It was such a reveal of this man who I was like, who cares? Anticlimactic. Anyway, he's in this. Good

for him. It has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. People love this show. And an 8.6 on IMDb. I didn't write down a lot of trivia for it. Henley, do you have other BTS info? Not honestly. Like, this is such an annoying thing to say.

But as I started talking, I was like, I probably shouldn't say any of this publicly. Well, I was wondering, yeah, what is your... I guess if you weren't on the project, you didn't sign an NDA. I didn't, technically. And I don't work for Paramount anymore. But I also don't want to air any dirty laundry. That's not my thing. Sure.

You don't want to get a reputation for being someone with loose lips. Loose lips. Loose lips, Henley. That's what they'll call you. Oh, Henley, loose lips? It's as though millions of people are listening right now. It's as though I'm on fresh air with Terry Gross. And I'm like, Terry, listen.

I can't reveal that. You're going to have to cut that out. Terry, cut it out. I'm going to leave. I'm getting up to leave. My publicist is giving me the sign that I got to cut it out. Yeah, you'll do the Adam Driver. Just walk out on Terry Gross.

Wait, why did he do that again? What happened? Because she made him watch a clip of himself acting. Oh, right, right. God. And he does not like that. I think they did say beforehand, like, don't do that. Yeah.

So, you know. She likes to push her boundaries. But also that is kind of an absurd reaction to have. Absolutely. It's an absurd reaction to have. Absolutely. It's an absurd reaction. When that's your chosen profession. He seems like a wild person. Yeah, I think he's weird.

But you know what? He is. It's hot. Okay. Emily. These people are wondering where I sort of stand on things. He's a person that I would be scared to be around if he was angry at me. Oh, me too. He's so large. Yeah, he's a person that I would be scared to be around if he was angry at me oh me too he's so large yeah he's big a formidable formidable physical presence I'm sure scares me yeah thinking about it um so

Henley you watch this when it came out and what are your feelings on its scariness as a notorious scaredy cat so I watched it actually with Tim my husband who's also notorious scaredy cat. So I watched it actually with Tim, my husband, who's also a scaredy cat. More of a scaredy cat than I am. I mean, if I, I feel like, I mean, by doing this podcast, maybe it's, you know, obvious, but like if I was in a relationship with someone who

loved scary movies, I would watch more of them just because, like, I am curious and I'm like, but Tim totally tips the scales the other direction he is so scared he hates anything that's uncomfortable to watch too so it's not just like scary things he doesn't want to feel cringy at about anything which is a lot of like thrillery stuff you know what I mean? He hid. I felt. He hid? He hid. Where did he hide? He hid his entire body.

No, he hid his eyes. Although that does remind me of one characteristic about Tim, which maybe I told you guys before, is tv and the other eye out so he could just like easily easily go back and forth i'm in i'm out i'm in i'm out this is too very funny anyway so i i didn't think it was too scary but i gotta say i re-watched re-watched it um i'm like a broken record at this point but after having kids this show a lot of kids a lot of extreme trauma happening to these children yeah um and that hit home in a way that it didn't before uh especially especially the little boy there's a little six-year-old boy who is the cutest child actor in the world. The cutest kids on purpose.

They're so cute. They're so cute. They're so it makes me angry. Well, I got to look at these kids. It's ridiculous how cute they are. They have a little lip and they have like the biggest eye. They're like little Pixar characters in human form. Well, I'm looking up these fucking kids I tried to watch one episode once maybe we were all hanging

out and we were gonna watch it or be I thought it was too scary I think it's pretty scary I mean I watched it when it came out and but I think this speaks to the difference between what Henley thinks is scary and what I think is scary. And we've talked about this before, but like ghosts and demon shit like scares me a lot. And it doesn't scare me. It doesn't scare Henley that much. It really doesn't scare me as much. I loved it because the drama within the family was so interesting to me. And I loved the whole concept of like a family being traumatized by being haunted when they were kids genius why haven't hasn't there

been more content like done like that before because it's so blurring the lines between like mental health and just you know what's what's what's you know nature versus nurture i i loved it and yeah i do think also that it it needs to be a series. The depth of character exploration that they do couldn't have been done in a movie. So this is, I feel like, one of the first horror series. Well, American Horror Story, I guess. But those are so campy

and outrageous. This one is real. It's a real story about real relationships and the acting's really good, the writing's good. I think it's great. Emily thinks the kids are cute. Emily has

opinions about this stuff. She thinks people are hot and she thinks they're not hot. So if she says they're cute, you know she fucking means it. Well, she is wrong about her opinion from earlier. No. Opinions, you know, obviously can be she is wrong about her opinion from earlier no opinions you know obviously can be right or wrong no no no wrong okay so you emily watched a little bit and

didn't make it through first episode so this is all going to be fresh info for you absolutely haunting stuff is scary for me too i just don't like the like lurky darkness around. Because it all happens at night. There's a lot of lurking. A lot of long shots. And it's a lot of like being like, what's over there? What's over there? Yeah, that's really tough for me.

The tension of that kind of scare. So I didn't like it. Yeah, that's what always that's my scariest part in scary movies is when you know something is coming and it just keeps you tense and you're looking and you don't know where the thing's going to be. I don't like it. Yeah, it's a lot of that. It's a lot of that. Well, let's freaking get into it. I am excited to hear and be a part of the conversation.

Yeah, we've got a lot of ground to cover here. These are some dense episodes and we want to do them justice because they're very good. So this is going to be part one of a three part series. Ghost. We start in a spooky mansion. This is Hill House. And we see a young boy waking up in the middle of the night and hearing siblings in another room, like, I don't know, upset about something. And he goes in and and sees that in this room there's a little girl and a little boy these are the

two cutest kids in the cast yeah it's disgraceful I like ranking them I think it's just because they're the youngest so they're just like adorable it's really fun and good to judge everyone based on their exterior.

Yeah, that's what we do here. I like to do it. And I feel I feel good about it. And I feel good that people are listening to me do it. Especially young children. Yeah, I feel I'm like we're on board. No regrets about anything I've said. No, but I don't think I don't think it's I don't think it's bad to say that these kids are fucking cute as hell.

