Hill House Rewatch: Witness Marks
At this point in "The Haunting of Hill House," every main character has been given an episode. All that is, except one; Hill House itself. If any character is at the center of this episode, it is the house. Hill House has been a background player this entire season. It is the darkness that looms over every person and interaction we have watched thus far. I'll get to the bits with the human characters in the Random Rambling below, but the main focus will be Hill House.
The credit card company calls and tells Sherley that Luke used her card at a gas station in Amherst-which is on the way to Hill House. Steve and Hugh, who have been looking for Luke, tell Theo and Sherley that they will get him. They get to the gas station and ask the attendant for any information. They get told that Luke bought five gas cans and filled them. This is when Hugh realizes that Luke is not going to Hill House to kill himself; he is going to burn the house down.
The conversation that ensues in the car is one of the more revealing. Hugh tells Steven that the house is the most dangerous place for any of the kids to be. He tells Steven that the house will defend itself and that the family is like an unfinished meal for the house.
My favorite horror movie genre is the haunted house movie because a good one makes the house a character in some way. This show has been doing that bit by bit. We have seen little anecdotes of the people in the house and things that happened before the Crane family showed up. This is the episode it is fully acknowledged as a being with a personality.
Hill House wants them back. It is not a leap to see all the ghost encounters they have experienced since leaving Hill House as it calling them back. When Luke gets to Hill House, the lights turn on, much as they did for Nell when she returned. Luke enters the house, pours the five gas cans, and throws his lighter on the floor. The gas ignites and goes out. Then Luke sees Olivia, and she extends her hand, inviting him to come with her. I have always seen this version of Olivia as the personification of the house. This is the one who pushed Nell off the stairs leading to her death, and this version will play a big part in the last few episodes.
Random Ramblings:
In the car, Steven reveals that he and his wife are taking a break because he got a vasectomy after college. This was before they started dating, and he never told her, even when she told him she wanted kids.
Sherley stays at her house while her husband takes the kids trick or treating. Someone...or something keeps knocking on her doors and windows. I have never been sure about this. It doesn't seem related to any specific ghost in Hill House.
A lot comes out during the car ride with Hugh and Steven. Hugh tells Steven about something he got wrong in his book:
Steven did, in fact, see a ghost at Hill House. his dad hired the man Steven thought to fix the grandfather clock was a ghost. The conversation about witness marks is also fascinating,
Steven brings up the tree house, and Hugh says he never built them a tree house. This is HUGE. It gets to a few throwaway lines where someone questions what room people are talking about. The reveal of what this means is my favorite in the show.
Theo and Sherley have a massive fight in the car that is interrupted by Nell. The car swerves off the road, and both women get out. This is when Theo breaks down and gives one of the most powerful performances of the series. She says that when she touched Nell, he felt nothing and continued to feel nothing until she was in the closet with Kevin, Sherley's husband, and tried to kiss him. At that moment, she began to feel again.
