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This was a triumph
by Chris

previous entry: Gun range

next entry: Theme 422

Haunting of Bly Manor

10/15/2020

Spoilers ahead.

After Haunting of Hill House, this one has been a pretty big disappointment. I'm not finished with it yet, but last night I watched episode 5, and I'm beginning to lose my patience with it. At first, the story was doing a very good job of the "show, don't tell" aspect, and attempting to be subtle about what's been going on with the characters, albeit a bit too focused on the non horror, drama side of things for a bit too long. I was willing to be patient, even if I felt that the build up was a bit too slow. But the 5th episode, man...

It was a full hour of one of the characters basically being whisked through space and time explaining things we already knew. It was the same effect they used in Haunting of Hill House to explain the Broken Neck Lady, which was done in an extremely compelling way. But when they did it here, I just felt like we sat through the same 3 scenes 5 times in a row with a couple of other expository scenes sprinkled in. It's like if a comedian did an hour of pretty okay comedy, and then spent a second hour explaining all the jokes he did in the first hour. We fucking get it, dude. To paint a specific example, one of the children, Miles, was thought to have been possessed by the ghost of Peter Quinn. It's been laid on a bit too thick that the kid has multiple personalities, and he's been taking on pretty much every aspect of Peter's personality and physical quirks except for the accent. And then they spent like a full 25 minutes explaining it in episode 5 like it was somehow this big twist. We spent another 25 minutes watching the show explain that Hannah is some sort of ghost figure, and that she's basically been dead the whole time... another thing we already goddamn knew, considering the fact that the show has been doing its best to zoom in the fact that she doesn't really eat, drink, or leave the grounds, and makes weak excuses every time she has to do that.

Don't get me wrong, I get why they had to spell these things out, but to be honest, I didn't need a full hour of explaining it. I'm much more interested in Dani's ex fiance who keeps showing up, and when she finally accepted it and addressed him in front of the campfire, they whisked us away to spend an hour re-telling a story that's already been explained through the previous four episodes in (slightly) subtle clues.

I'm going to watch the rest of it, but I already know the payoff isn't going to be as good as the previous Haunting show, considering how annoyed I am with the pacing thus far.

previous entry: Gun range

next entry: Theme 422

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We finished the season the night before last, and I was impressed by it. Granted, I don't think it was on the same level as Hill House, and it was definitely more of a love story than a ghost story, but apparently that was the point this time around.
I did enjoy it, and the last episode tied it all together pretty well. There are a few questions that didn't get answered, which bothered me, but it was still good.
I will say that it makes me want to rewatch Hill House.

[Oprah Noodlemantra|0 likes] [|reply]

Never saw either so can't say anything but sorry you feel disappointed in something you were looking forward to seeing

[Greta GarbageStar|0 likes] [|reply]

I want to watch this but have a question. Should I watch Haunting of Hill House first?

[Tam I Am|0 likes] [|reply]

It's a completely different, unrelated story, so you can watch either or. That said, I recommend Hill House over Bly Manor, by far.

[Anonymous SourceStar|0 likes] [|reply]

I have to know if you’ve watched the second to last episode yet and if it pissed you off as much as it pissed me off. By the end of it I was so irritated that I really contemplated just giving up. It WAS midnight and I AM 36 weeks pregnant but I don’t think that had everything to do with my irritation.

Hill House was so beautifully raw that the let down for Bly Manor was huge. I’m hoping they do another one and redeem it but I’m feeling very cautious now.

[.like.a.drug.|0 likes] [|reply]

I actually did end up finishing the series. The second to last episode didn't piss me off in and of itself. I thought the backstory...existed? I didn't hate it. But at the same time, I felt like the exposition dump of introducing all these new characters right at the end of the series in a lump sum of episodes, instead of weaving their backstory into the plot throughout the series, was a bad move. In addition, the pacing of the episode was just as drawn out as the rest of the series, and I found myself getting incredibly impatient to get back to the present (rather 1980s, whatever), considering the previous episode ended up on a cliffhanger with the pond lady grabbing Dani by the neck.

Also, why did Peter die in 1.5 seconds flat, but it took Dani like 10 straight minutes just to be choked out by the ghost?

I'll watch another series by Mike Flanagan because Hill House really was something special, but I'm not going to hold my breath the same way I did Bly Manor.

[Anonymous SourceStar|0 likes] [|reply]

Maybe it was just hormones then 😂 I think at that point I was just over the whole story and the repetition of, “she slept, she woke, she walked” made me want to punch something.

I had the same thought about Peter!

I will definitely give another series a shot but I don’t think I’ll be as excited for it.

[.like.a.drug.|0 likes] [|reply]

Yeah... the pacing was really bad. And something rubbed me the wrong way about the curse being predicated on that lady's dresses and jewelry, and being murdered over it.

Another thing, how did the Narrator (Jamie) know the entire backstory of the house and the entire curse, when the pond lady HERSELF forgot her own backstory? That's...entirely why her face disappeared, right?

[Anonymous SourceStar|1 like] [|reply]

Oh no. I hadn’t even THOUGHT about that! Sigh. One more thing to bug me.

Also... accents don’t just disappear, right? Fade, sure, but not disappear entirely. Yet Flora was British the whole season until the end when she’s suddenly American. It was an odd choice to make.

[.like.a.drug.|0 likes] [|reply]

I had a large argument about the accents.

Peter possesses Miles - loses accent
Becs possesses Flora - loses accent
Jamie gets older - loses accent
Flora gets older - loses accent

What the hell.

[Anonymous SourceStar|0 likes] [|reply]

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