It's insane. The boy has glasses that magnify his eyes it's oh get out of here with that okay they're like a full centimeter thick yeah like cook bottle glasses it's too much it's too much cute and the little girl in this room has had a bad dream about the bent neck lady and they all have i think heard about bent neck lady before they're kind of like oh bent neck lady again like this is a dream this little girl's name is nell it's like nell had another dream about bent neck lady uh her brother that she is sharing the room with is luke is Luke. They are twins. And eventually the dad hears the, you know, ruckus happening in this room that the kids are up, comes in, says, what's going on? This again, the bent neck lady, like,

no, it's okay. It's just, you know, you're having a dream. Sometimes the mind can when you wake up have little remnants of dreams and but it's going to be okay we also get the context that they are in this house because they're fixing it up and then going to sell it so the parents are yeah something in real estate that they have move house to house fix up houses and sell them and live in them while they're fixing them up um maybe it's because he says something like you know we're not we're not going to be in this house forever uh it's it's okay and as he's he calms them down gets them back to bed he's walking back to his room. We pass another room with another daughter in it. This is Shirley. She's talking in her sleep. There are five kids total. I don't think we see the third daughter in this scene, but there's also another daughter named Theo. into bed and he gets into

bed with his wife who is Carla Gugino and they're you know talking about the kids again and back in the twins room we see them going to bed and we see from the shadows emerges

a woman with a bent neck in shadows just moving towards Nell. And then we get our opening titles. But we see the bent neck lady is real. Emily, this speaks to you because you're having some serious neck issues. I'm the lady with a bent neck. And unfortunately, a hurt neck is a theme throughout this show in lots of ways.

Is she bent neck? What does this mean? throughout this show in lots of ways so um is she bent neck like what does this mean it's like her neck is bent at not quite a 90 degree angle but pretty close like it's just like she was being hung perhaps you know we don't want to jump to any conclusions we don't want to jump to any conclusions but that is about the the correct angle Right. Okay. And so this title sequence, I feel like is, I feel like every title sequence in this year was this exact title sequence where it's just like orchestral music and 3D renderings of various objects. It was like Westworld was like this.

Yes. The crown. And, you know, it just seems like everything of this time. Game of Thrones did it for a while, right? Yeah. Game of Thrones, I feel like was a little bit it was the map it like changed a lot based on what was in the episode which is at least a little variation on this but yes kind of all i feel like standard title sequence i love a retrospective on title sequences throughout like the past 20 years yes there

was a key and peel sketch where they made fun of true detective i think and they had like a funny opening that was making fun of the true detective opening it was like oh yeah all these openings are like this like true blood was similar like they're all like like the like folksy music and then like disturbing country yes yes backgrounds like right um i, there's themes. They really stick to themes, and I love to see people make fun of them. Just want to flag that.

What's the theme right now? I don't know, but I will say, I just, real quick, have you guys watched Severance? No. The Apple TV show? Okay. This is a fucking cool thing that they're getting into, which is like a really dynamic, like rhythmic animation. And it's an animation of Adam Scott's character, like going, like falling through all these different levels and like multiplying and then like becoming small and getting big.

And it's, I love it. Like, I love what they can do with animation now is so compelling and i feel like more and more openings are like leaning into that a little bit yeah i would also say another feel one that i feel like is getting more popular is just having the title without a title sequence like euphoria just like name of the show at one point and it doesn't have a title sequence i feel like that's becoming a little more common too 100 yes and they still have the skip intro for sometimes and it's like it's skipping a second yeah yeah um okay so then we cut to present day which by the way sorry in the opening it says hill house then so in the whole series we will be jumping back

and forth in time between this these kids childhood and their present day adulthood so first we meet adult steven who is the oldest child and we see that he is interviewing a woman about having seen her dead husband's ghost. And we learn that he is a writer of ghost stories, essentially. And he has written a book called The Haunting of Hill House based on his own childhood experiences. But he is quite a skeptic of it all and he reveals to this woman you know he never actually saw a ghost and that this it's a little bit of a fictionalized version of what happened to his his siblings what they claim happened we just get in the sense that he doesn't totally buy into it but this this woman that he's talking to really does and is really interested in his family and is like, I would love for your dad to write a book. So people in this world know the story of Hill House because he has written about it. He gets a phone call from Nell, his youngest sister, and doesn't answer it.

and doesn't answer it. We go back to the past and we see, again, Nell saying she saw a bent neck lady having what the parents think is a nightmare. She's too scared to sleep in her room now because that's where she sees the bent neck lady. So her mom, what is the mom's name? Do you remember? Wait, I think I have it right here olivia olivia

yes she takes her downstairs they're gonna make up a little bed for her on the couch so that she doesn't have to sleep in her room they get her all set up there and olivia makes a bed next to her sleeps on the floor it lies down on the floor next to her until Nell falls asleep. And then once Nell's asleep, Olivia gets up, goes back to her own bed, and we see Nell on the couch alone, and her hand starts moving, and her eyes open, and it looks like she can't move, and she's just kind of moving her fingers, and her eyes are are looking around and then she looks directly up and her eyes get really big like she looks scared. And the camera pulls out and rotates and we see bent neck lady floating above her looking down at her. down at her back to present day uh we see we're basically gonna see each of the children what their life is now in the present day next we see shirley who is the second oldest and her and her husband own like a what do you call funeral home a funeral home yeah yeah and she does the

embalming is that what that's called i think body preparation but in the first scene we see her she's talking to a kid who is preemptively saying that he doesn't want to see his grandmother's dead body and she's helping him through that and saying comforting him and saying you know i'm going to make her look exactly how she looked to you it's going to be okay so she's like feeling good about helping these kids come to terms with death yes and she looks down at her phone she has a voicemail from Nell and listens to it. And Nell says that she's worried about Luke. We go back into the past.

We see that there is a room in Hill House that has a red door that they refer to as the red room. And they just can't get into it. There's a groundskeeper. There's two groundskeepers, Mr. and Mrs. Dud dudley is that their names yeah i think so and he has a master key that works to every room but it does not work for the red room so there's just a room in this house that they live in that they can't access we've all been there we've all been there you gotta break down that door horrifying there's it can't be a mystery room in my house hell no cannot absolutely no no uh it's i think shirley

that is trying to get into it with this universal key she can't get into it and as she walks away we see little feet walking around inside of this room. Back in the present day, we see Steven calling back Nell. She has an answer. He leaves a message saying, you know, you said you were worried about Luke. I called his rehab. He's doing great. He's been sober for 90 days.

Just got his 90 day chip. She having some sort of like twin connection to him. Yes, that might be. It's a twin thing. It's a twin thing. You don't put twins in something and not have twin shit. You got to have a twin thing. You got to do twin stuff. Mm hmm.

Present day. We meet Theodora, who is the middle child, and she picks up a girl at a bar she's like at she's looking really fucking cool this is kate siegel who is mike flanagan's wife star of hush yep and oh yeah yeah yeah okay and she wears these leather gloves like that go up her are the looks she looks very cool but also like what are these gloves about yeah the gloves are a thing it's a thing and we see her yeah picking up this locking eyes with this woman at a bar taking her home they hook up and as soon as they finish hooking up she like puts her gloves back on and it's like i guess i'm a bit of a germaphobe and the girl gets a little offended by that and she asks then she asks the woman to leave she's like i I guess I'm a bit of a germaphobe. And the girl gets a little offended by that. And she asks then, she asks the woman to leave.

