The Haunting of Hill House: Episode Six

 Family gatherings can be stressful, even more so when you have unresolved issues with some relatives.

For the Crains, their family gathers for a funeral of a loved one and they are all traumatized by it and whatever happened in the past.

A flashback shows the Crains in the house when the storm hits and the chandelier falls. Hugh worries that the family may be harmed by the force of the storm that is smashing windows.

In the present, the family comes together for the funeral, but it isn’t long before they all get into an argument, their pain raked by watching Nell in the casket.

Steve claims that Hugh lied about their mother Olivia’s mental condition. She had gone insane and had committed suicide. That madness must run in the family which is why Nell too committed suicide.

Hugh maintains that wasn’t what happened to Olivia but Steve thinks he knows best.

In the past, the storm causes a blackout and Nell disappears. The kids stay downstairs while Olivia goes look for her daughter. She encounters a ghost and follows it. Hugh follows her and finds it strange that she goes in one direction and ends up at another, and also appears to be in a trance.

Hugh sees her standing in front of a window that shatters. He braces for impact but it is all an illusion. The children downstairs scream and he rushes to find them frantically talking about seeing a wild animal.

In the present, Shirley is angered when she sees black buttons on Nell’s eyes and wonders who could have done this.

Steve sees his mother’s ghost and thinks it’s his imagination. The family gets into an argument and Shirley tells Steve how disgusted she is with what he wrote in his book. Theo is fed up of being belittled by Shirley and confesses she took the money Steve was offered for his book. Shirley is ashamed of her for taking blood money but Theo says she used the money for her education and to make something of herself.

Steve tells Shirley to back off Theo and to get off her high horse and when Shirley doesn’t relent, her husband reveals that they took the money too. In fact, he had without her knowledge because even though she was kind enough to offer pro bono services to some clients, the business was being run to the ground. To save it, he had to take the money.

Shirley is finally off her high horse and feels terrible that she had participated in Steve’s charade of their family.

More arguments follow and suddenly Nell’s casket collapses. The family stops fighting.

In the past, the parents finally find Nell standing in front of them. She claims she was always there but no one could see her and she tried to scream but no one could hear her.

Clearly, she was marked by the house and was going to be taken by it.

In the present, Luke remembers how relieved he had been to find his twin and how she kept saying she was always there but no one could see her.

Shirley is walking around the house and finds her husband and Theo together and assumes the worst.

The casket is put upright and the family leaves. Behind them, Nell, her neck all bent, stares after them. She had always been in the room with her feuding family.

She was the one who had dropped the casket so they would stop fighting...