Dead Doesn't Mean Gone - A Haunting of Bly Manor Video Essay

"In Paris, I was a sous chef. Which means they only let me chop vegetables" "In Paris, I was a sous chef. Which means they only let me chop vegetables" "In Paris, I was a sous chef. Which means they only let me chop vegetables" "In Paris, I was a sous chef. Which means they only let me chop vegetables" "In Paris, I was a sous chef. Which means they only let me chop vegetables"

mike flanagan saying he genuinely thought he and the team were making a happy ending and then finding out people are upset then going "i don't know what a happy ending is" is such a mood tho

In Hill House the five kids are representative of the five stages of grief. here we have Hannah who denies her death, Viola who is trapped in her anger, Peter who bargains to find a way forward, Rebecca stuck in depression over circumstance until she finds the strenght to act, and Victoria Pedretti, yet again, accept it.

As a gay person, watching a horror show where being gay only brings joy and love for a doomed character it is a relieaf. Usually being gay only makes things worst for a character in a show.

as a lesbian, i don't think this is an example of bury your gays either because both gay characters are given fulfilling roles and a fulfilling relationship, they were together for about 13 years after bly and lived very happily. the ending was a tragedy, yes, but it felt like a natural and organic conclusion, it didn't feel cheap or malicious or done for shock value

My favorite line in the season was when Dani says "People...mix up love and possession. I don't think that should be possible. They're opposites really: love and ownership." The way she says it is so casual; she hasn't put a lot of thought into it, and she isn't expecting validation. She's just stating what, to her, is obvious. To her, love is free, and freeing, and kind. That's what makes it possible for her to do what she does with Viola. That generous love is the neutralizing opposite of Viola's cruel possession.

"Alcohol you later" was a brilliant joke lol

Am I the only one who thinks that Dani did get a happy ending? Sure, she did die and she will eventually fade away and forget Jamie, but as shown with Viola and her rage/loneliness, ghosts cling onto their most powerful emotions. And Dani died for love.

"Do you want company, while you wait for your beast in the jungle, do you want company" That has got to be the single most selfless show of love I have ever seen in any media ever. She knows with full clarity what she's headed for, the loss, the pain, the grief. Whether it's in a year, or in 20, but she's still offering herself, freely, it's that simple. The work of loving Dani is worth the pain of losing her, and that's all there is to it. And it's everything.

Me starting Bly: "oh boy "I'm going to find every single easter egg ghost, try and stop me!" Me finishing Bly: sobbing at 4am after powering through through the entire series

The fact that Hannah kept “replaying” her first meeting with Owen as she came to grasp the reality of her situation.... that she always found him a comfort from the beginning... that Owen was a source of strength for her because she loves and is loved by him.... wait hold on

Hannah Grose is such an underrated character and her and Owen's love story is one of the sweetest and most sad things I've ever watched

The moment when I realized that Hannah had been dead from before we first even saw her was wild. Evreything just clicked, the reason she was always zoning out, the fact that she never ate, it was incredible

I know a lot of people got kind of frustrated with Edmund for haunting Dani. Always showing up at the most inopportune moments. When we wanted him to the least. However, I never saw Edmund as a ghost per sé. No, instead I saw him as Dani's guilt. Taken shape and form into Edmund's "ghost". The guilt of feeling She was the one who got her best friend killed. And she carried that guilt everywhere, and the only time it would appear was when she looked in the mirror, for it was the one thing she couldn't bear to do, to look at herself and not be reminded of what she felt she had done. And when she could no longer avoid mirrors, Edmund as her guilt would appear to her whenever she got close with Jamie, as if it were reminding her that even her feelings for another woman haunt her. As she had been secretly struggling with even before during her wedding planning. That scene in which the young woman taking Dani's measurements for her wedding dress began to flirt with her secretly (though come on, not that subtle lol), was very telling in how much Dani struggled with how she really wanted to feel versus how she thought she Should feel with Edmund. So it was quite revelatory (for me anyway) to witness her guilt pretty much saying "Fine, you don't want to face me in the mirror, then I'll just stand here right in front of you." And that night she grabs the bottle of wine, gets drunk and goes out to the bonfire to burn the glasses, when she does face Edmund and says "I guess it's just you and me then." It's like she does come to a place of acceptance with her guilt, as if to say "Yeah, I see you. I acknowledge you. But I no longer choose to be afraid of you. I want what I want and what I want is to live my life and find love. With whomever I choose." It's just such a powerful moment to me, that the minute we no longer let our guilt run our lives, and we acknowledge its presence and accept it, it's when we can begin to live. Same thing with Henry and his guilt in the form of his doppelganger. He has had it with being imprisoned by his guilt and not only takes ownership of his mistakes but takes back control of his life in order to be the father and uncle he knew he could be.

Man, I can't tell you just how beautiful and tragic this show is. Also, it was so genuinely refreshing to see a character with Indian heritage be presented with genuine nuance, characterization, and depth, and wasn't just mocked and made fun of all the time.

My favorite thing is that despite having a couple of the same actors in both series, the characters feel so distinct. I completely forgot Luke and Peter had the same actor. And I think that's really awesome.

I haven't even seen the show, but Rebecca offering to feel the drowning for Flora actually had me crying. The love and courage to offer that when you know just how much it will hurt, but she probably couldn't have imagined doing anything else because she's a good person about to otherwise helplessly watch a child drown.

"Rhymes rather than repeats" What an excellent description!

Me watching The Haunting of Bly Manor Hannah sees wall crack: No Hannah spacing out: NO. Characters talking about Hannah's "disappearances".: Absolutely not! Stupid Peter calling her to the well to 'look down': I FORBID THIS! Hannah saying yes to Owen's let's runaway proposal: Do my tears fuel your car, Mike Flanagan?!

Also another bit of foreshadowing I noticed was in Floras dolls, all the living characters are represented by average Barbie type dolls, while all the ghosts look as if they were handmade Including Hannah