She's like, I've got work in the morning. Like, it's a little awkward at the end. She doesn't, she clearly got a lot of walls up. And we also see after she kicks the girl out that she lives in the guest house of Shirley and her husband's like funeral home area. So she lives on the property with them. The dad gets a call from Nell. We've just seen little clips of Nell looking scared, calling each of her family members a lot.

This time we see Nell is in a car. She's looking like white as a ghost, very like she hasn't slept in days. She is in a car. It's raining. And she calls her dad. He answers. And she says, Dad, remember Bent Neck Lady? Says, yeah.

And she says, she's back. And her dad gets up and says, I need you to drive to Stevens. Like, Steven is closest to you. Like, whatever is going on. Like, I want you with someone. I'm getting up right now. I'll drive out there. I'll see you in the morning.

Okay, like, stay at Stevens and I'll see you in the morning. And she says, like, yeah, I'm home now. We see that she's not. She is in her car. And she's like, yeah, it'm home now. We see that she's not. She is in her car. And she's like, yeah, it's fine. Like, I love you. Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow. And hangs up.

And we just see her looking at a bright light, looking very transfixed by something, clearly lying to her dad about whatever is going on. And then we see that she is parked outside of hill house which is like abandoned and present day it's like yeah like a rundown nasty nasty mansion no one's lived there clearly for a long time so the real estate venture didn't really pan out no and clearly no one wanted to live there after uh they lived there seems like wonder why then we cut back to the past of the uh dad waking steven up in his room saying we gotta go looking panicked he's like close your eyes as we you know know, don't, don't you dare open your eyes. We got to get in the car and Stephen's like totally freaked out,

but the dad picks him up. He's like, okay, one, two, three, they run down the hall. We see a woman in a nasty nightgown cross across the hallway,

running like in a creepy ass way. I think Steven does open his eyes and see that, right? I think he does a little bit, but then he's too scared. Yeah, he like blocks it out. Blocks it out real quick. Shuts him real quick.

Holding on to his dad, like his dad's like carrying him like this. And he's like, what, 12 or something like that? Yeah. And the dad's just like running, carrying him. And Stephen, eyes shut real tight. Yeah. They get outside and all the rest of the kids are in the car.

All of them really confused and scared. They don't know what's going on. One of them yells at the dad like, we got to go back and get mom. Like, mom's still in there. The dad says, that's not your mother. And they drive off. Back in present day, we see the dad calling Stephen saying, like, something's going on with Nell. You're closest. You need to get to Nell. Nell. We see shots of Nell present day in a nasty nightgown, just dancing around in the rundown rooms of Hill House. This place is, I mean, it's horrifying. It's like just a dusty, broken down mansion.

And she is smiling and dancing and twirling through all of it. It's very unsettling. And then we see a clock, like an alarm clock at 303. And all of the other siblings, all four of the siblings, we see quick shots of all of them bursting awake in bed. One of them says, Nellie's in the red room. And they all look like they've just woken up from a nightmare. They don't know what happened, but it's it. Clearly, all of all of them have felt something happen.

Clearly, all of them have felt something happen. Meanwhile, in present day, oh, yeah, I guess the next day or next night, Stephen is still investigating this woman's story about seeing her husband's ghost. And he's recreating the setting that she said it happened in. Like, you know, it was this time at night i was laying in bed i felt um i don't know water yeah i felt water and heard the car he the husband died in a car accident she's like i heard the car crash and he lays in her bed at the time that she said it happened. And water drips on him. And he sees that there is like a leak on the ceiling. And then he hears a car crash.

And it's because they have recently removed a stop sign from the street outside. And so he basically disproves her sighting of her husband's ghost. And is like kind of proud of himself i feel like he's such a skeptic that yeah he's just like well you see what really happened is this this and this and then we flash back to not the not the past of them as children but something like i don't seven years ago or something like that where steven first published the book the haunting of hill house and we see shirley's reaction to it and she is fucking fuming mad like how dare you publish this is like outrageous i can't believe

you would write this really furious about it then we flash back back to the past seemingly pretty soon after the dad took all the kids away from the from hill house and he's now in a lawyer's office and i think steven's in there with him and the dad is looking very panicked and saying like uh they're gonna how do i get out of this so are they gonna think that i killed her it seems like steven should not be in the room for this conversation but he's yeah clearly like panicked about whatever went down at hill house that night um we do not see where the what happened to mom, but it seems like something bad happened and the dad is panicked about it. Yeah, because the press, I mean, knows about it at this point. Right.

And it's starting to be talked about. And the dad doesn't look good. No, he's not. It's not looking good. Well, it's not looking good. It wouldn't look good. You always think it's always the husband. I think that before ghost for sure.

Yeah. First up is the husband or boyfriend or man involved in any way at all. We see Steven driving home from the woman's house that he was staying at the ghost, the ghost husband woman. And he calls his wife, Lee, who's played by Samantha Sloyan, who was Bev in Midnight Mass, and I just love her. She's great. We have seen in a flashback like them happily married,

and in this phone call, it's clear that they are not together anymore. She's very short with him. He's like, why are you calling me? And he says, you know, I think Nell might come to the house. Something's going on with Nell. He hasn't told any of the siblings that they've split up yet,

but it's clear that they've been split up for a little while. We also get a scene where we see young Luke, the kid with the glasses, drawing in like a little tree house or something and he's doing some creepy child drawings you gotta have it in ghost and demon movies it's a staple and steven is asking him like who's this it's and he says it's the little girl I see in the woods. And there's a lot of drawings of just a little girl in the woods. And then back in present day, we're seeing Stephen arriving back at his house. And he walks in and freezes when he sees Luke walking down the stairs of Steven's apartment,

carrying a bunch of Steven's shit. So it's Luke is robbing Steven and he looks really bad. We were led to believe that he is, was 90 days sober. Luke says, first thing, like, it's not what it looks like.

Um, but it's clear that Steven's like heard this before and is like, all right, like, sure. Uh uh i need you to not take my ipad i have a lot of work stuff on that let me give you 200 bucks instead you can take all the rest of the shit i just don't take my ipad and luke is like looking really like pleading with him like it's not what it looks like and he's like yeah i like sure, here you go. Just leave. Just get out. And so Luke leaves and Stephen walks up to his apartment and sees Nell inside the apartment. And he immediately is annoyed with her and is like, were you in here when Luke was robbing me?

Like, did you just not say anything? Like, what's like, that's fucked up you just let him do that and he's kind of talking at her and she's not really saying anything she's looking really sad and he's like you know dad was saying that something was wrong with you like what's going on with you and luke and then his phone rings and it's his dad and he answers it and his dad sounds like he's very upset and has been crying it's also kind of a broken crinkly like line it's like a creepy sound and we just hear is she dead the dad say it's Nell she She's dead. Oh! She killed herself.

