As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Fridge Brilliance
- Hannah had a few hints that she was a ghost before it was revealed in episode 5:
- We only ever see her actually eat in flashbacks. In the modern day, she never does at the table.
- She had a habit of getting away from a scene a bit too quickly when characters are talking to her.
- Unlike the other three house workers, she's the only one with no obligations away from the house; Dani leaves occasionally throughout the story, Jamie and her go out on dates away from Bly, and Owen has his mother to tend to. Hannah, by contrast, always seems to have a free schedule.
- Hannah tells Rebecca in a flashback that the time it takes to get over a relationship that has ended is the length of the relationship halved. Assuming that Dani and Jamie got a civil union as soon as it became legal in Vermont in 2000, and then Dani became the new Lady in the Lake shortly thereafter, they'd have been together for a total of around thirteen years. Flora's wedding takes place in 2007, about six and a half to seven years later, depending on what time of year—or, about half the time that Dani and Jamie had been together. Although Jamie doesn't seem to have moved on exactly, it still is seemingly the first time that she's felt ready to actually talk about the story of their relationship to others.
- The Storyteller relates the tale of Bly Manor to the guests at the wedding rehearsal, but once the identities of everyone are revealed, the question arises why the grown-up children don't react with horror. The answer is that the Storyteller changed the details to spare them from the truth. Flora was the Bride's middle name, but her brother isn't called 'Miles', her 'uncle' won't be called 'Henry Wingrove', and the manor they once spent their summers in when they lived in the UK wasn't called Bly Manor or even in Hampshire. As the Storyteller says, she has a story to tell, but it's not 'her' story.
- The lives and fates of the two au pairs are a study in contrasts. Rebecca Jessel was an ambitious young woman working towards a career that saw Bly Manor and her job there as just a stepping stone, and who ended up losing everything because, once there, she fell in love with a selfish, cowardly person who blamed their own character failures on their class and their upbringing, and who dragged her down with them when things got bleak. Dani Clayton was a directionless young woman who saw Bly Manor and her job there as a way to really help children who needed her, and who, despite falling in love with a selfless, brave person who overcame their class and upbringing to give her all the support she needed when things were bleak, lost everything because she refused to drag them down with her.
- Dani's first night at Bly is a deliberate mirror to Viola's experience in death, foreshadowing the later posession. Like Viola, Dani wakes up, looks to the mirror (which she has covered so she can't see the reflection), walks to the window, the sight of which the narrator describes as a "great emptiness," then walks to the door. Not only are their actions and the visual framing of those actions similar, but Dani wears a similar nightdress, the rooms have the same layout, and the furniture looks very similar and is all in the same place, sans the wardrobe that represents Viola's attachment to the inheritance she left for her daughter, which is replaced by a desk.
- In "The Jolly Corner," Henry mentions at the end that Bly's phone line is suddenly disconnected. He specifically mentions that it shouldn't be because it worked minutes earlier. Why was the phone line suddenly down? Because Peter decided to murder Dani. He probably disconnected the phone sometime between knocking Dani out and her waking up. With the phone disconnected, Hannah, unable to leave Bly, wouldn't be able to call for help even if she realized what was going on. Doubly so if Peter's plan to make Hannah realize she was dead succeeded, thus sabotaging Hannah's remaining grip on the physical world—which explains why he suddenly decided to give her that brutal reality check after all this time. Without Hannah's only way of reaching the outside world, Dani was cut off from outside aid, and without Hannah acting as a living person, there are no acceptable witnesses to testify to whatever was planned to be done with Dani that night.
- This also might explain the odd coincidence of Henry, Owen, and Jamie all showing up at the end because of bad dreams/feelings. We know Henry went because he had a bad feeling after all Dani's increasingly alarming phone calls that he brushed off was followed by Bly's phone line disconnecting. Jamie and Owen probably also tried to call Bly to make sure everything was all right after their upsetting dreams, but found the phone line suspiciously down. Knowing Flora was exhibiting alarming behavior and Peter Quint was hanging around, and already disturbed by their dream, this is probably what spurred them to take the short drive from the village to the manor to check in.
- In the end when it's revealed that the Storyteller is Jamie and the wedding is Flora's, it makes sense why she would tell a somewhat morbid, tragic tale the night before a young couple weds. Given that both Flora and Miles have forgotten about Dani, due to the trauma they experience from their days in their haunted mansion, Jamie is trying to light a spark of remembrance of their former Au Pair, that loved them so much, she gave her life, and her future, to save them from the ghosts that tormented them.
- Viola is kept away from her husband and daughter after she gets sick with her Incurable Cough of Death, for fear of spreading her illness to them. But Perdita, who nurses her for years, doesn't mind to be around her, and Arthur doesn't try to stop them being together in the way that Perdita insists on keeping her away from him and Isabelle. Her conclusion that Perdita and Arthur were having an affair, though (probably) incorrect, was actually a lot more reasonable than it might sound. Why else would Perdita be so insistent on keeping Viola and Andrew apart but not shy away from contact with Viola herself?
Fridge Horror
- Miss Jessel is characterized in most versions of "The Turn of the Screw" as being perpetually somber and tearful, with the explanation being that she is mourning for her lost love, Peter Quint. In this version we realize that she was mourning for herself and the years of life that Quint robbed her of.
- During a Bible class with Father Stack, Miles is shown to be especially affected by the part where the pigs are possessed without their consent. After The Reveal that Peter Quint has begun possessing Miles by this point, his sadness definitely starts to make more sense.
- Peter coercing Miles feels weirdly reminiscent of sexual abuse: he pushes Miles into doing something that makes him feel violated and uncomfortable, disregards Miles's feelings on the matter, insists that it's just part of a game, and the result makes Miles do some disturbingly un-childlike things. This gets even worse when considering that Peter was implied to be sexually abused by his father, so it's likely he learned these tactics from him.
- Every moment in the first few episodes where Miles and Flora look behind Dani's shoulder at nothing suddenly becomes a lot creepier after its revealed that Rebecca and Peter can choose whether they want to be seen or not.
- Peter despairs at only ever reliving being blackmailed by his mother while dream-walking, openly wondering by the end doesn’t get to relive happier memories like the others do. The audience is left to realize on their own that the answer could be that he simply doesn’t have any happy memories.
- Did Arthur ever tell Isobel what was in that chest they threw in the lake?
