While this episode is called "The Twin Thing," Luke is its focus. All the Crain kids are messed up from what happened, but Luke deals with it in the unhealthiest way. He turns to drugs. Luke has been in and out of rehab, but up until two days before the show's events, Luke was 90 days clean. He seems to be making fantastic progress, but this is the episode that tests him and his ability to stay sober.

The same night he gets his chip, Luke wakes up and 12:03 (the time Nell killed herself) and sees Nell. She says, "Go!" He finds out the following day that his friend Joey has left. He goes to find her. He calls Nell from a payphone and then sees a man in a bowler hat standing, back facing him from across the park. Nell has The Bent-Neck Lady, and Luke has the man in the bowler hat.

Not much significance happens in the flashbacks, and I wouldn't talk about it except that we need to talk about Luke's ghost. In the first flashback, Claire has a box of stuff they will sell. Luke sees a bowler hat and asks if he can have it. His parents give it to him. Then in a later flashback, Luke wakes in the night and sees a tall man floating down the hall, opening all the doors. He rushes back into his room and under the bed. The man gets to his room, comes in, and takes the hat Luke took from the box. As he leaves, he hears Luke, comes back, lifts the bed, and looks under it.

Luke finds Joey and calls the rehab but is told they gave up their spots by leaving. Luke tells Joey he will get her a motel. This is why we saw Luke rob Steve in the first episode.

Everyone in Luke's family has given up on him, except for Nell. In a flashback, we see Luke bring Joey to Steve's house for dinner on a day pass. These scenes are so tense. Clearly, Steven has such a distrust of Luke. Even as Joey talks about addiction and all that comes with it, Steven is over it. He doesn't want to hear this. He has run out of patience for Luke. Later, Luke tries to talk to Steve about what it is like to go through withdrawal, but Steve has no part. He doesn't care that Joey was there for Luke while he was going through the worst withdrawal.

Then we go back to the night he robbed Steven. Joey tells Luke to wait for a second while she goes to get one last hit. She leans in and kisses Luke. This is a distraction, and she steals the money. Luke is abandoned and alone, and suddenly, the man in the bowler hat shows up. He gets mugged and has his jacket and shoes taken. He is at his lowest at this point. He starts walking and counting to seven. Every time he gets to seven, he turns around and sees the man in the bowler hat. Later in the episode, back at Hill House, we see the origin of this. When the Bent-Neck Lady wakes up Nell, Luke sets out seven buttons, one for each family member. He says he tells her to touch each one and count out loud, which will keep her safe. It is a coping mechanism he came up with as a child that he goes back to as an adult when things are at their worst for him, but he wants to stay sober.

At night, he calls the rehab, and the woman in charge and Steven come to get him. He breaks down because he could not save Joey. When Steven gets a chance to tell him about Nell, Luke is in shock. Then Steven says it was suicide, and Luke snaps out of it and says, "no, it wasn't."

Random Rambling

• I like that they play up that Luke's "imaginary friend," Abigail, might be a ghost.

• There is a lot of talk about "the twin thing," and I love how much it is used in this episode. They know what each other is feeling; when one of them feels it, the other does too. I think it explains why Nell is the only Crain child to never give up on Luke and his sobriety.