And Steven turns around like, well, who the fuck is this in my apartment? Nell is right there in his face and her skin like turns gray and ghosty and she opens her mouth and screams. And that's the end of the episode

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I get to binge a TV show all just while fucking sitting here. We're binging it. We're binging it IRL. All right. Soy, episode two. I can't remember what it's called. Open Casket. Open Casket. Open Casket. That makes sense. So Shirley bursts awake. It's 3.03 a.m. and she says,

Nellie's in the red room. And then she kind of wakes up and her husband is like, whoa, you okay? Like, what's going on? She's like, I don't know what that was. I'm fine. It's all right. We know what that was. We just, I mean, well, we just saw that Nell's obviously dead. So it's fun because each episode kind of replays the same day from each of the siblings' perspectives, and it goes down in age.

So it starts with Steven, who is oldest. Now this episode is going to be Shirley, who's the second oldest. information about all the context happening behind it. So she's seeing this little kid. She's meeting with him, who is clearly very upset that his grandmother has passed away. He's telling her that he sees her in the middle of the night, and that she's bald and doesn't have any teeth, and she scares him. and Shirley's listening to him and the parents are kind of in the background watching this interaction happen and she says she's soothing him she's basically like you knew that your grandma wore a wig right and you knew that she had dentures right so you're just this is this is normal this what happens but I So you're just, this is normal. This is what happens. But I want you to know that this is where my job is.

My job is to take this person that you love so much. And what I do is I make them look like themselves again. So the next time you see this person, your grandmother is going to look just like how you remember. you see this person, your grandmother is going to look just like how you remember. So we're going to replace that scary image you have in your head with a more, the more whole version of them. And that's what I do. And the little boy is soothed by this. Clearly, she's really good at her job. She's very competent at it. She really believes in it. And this means something to her. Then we cut back to the past and where Shirley is in a little preteen Shirley.

She's wandering around the house and she goes and sees her mom, who is the beautiful Carla, however you say her last name. This mom is such a like crazy ideal of a mother. She has the thickest, most flowing long hair. She wears long dresses. She's so spiritual and emotional. She's like a goddess. But she also, I couldn't help, but she looks like a ghost in real life. She's wearing velvety robes.

She's dressed like a ghost in real life like she was wearing like velvety robes like she's dressed like a ghost you know i think that's part of what i'm getting at she's like a she's like a earth goddess it's weird you're like who are you um so she's drawing in this room and she's designing their forever house and she's showing shirley their forever house it's this you know floor plan of their you know once they sell once they fix up this house and they sell it they're finally going to have enough money to design and build their forever house they'll never have to move houses again they just need to do this one final one. Then Nellie, little baby Nellie, six-year-old Nellie kind of squeaks into the room and she's like, Shirley, play with me. And Shirley's like, no. And she's like, have a tea party with me.

And Shirley and her mom are too busy. But her mom's like, Shirley, take her outside. You play with her. Be nice to your sister. like surely take her outside uh you play with her uh be nice to your sister and just remember that um when you guys need to come in i'm gonna flip the porch light on twice so that's how you know that it's time for you to come inside um uh then we cut to little baby luke a little six-year-old luke with his big coke bottle glasses he's so fucking cute um i just keep writing in my notes these kids are so cute i hate it i hate this i don't want to do this luke is so cute i'm so mad why am i doing this

that's in my notes over and over again but we know they make it right so does that not matter does nell make it emily well yeah but i mean they're not they're not thriving as adults well i guess like in some ways but they've all clearly struggled with some things um so luke sees a little girl in the distance and he waves to her um the dad hugh he is asking the groundskeeper about why the master key doesn't work in the red room the groundskeeper as we would expect is weird about it he's like i'm never here at night i don't know i don't know why it doesn't work like don't ask me about that key red flags this isn't a thing this isn't a thing. This isn't a thing. Red flags all over the place. Shirley hears something in the shed outside while she's playing with Nell.

She goes into the shed. This is a real tense scene. It's spooky music. It is slow. It is long. I was fast forwarding, closing my eyes. That's kind of how I feel about this entire series. She's hearing this noise. It's coming from underneath like a workbench. She's going in. She's going in. She like looks under the bench and there's a face and then it's okay. It's just a mask.

Don't worry. And there are a bunch of little baby kittens and they're cute little kittens. And that was the noise she was hearing. She's very excited to see of little baby kittens and they're cute little kittens. And that was the noise she was hearing. She's very excited to see the little baby kittens. Cut to her asking the dad, like, can I keep them? I love them. And the groundskeep and he's like, what about the dogs that are here at night? Isn't it dangerous to have cats around? And the groundskeeper is like, there aren't dogs on this property.

And the dad's like, but the kids hear them every night. And the groundskeeper is like, there's never seen a dog here in all the years I've worked. So ghost dogs. There are ghost dogs haunting the property at night. Then we cut back to present day. Shirley is having a conversation with her husband, Kevin. They co-run this funeral parlor together. He's chastising her for basically giving away too much stuff for free. He's like, we're in the red. We're not making a profit here. Our business is struggling because you keep

basically having prices for people. You're being too generous and she's fighting him on this and then a customer comes in and interrupts them and he's holding an old box of his mom's stuff um and she sees the old box and is clearly triggered by something and she uh starts to have she starts to get very stressed and quiets down and doesn't say anything is staring off into the distance. And then she sees someone sitting on the couch and then she shakes her head and that person is gone. Then it's a flashback to kind of the time period that Sammy was talking about where it's I don't know how many years ago came out. Yeah. Something like that.

Like it's clearly in the past. But Shirley and Stephen are on good terms enough at least to be doing this thing, which is putting Luke into rehab for the first time. So maybe it's like 10 years prior or eight years prior um and they're they're in the rehab they're talking to the woman they're saying we're gonna do it we're this is this is important to us the woman is explaining to him that luke's insurance has lapsed and so it's going to be more expensive than they previously thought it's six thousand dollars a month surely it's like i can i'll fucking make it work like i'm gonna make it work i'll like take out money from here blah blah blah and steven at

this point it's clearly it's before the book has come out obviously because steven he doesn't have enough money doesn't have enough money yeah and she says something like you can get me back once you're a famous once you're a famous writer like he's like he's working towards it but he hasn't had his big break yet exactly so clearly steven has been working and trying to're a famous writer. Like he's working towards it, but he hasn't had his big break yet. Exactly. So clearly Steven has been working and trying to become a famous writer. Uh-oh. Does he capitalize on his family's trauma?

I think he might. I think he might. Uh-oh. So this is before that has happened. They're trying to put Luke into rehab. They're all, she keeps being like, he's going to,

this is what he needs. He's gonna do it. It's gonna be okay. He's gonna get through it. Cut back to present day. She finds a checkbook in her husband's bag that just has his name on it. Doesn't have her name on it. Doesn't have their business name on it. She's

worried by this. She looked back at those carbon copies? Yeah. Great idea. No, she's a little, she's like worried she even saw it. She felt like she was snooping. She's like stressed. Sure. They have dinner

and she's chatting with Theo who lives in their, her sister, her younger sister with the gloves who lives in their back house her younger sister with the gloves um who lives in their back house and she's she's saying to her like i don't know what this is i'm worried um i don't basically like i don't know what to do um shirley has two children by the way a son and a daughter who are both very cute. Cut to the past. Shirley and the other kids are feeding the kittens that they found with an eyedropper.

