“The Twin Thing” aka are bowler hats always creepy?

TV Review // The Haunting of Hill House

I fully realize that the new season of “The Haunting” is only 4 DAYS AWAY and I’m very behind on my recap of the first season of this beautifully tragic show. It’s also October and the only thing I have planned is a recap of this very show that I fell behind on… First time blogger issues or an entry from a perpetual procrastinator? I’ll take the hit for both accounts. Regardless, in rewatching Hill House, I found tiny joy in the episode titles. “The Twin Thing” is referenced out loud here, but Flanagan finds ways to subtly pay homage to both the book the show is based on and the titles, subtly or not. (I love easter eggs) Twin telepathy is somewhat of a myth that Flanagan plays to great effect. He stays mostly in the present day of the siblings, using the past to explain their current inflictions, mainly through ghost sightings and interactions with their family. The twins here of course are Luke and Nell who, as adults, are the most tragic figures that are so haunted and vulnerable that we must root for them. Seriously, if you saw a bent-neck lady floating above your bed, I think you’d be pretty fucked up too. 

Here, we are introduced to young Luke’s haunting, which I actually don’t remember being that creepy at first, but seeing a tall ghost using a cane to propel his FLOATING figure along a dark hallway will definitely get the creeps going. You’ve got it all; tapping, creepy height factor, menacing breathing. He also bends down to check under the bed which shows an intelligence I’d prefer ghosts to not have. 

Little Luke with his big ole glasses are also too cute BUT grown Luke is holy smokes, so hot and conflicted. All of the Crain siblings (are hot) carry the weight of the occurrences at Hill House, but clearly Luke and Nell were hit the hardest. In the present, Luke is in rehab, which we have gathered from the oldest Crains, has usually gone pretty poorly for him. He is 90 days clean and he wants to tell his family but knows that they won’t believe him. He’s shown to be shivering, baggy eyed, and rubbing his neck as the episode progresses which could be taken as a relapse, but it’s quickly clear that the twin thing triggered by Nell’s death (that he does not know of yet) is affecting him. Joey, the friend he makes in rehab, is 9 months clean and dips out for some stupid reason. Luke takes a sighting of Nell as a prompt to go bring her back. Luke believes it’s because Joey would have done the same for him, but really he’s just proving himself to his inner child. While on this venture, he gradually feels worse and worse because of his twin connection WHILE being stalked by the bowler hat gentleman from his childhood. Oliver Jackson-Cohen (hot Luke) delivers one of the saddest, more subtle pieces of dialogue when he’s found by Steve at the end of the episode: “It’s so cold and I just need a bed and it’s SO cold, I promise I’m clean” If you don’t get it, he’s cold because Nell is dead :(

Using the topic of addiction was an easy way to show that hauntings can come from anywhere. Who is to say that the runny egg vision from one of the patients at Luke’s rehab isn’t as real as the ghosts throughout Hill House? The remnants of war or the death of a loved one can equate to the same price. 

Summary: It’s called ACTING, PEOPLE. The actors in this show are SO GOOD.