Hill House Rewatch: Screaming Meemies
We have arrived at one of the most revealing episodes of "The Haunting of Hill House." We have seen episodes of every main character, including the house itself. Until now, we haven't seen an episode for Olivia Crain (Carla Gugino).
Through the preceding eight episodes, we have been given hints of what happened to make them leave Hill House, and it involved Olivia. We have also seen Olivia slowly become scattered and act in increasingly concerning ways. This episode ties the first eight together and perfectly sets up the finale.
Before we get to the event that destroys the family, we need to talk about Olivia's behavior. A lot of what goes wrong with Olivia is because of Poppy Hill. Olivia is not in a good place when Poppy first shows up to her, but it is Poppy that pushes Olivia down the path that ends in her death. She gets in Olivia's head by preying on her worries about Luke and Nell. Olivia is reading in her reading room ("Which one is her reading room?" asks Sherley later-this is essential). When she gets a migraine, she goes to get medicine and goes back to the room. Instead, she walks into Sherley's preparation room and sees Nell on the prep table. She is shocked and stumbles backward into Luke, lying on the floor, dead of an overdose.
It is visions like this that Poppy exploits. Poppy keeps bringing up dreams where her children are in trouble and keeps asking if Olivia would wake them up from that dream. Poppy slowly chips away at Olivia's sanity until she snaps. Hugh is able to convince her to spend a few days at her sister Janet's house. She says goodbye to her family and leaves in a cab. Later she calls Hugh, her voice is very monotone, and we can see she is not at Janet's house; she is at the hotel near Hill House.
That night, Sherley gets some food from the kitchen and sees Olivia making tea. She is confused, and Olivia cannot give her a satisfactory answer. She finds her dad asleep on the couch and tells him that she saw Olivia. He runs to the kitchen and sees the bottle of rat poison he was going to use to kill the rats in the basement (it wasn't rats, by the way). He runs out to find Olivia.
Meanwhile, Olivia goes to Luke and Nell's room. Luke had invited Abigal to a sleepover; it turns out his imaginary friend wasn't so imaginary. She tells them they are going to have a tea party. She walks the three children to The Red Room. Nell asks if she found the key, and Olivia tells her, "we are the key." They walk in to have a tea party. After Olivia tells them how she is going to wake them up and Abaigal takes a drink. Immediately the twins know something is wrong. After Abigail dies, Hugh runs in and swipes the tea set off the table. Olivia fights him, and he pushes her. She hits her head on the wall and twists her ankle. Hugh uses this time to get the twins and the others out of the house. He returns to get Steven, and we get a replay of the scene from the first episode with Steven and Hugh in Steven's room. Olivia tries to get in the room, and when she moves on, Hugh and Steven make a run for it.
With her family gone, Olivia is alone with the ghosts of Hill House. This is when Poppy returns and tells Oliva that Hugh is killing her children, driving them toward sickness and disease. Olivia wants to wake up, so she jumps off the library balcony, the same one her daughter would hang herself from years later.
The last scene of the episode is one of the best in the series. It is the first day the Craine's arrived at Hill House. The kids run around taking in their home for the summer. Then start arguing over what room they each get. Hugh tells them he will show them their rooms. Olivia says she is just going to stay there.
Hugh: "Are you sure?"
Olivia, "You guys, go on without me."
Hugh: "How could we?"
It is a beautiful scene that juxtaposes the first moments at Hill House with the last moments. Olivia and Hugh's final lines also carry a lot of weight since we know what happened to the family without her. Without her, they fractured. How could they go on without her? The truth is, they couldn't.
Random Ramblings:
Hazel Hill shows up and tells Olivia that Poppy lies. Not all the ghosts in Hill House have evil intentions.
Poppy is widely considered the personification of the malevolent side of Hill House. We will meet the benevolent side in the final episode.
All season, it has been a mystery of what drove the Crain's out of Hill House, and it is assumed that it was some supernatural force. And while those forces played a part, it was a more natural phenomenon that was the ultimate cause.