Again, in my notes, it's just it's so cute. I want to kill myself. The kittens are so cute. And I remember this is a thing. Honestly, this is a thing with making this show. Yes, I read somewhere in the trivia, they didn't want kittens. They had to have robotic kittens. They were fake robot kittens.

And those are hard to make. And then also like VFX robot kittens. Yeah. It was expensive. And it's because you get close-ups of these like, they're extreme close-ups with very detailed of like. And specific things need to happen in these close-ups of these like they're extreme close-ups with very detailed of like and specific things need to happen in these close-ups little baby kittens i mean the thing is like it would be probably such a nightmare to work with kitten like kittens are so difficult they also can't get like a week old kitten on camera you can't yeah probably probably not I think legally they wouldn't let you do that. So they were like, fine, we'll make robots. Fine. Fine. Whatever.

Put it in the budget. We don't care. We don't care we'll make robots. We have to have them. So that night, still back in the past, Theo bursts into Shirley's room. She's like, why are you making all this noise stop banging the wall like stop calling my name and shirley's like i'm not doing that they're being haunted um there is banging in the walls it's loud it's scary um it's very scary honestly this scene is very scary uh they are screaming it's very loud the dad bursts in and is like, why are you screaming?

What the hell's going on? And they're like, what's that banging? Like, didn't you hear the banging? And he's like, no, I didn't hear anything. I don't know what you're talking about. And then he sits down on their bed and he's like, we're in an old house. There's hot water pipes. They're very loud.

We're fixing them, but they're going to make a lot of noise at night. And that's what you heard. Like, oh, logical. I don't know. Hot water pipes very loud. We're fixing them, but they're going to make a lot of noise at night. And that's what you heard. Like, oh, logical. I don't know. Hot water pipes are loud. This for sure was not what they were hearing. But I can see that as an adult being like, that's the thing that they were scared of. Yeah, probably.

It's probably that. He believes them. I think that's the main thing is that he's like. You're hearing something, but here's a logical explanation for it. Yeah. Yeah. He's not like. Which you would do you would do you'd be like oh let me explain and when you know what something is it's less scary yeah he's a good dad i think that's the main thing is that he's a good caring dad um oh and then while he's telling them this all of a sudden his face

morphs gets really long turns into a big, scary scream. And Shirley wakes up in adult life. And she's been having a nightmare remembering all this happened. Stephen calls Shirley at this point. She picks it up. And he tells her that Nell has killed herself. This is in the middle of the night. I wrote down that it's 2 22 AM.

So now I'm confused. Why did I write that down? That feels like it must be wrong. Cause 3 0 3 AM is when she killed herself. Yes, I had it at 3 0 3. And also it showed 12 0 3 because they're on different coasts at, at some point.

So it showed like different times, but it was definitely. Maybe I wrote that down wrong. I don't know. 1203 respectively. So Stephen calls Shirley the middle of the night. 603, depending on where you might be. Yep.

Lots of different options. Shirley is distraught, of course. Like she doesn't believe him. She's scared. She's terrified. She's crying. It's so sad. It's her baby sister now she

just like you must be wrong you must be wrong he's like no she killed herself um cut back to the past pre-teen shirley wakes up uh a 10 year old shirley whatever one of her kittens is dead uh she's very scary so she has a funeral with her parents for this one little baby kitten. The mom, beautiful earth goddess mother, gives her a beautiful speech about death. She tells her that when we

die, we become stories. And so that's why it's important at a funeral to talk about the person who's passed. That's beautiful. Do you tell a story about the person who's passed. Yeah. That's beautiful. Do you tell a story about the person who's passed away? Because that's what they become. They become the stories we tell about them,

which is beautiful. So she's telling a really cute story about the kitten where she's basically like, I don't remember its name. It might've been this one or this one. He was, whatever. We don't need to know the story. What happens is that while she's telling

this, she sees the kitten start to move. And it's kind of moving like it's breathing. And she's like, Oh! It's alive! The kitten's alive! It's alive! It's alive! And her parents are like, Oh, I don't know. And then a huge scary bug comes out of the kitten's mouth.

That's why it was moving, because this big old nasty bug was in there. Oh, that is very upsetting. It's very gross. And sad. It's not okay. Speaking of things that are not okay,

Shirley is insisting that she's the one to embalm Nell's body. We cut back to present day. Everyone's telling her it's a bad idea. Theo, her husband Kevin, they're like, don't do this. Don't do this. This is a bad idea.

She's insisting on it. Shirley is clearly very type A. She's very type A. She's very controlling. She has her life in order. Her life is in order. That's very controlling. She has her life in order. Her life is in order. That's what matters. And part of her life

being in order is her taking care of Nell's body. That is very important to her. She's got to be in charge of that. She cannot leave that important task to a stranger. Absolutely not. Doesn't have any friends in the embalming business she can hand it over to? No, she doesn't want to. Even if she did,

she wouldn't want to um that's her personality um and also through this conversation we find out that luke left rehab that morning that just comes up um we flash back to shirley as a little girl she's at a funeral and we realize it's her mom's funeral. There's a big picture of her mom. And she's terrified. It's an open casket funeral. She does not want to be there. And then we cut back to present. Shirley is down in the basement with Nell's body in a bag.

And then we got back to the past. And Shirley and Nell are looking at their kittens and they realize, Shirley and Nell together realize all the kittens are dead all of them have died so then Earth Goddess Mother, Carla

Gugino hair flowing everywhere is trying to explain to Shirley what what happened how this happened sometimes that like kittens need to be with their mom and they weren't with their mom and that's it's shir the middle of the speech and it's very intense she clearly like blacks out and cut to her in bed with hugh so embarrassed she's like i can't believe i just had this happen to me. Hugh calls it a color storm.

He's like, you just had one of your color storms. The mom is like, it wasn't colorful, though. It was just black. It was like black fireworks in my head. That's what was so weird about it. And I just totally traumatized my child. She's the most fucked up thing with death that's ever happened with her i couldn't i'd be there for her she's feeling very guilty cut to present day shirley literally sewing the scalp back onto now so awful like this conversation about with their parents being like oh no we traumatized our child

this is her first brush with death like she'll never be the same like interchanged with a scene for the adult shirley like ripping open her her sister's body like taking the organs out like yeah cutting open the skull like doing like all the intense in general the like scene handoffs in this show are excellent like so much thought is put into what ends one scene and goes into the next like there's always there's one coming up that's like devastating that i'll call out when we get to it jesus okay so then she shir has flashbacks to Nell's wedding. Okay, wait, that was the one. That was it?

Yeah, because it's like her doing the makeup on Nell's dead body and it match cuts to her doing the makeup at Nell's wedding. And I was just like, oh, it's a fucking gut punch of a transition. Yeah. Horrible. Horrible. of a transition. Yeah. Horrible. Horrible. She's doing the makeup on Nell and in the

past at her wedding and she sees a taxi pull up out of the window and Nell's like, what is it? And Shirley's like, nothing, nothing. I just need to get up for a second. Shirley runs outside. Luke is getting out of the taxi. Luke is clearly a little fucked up. Shirley is

angry at him and is like, what the fuck are you doing here? Do not ruin this for her. Do not ruin this for her. You're not allowed to be here. Luke really wants to be there. He's like, I'm here. Please let me stay. And Shirley's like, no. How much money do you need? Take

this. Just leave. Then she comes back. So he leaves. She comes back. Mel nell's like what was that um and shirley's like nothing nothing like it's your perfect day this day is so perfect and nell goes perfect in most ways something like that like almost perfect yeah and it's because she knows luke isn't going to be there yeah so sad okay then a bug crawls out of nell's dead body on the table oh god oh no it's really gross uh we'll flag what was the movie we did with emile hirsch yes autopsy of jane doe it was similar to that it was also though the thing i was thinking was this is

clearly not the actress as the corpse. Like they made a fake corpse. The corpse doesn't look like the actress, really. And it makes a difference to have it be a real live human. It's true. And then you cut back to Shirley, baby Shirley, at her mom's funeral. She's terrified to see the open casket. The funeral parlor man, man who owns the

funeral parlor, comes up to her and is like, don't worry. I got you. I fixed her. It's all okay. And he takes her hand and he leads her up to the casket. Shirley's crying. She's terrified. Her mom's dead. She looks in the casket. Her mom looks

like herself. And it somehow soothes Shirley. She like healed in a certain way and she looks at the funeral parlor man and is like you fixed her you really did and so there we go that's shirley's inspiration behind it all last scene of this episode she is leaving the embalming room with nell's's body on the table. She's looking in the room. She's about to turn the light off. She turns the light off. Bam, another body on the other table next to Nell. Very scary. All of a sudden, the body lifts up and it's her dead mom and she's smiling at her and she's holding a box. Shirley turns the light on and the mom is gone. She goes upstairs. She's like, I'm seeing things. I'm crazy.

There's a little model of the quote unquote forever house in the lobby of the funeral parlor the porch light goes on and off twice end of episode time to come inside i used to love back to school shopping so much that i would tell my mom that i wanted to work at staples when i grew up because i just loved getting all the things that i needed that I would use every day in class. I still to this day have nightmares about showing up in class without notebooks or number two pencils. Really scary stuff. But luckily I wake up and I realize I don't actually need notebooks or number two pencils

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So go to buyraycon.com slash too scary today to get 20 to 40% off site-wide. That's right, you'll get up to 40% off everything on Raycon's website when you go to buyraycon.com slash too scary buyraycon.com slash too scary. And to come inside where? I'm already inside, where do I go? scary and to come inside where i'm already inside where do i go okay uh episode three it's called touch we are now on to theodora who is the middle child and we open on a scene with her as a kid in bed um and we see an arm slip over her like someone's cuddling her from behind. She says, Nellie, is that you? Did you have another bad dream? The hand interlaces with her hand and is like squeezing her hand, and she's kind of half asleep saying, Nellie, you're squeezing me too

tight. Like, loosen up your grip a bit. Nellie, that's really tight. You're squeezing me too tight like loosen up your grip a bit nelly that's really tight you're you're hurting me gets annoyed turns over to yell at no there's nobody there um and young theodora is played by mckenna grace who is i feel like just the hardest working child in hollywood this little girl is in so much shit. She's 15. She has 62 acting credits on IMDb. She was in The Handmaid's Tale. She was in I, Tonya. She's in Malignant. She's in the new Ghostbusters. She was in Captain Marvel. She's in

so much shit. Every time I see her, I'm like, does this girl get no time off? She must be working constantly. I mean, she's great. I like her. I'm like, does this girl get no time off? Like, she must be working constantly. I mean, she's great. I like her. She's great.

But that's, yeah. That's too many. That's too many credits. That's not going to serve her well as a. It just makes me a little nervous. I feel like this girl needs some time off. She definitely does. McKenna, we're here for you.

McKenna, take some time off. McKenna, if you're listening, we're here for you. Yeah, she's so cute. But man, she really does need a break. Yeah, it's too much. It's too much for a child. And yeah, I mean, and she's been working since she's been in the single digits, at least. Oh, of course.

Of course. Well, I would hope so. It would be honestly more upsetting that's true that's true she's just making 20 movies a year um but okay so then we cut to present day theo we see that she works now as a child psychiatrist. She is speaking to a young girl who is a foster child who is

like acting something out with a dollhouse. She has like a little male doll and she is saying that this is where Mr. Smiley comes when he comes up. Here is where I usually see him. And Theo says, where does Mr. Smiley come from?

She moves the doll under the house. Mr. Smiley comes from the basement. She says he's always smiling, but he's not happy. It's very creepy. And Theo touches her when she has her gloves off and she touches her and it looks like she gets some information from touching her. So we kind of are suspecting that there's some psychic medium thing. Yes, that is the vibe that we're getting. Not just a cool style. Not just a cool style.

Not just a cool style choice, though. It does. There's a reason that it does. It does serve as that as well. It is funny, though, that like we like her gloves are really long, right? They're like over the fucking elbow. She's got a few different styles. She's got all kinds of gloves.

She's got some cool like driving gloves at one point. Yeah. The short ones. But then she also has elbow high ones as well those huge ones reminds me we went we went to the strip club last night and there was a woman there

who was wearing a headscarf sunglasses and a trench coat oh my god not a dancer a person no not a dancer a regular patron. And it was like the most obvious, like, I'm in

secret outfit I've ever seen. So it's so funny the idea of being like, wearing the most obvious thing, being like, don't make a big deal of it. Nobody look at me, nobody look at me. Like, look at my huge gloves. But like, just don't worry about it what you think that she

was trying to be inconspicuous genuinely it wasn't like a fashion choice trying to be ridiculously conspicuous okay okay i came to think that it was a huge joke it's it's but it was a very unclear it would be wild to think that that would be a actual way to have people not look at you it was like so ridiculously yeah it was very funny and when Joel got up to get a drink at one point there was he said that one of the dudes at the bar next to this girl said

so you're here incognito huh like yeah you're being really really obvious okay great so she's she's got all kinds of gloves yep we cut back to young Theo she says there's a scene

where her mom is like touching spots of air in the house saying does it feel cold to you here young Theo says it feels cold everywhere we see young Theo's always wearing sweaters she's when everyone else is not she is always Young Theo says it feels cold everywhere. We see young Theo's always wearing sweaters. She's when everyone else is not. She is always bundled up.

She says it's cold everywhere in the house. Nightmare. Yeah. We see her playing with Luke. And there's a like old timey little telephone thing that goes from the second story to the first story. That's like, you know, when you like tie cups together with string, it's like a fancy version of that little like metal, like looks like a gramophone kind of. That's fun. And so it can go it goes from an upstairs bedroom to the kitchen downstairs and uh it's her and luke and nell just exploring and trying to figure out

this thing messing around with it and they go up to the bedroom that it that it starts in and as theo is looking at it she rests her bare hand on the pillow of this bed that it is next to and pulls it away quickly and looks scared uh we then in present or not present day we go back to around when steven is publishing his book he has all the siblings seated around him and says they're all clearly annoyed by this definitely shirley is like the most mad um and the rest of them don't look happy, but are just resigned to it. They're kind of like, what the fuck? Like, why would you do this? And he's he's offering each of them eight percent of the profits.

And Shirley is like, hell no. Like, that's blood money. Keep all your fucking money like we don't want it the rest of them are a little quiet about it yeah like that um but they might as well get something uh-huh um but they all at least in this moment turn down the money uh back in present day we see theo at that same bar that she goes up to to pick up women it's all techno-y lights flashing and this is she just looks fucking cool as hell in this bar it's very it's very funny um and she sees the girl that she hooked up with in uh the first episode and the

girl smiles at her and starts walking towards her and she turns away from her and like turns her back to her gives her a real cold shoulder yikes in a way that we see really hurts this woman's feelings it's very rude yeah that would really that would really hurt my feelings yeah if you've made eye contact with someone started walking towards them and then they're like someone that you've slept we flash back to again the kids playing and also running between the kitchen and the upstairs is a dumb waiter that's not gonna be good i hate all these things i hate them so much and we see that luke has squeezed himself into the dumb waiter which you hate to see cute little glasses cute little glasses kid he's like trying to close himself in there he's talking to theo being like press me push me down i like want to go up no no no no it's not everybody's we see the the housekeeper miss

mrs dudley trying to get him out of it she's getting upset by it and theo touches her and luke says why are you being so angry why are you so angry about this and theo touches her and feels and she turns to luke and says she's not angry she's scared she's scared and miss dudley looks at theo suspiciously. Like, how did she know that? Later that night, Luke, again, is in the dumbwaiter by himself and convinces Theo to close him into it. He's like, come on, please. Like, nobody's here. Nobody's stopping us. Like, just let's do it. She's like, okay, fine.

Like, real quick. Like, I'll send you upstairs. And then you have to come and then come right back down and then we'll for sure he will for sure he will never do it again nothing could go wrong she closes him in she presses the up button but he goes down and he yells theo i wanted to go up and she's pressing the up she's like i pressed up up. I pressed up. He's going down. They're on the bottom floor of the house. There is no floor below them. And he is just going down. And sure enough, we see him lowered into the basement, the basement that they didn't even know existed.

It is a dirt floor. There's not even floorboards in this basement. It's just dirt and old barrels, cobwebs, pitch black. He has a flashlight with him. I gotta say, I never watched any of this. I closed my eyes and shut my ears. It's scary. This is a really scary scene.

Yeah, this is the scary. I think this is one of the scariest parts of the whole series. He has a flashlight. He is shining it around the room and from behind one of the scariest parts of the whole series. He has a flashlight. He is shining it around the room. And from behind one of the barrels, a hand reaches out and starts pulling toward dragging something towards him. We see that it is a fucking scary ass zombie like torso looking thing. It's like a bloodied torso crawling towards him he's screaming in terror theo is freaking out like trying to press the button like look look look

and this uh zombies crawling towards him the parents hear what's happening they get down and are also like what the fuck is going on? Pressing buttons. Eventually, they're able to get the dumb waiter to come back up. They open it, get Luke out. His pajamas are ripped. He is sobbing. And they say, you know, what happened?

What are you doing? They're yelling at Theo. Like, what were you thinking? Theo's crying, saying, I'm so sorry. Is he okay he says you know the the monster got got me like rip like attacked me and they of course are like well you probably just caught your pajamas in the thing or something probably and he says at some point that there was a ladder down there. Then we cut back to present day and we see Theo in bed sleeping and the sheets just start pulling off of her, which is a creepy thing that also happens in a lot of ghost stuff. And she eventually feels the sheets coming off and looks down to the foot of her bed and there is mr smiley just like

a creepy ass it's almost like a little pumpkin head looking thing with a huge smile staring at her it's a big jump scare she screams and wakes up and i think it's like a dream within a dream and she like says oh that kid's like really getting in my head and then there's a knock at the door and it's surely after she has received the news about nell and then there's a flashback again to nell's wedding and nell and steven are looking for the maid of honor who's supposed to give a toast. And they get her location to a room upstairs. They hear her moaning in the room. And they're like, oh, my God.

Who is she hooking up with? They're taking bets on who it's going to be. They open the door. And it's Theo. And they didn't know she was gay. And this is the moment that they're like, we didn't know you liked. And she says, bridesmaids. And they all have a laugh.

Then back to them as kids. We see that Luke is upset that nobody believes him. That there was a monster in the basement theo touches him and says i i believe you and theo says you said there was a ladder in there right like if that's like how far away was it we can maybe pinpoint the location of the ladder based on you know the floor plan type of thing like how many steps away do you think it was and so they go back into the kitchen and recreate the distance of where the ladder would be. And Theo moves some furniture out of the way. And we see there is a little false floor,

little trap door to a basement. They pull it open and there is a like hidden little glimpse of a ghost face under the stairs and this is something that mike flanagan did sprinkled throughout all of these episodes apparently there's like over 30 hidden ghosts in the background oh that's fun and they're never played as like a jump scare or anything they're just like in there if you can spot them and this was the first one i saw but probably wasn't actually the first one in there but just the first one i noticed um and we see her going into the basement she doesn't see a monster but like we see that luke was telling the truth there's a creepy ass basement down here and uh present day theo goes to the house of the foster parents of the girl who sees mr smiley and asks if she can go into their basement because that's where mr smiley comes from

and she's exploring the basement she takes off her gloves she's touching things and there's a couch down there she touches it lays down in it and has a big reaction it's like oh god oh god don't please no please no starts crying sobbing and is laying down looking up at the ceiling of this basement and the way the like wood markings in the ceiling form a big big smiley face and so oh it's really fucking devastating so she like is very upset and as she is leaving the house sees the foster dad and takes off her glove to shake his hand and is acting like everything's fine and she's like yeah sorry i know that was weird to ask to just see your basement but I'm just trying to get a better understanding of your daughter. And she shakes his hand and gets a, like, really knowing look and looks very scared and angry and leaves and makes a phone call in her car.

I would like to report some child abuse happening in this house. I'm positive. Like, there's no doubt in my mind oh it's so sad it's so sad it's so because also you know what you know what this also really made me feel is to be a medium in any way you have to allow you have to be so brave to like open yourself up to feeling these feelings that other people are having because you can like intellectually know about them but to actually feel them horrible horrifying yeah terrifying yeah yeah so scary it's way scary that's what she's doing

i know horrible yeah that's true oof it really is devastating um so then a flashback we see uh there's been a few little moments where the mom has noticed theo knowing things that she shouldn't know like there was a box that they were going to throw away that she's like no i think that box is special and it had a very expensive bottle of wine in it and her mom has been kind of tracking these moments and says, are you like, how did you know that? And how do you know these things? And Theo's not really admitting anything, but she says, you know how I get my migraines. Like sometimes I see things in those. And your grandma was also very sensitive. And I had always wondered if you girls would be sensitive any of you girls would have that sensitivity as well and she hands her a box and says this will help she opens the box

and it is gloves she says that that this will help you um block those things out um and then uh we've seen in the previous episode that while shirley has been prepping nell's body uh theo has been like i i'm not ready i'm not ready to see her i don't want to i don't want to be in there i'm not ready for that but in this moment, she, by herself at nighttime, goes down into this funeral, like the morgue room where Nell's body is and is looking at her and takes her glove off and goes to put her hand on Nell's forehead. forehead holds it there for a second and then like steps back and collapses like scream crying like a huge fucking cry like she it's like the whole episode theo is pretty emotionless like it's clear that a lot of her reaction has been or a lot of her reaction to trauma has been to like kind of keep everyone away and like hide from her emotions and this is just like an explosion of emotion she's screamed she's got a huge fucking reaction to this it's really gnarly and then it cuts to her sitting

on the porch drinking and crying and she's drinking gen. I noticed that the bottle says Gen Beam. I love when they do that in shows. It's so funny. Like, no, we didn't use your product. This is not. This is Gen Beam. So I don't know what you're talking about because this couldn't be more different. This is not that. This is very far from that.

We're drinking Sprite. We're not drinking Sprite. I don't know what you're talking about. drinking sproit i don't know what you're talking about uh and kevin shirley's husband comes out and they have an exchange in which they reveal that both of them did accept the eight percent money from steven and uh are keeping it a secret from uh shirley and that's what his secret checkbook is i think it's because uh theo like, you might want to hide your checkbook better and like, whatever. We both have secrets that we're keeping. And then she sees that the girl that she hooked up with previously had left her phone number. She decides to call her and the girl comes over and Theo immediately starts hooking up

with her without even saying a word. The girl says, you know, can we slow down? Can we talk for a second? Like, I'm feeling a little used here. Like, can we just like, how was your day? And Theo is like, how was my day? Well, I found out that one of the kids that I'm talking to was being molested by their foster parent. I just saw my dead sister downstairs. She just like does this huge emotional dumping. That's pretty unfair, I think. Deeply.

And she says, so do you want to talk about our days or do you want to just kiss me? And shockingly, the girl looks like so sympathetic and just starts kissing her and i'm like i don't you're immediately turned off you're like okay that's a lot and i want to be there for you but you're a stranger i don't know you and i'm not horny anymore i'm not horny anymore i'm not horny anymore that's the thing've been sorry, but I just simply am not. Especially when it's like, the kid I'm seeing was molested. Don't you want to have sex with me?

I actually don't want to have sex with you right now. Yeah, that was actually a lot. And I think it'd be troubling if I did. Yeah. I agree. Unrealistic. But she does. She does. We get one more flashback of their last night in hill house as the dad is getting all of the kids out um he goes to grab theo and when he touches theo

she looks very scared pulls away from him and says don't touch me don't touch me start screaming don't touch me and cut back to present day her hooking up with this girl and she says touch me end of the episode is a stupid ending i think but my plan again was like look at my wife she's so hot she's so hot she's so hot look at her have sex with this woman. I'm not weird for writing this. I'm not weird for writing this. She's hot. She's hot. She's hot. This isn't a personal fantasy of mine.

It's the show. It's the show. It's the show. This is the best possible choice for the show. Everybody shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Let's do another take. We're not done. We're not done. Nobody goes home. Nobody goes home. Watch my wife. Watch her. Look at her. Look at her. Look at her. not done one more we're not done nobody goes home nobody goes home watch my wife watch her

look at her look at her look at her look at her oh my god um okay i honestly i'm like but i'm like bummed out that we don't have time to keep going because now i'm like fucking hooked it's really it's really good and yeah I feel like it's just a very well-made show, which is just a nightmare for Henley and the people at Paramount to hear. They were disappointed. They're like, wait, what?

It's doing well in the editing room? No, get Mike Flanagan out of there. No, no one can edit it. It's gotta be bad. He just keeps trying to watch that one scene with his wife over and over again. He keeps making us re-edit that scene. Fucking weird. But wait, Henley, also, I wanted to ask you. So Mike Flanagan has another series coming up called The Midnight Club.

Do you know anything about that? I do. I didn't work on it at Netflix. My colleague, Lauren O'Brien. Shout out to Lauren. Hi, Lauren. 100% doesn't listen to this and never will but she worked on it

and all I know is that it's shot in Vancouver and we have an overall Netflix has an overall deal with Mike Flanagan so he's had Midnight Club we did Midnight Mass and then there's another Mike Flanagan Echoes is him too I, I think.

I think that's him. And just for some really boring context for what I do, my job is to manage all the physical assets that we're purchasing on all of our productions at Netflix. So, tracking a lot of costumes, props. We put them on displays in museums, dealing with that kind of thing. The tricky thing with our overall deals with someone like Mike Flanagan, he has all these productions going at the same time.

They're all the same crew working on them. These sneaky little costume designers, sneaky little production designers, prop masters, they're 100% reusing things, keeping things in their like living rooms, because they're never like not working. You know what I mean?

And that makes it tricky for the studio, the boring studio that I work for to have viz into what's going on. So we're always, I mean, Lauren anyway is always like, I don't know what the hell happened to these costumes because I'm pretty sure the costume designer has them like in her garage and didn't tell us. They disappeared like ghosts. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it shows haunted. Ghosts took them. I don't know. I really love the Mike Flanagan series, except I didn't watch, I didn't finish Haunting of Bly Manor which is maybe I should I think I watched like all except for the last two I just couldn't get into it

to be completely frank I find Haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass bad I didn't like either of them but I liked Haunting of Hill House a lot of people did people really liked Midnight Mass I was one of them but Tony Heads

we will be back with part two of our three part series on Haunting of Hill House and I can't freaking wait I really love this show I can't freaking wait I'm excited I really am hooked I'm hooked

love you guys so much love you guys so much I can't freaking wait. I'm excited. I'm excited. I really am hooked. Yep. Good. Okay. Love you guys so much. Love you. Love you guys so much. Bye. Bye. Bye. That was a HeadGum Podcast.