Tear Jerker / The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

"I won't lose you ever again. I promise."

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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The Series in General:

• All of the flashbacks of the Crain family's time in the house. We can see that they used to be a loving family before the Hill House ruined their lives.
• Steve constantly saying Olivia and Nell were unstable is pretty saddening, especially considering the later revelations.
• The house, and in a secondary way, Poppy's manipulation of Olivia's mental state, twisting her mind around into trying to murder her own family. The way Olivia, even in death, is being manipulated into believing that dying is the only way to save her children, especially her youngest two, Luke and Eleanor. She still believes that she's "waking" her children up and it's just heartbreaking to see her in that frame of mind. One would think that she'd gather her senses in death, but perhaps it's the house's stranglehold on her spirit that's keeping her forever flighty in mind. Watching her trying to convince Luke to stay in the Red Room for the tea party and trying to get him to take his "big boy hat", and tricking Nell into accepting a noose in the place of Olivia's locket that she's wanted since a child-it's heart-wrenching agony to see her try to "protect" her children by leading them to their deaths, when all she really, truly wants to do is shield them from a cruel world. In essence, her death is the catalyst compounded by the ghostly hauntings that led Luke into his downward spiral into addiction and Nell's downward spiral in her mental health that ultimately led to Nell on the silver table she so feared and hoped to avoid altogether. She still believes that her children were being kept from her, that the monsters were out in the cold world, and that the house is the only safe place for them.

Episode One:

• The lady's recollection of her dead husband. Not helped when Steve states his theory of what he thinks she saw, to which she still sternly states how she still saw her husband's ghost.
• Steve returning to his apartment only to see Luke leaving his apartment, holding his tablet and camera he was gonna sell. Steve's broken face to see his brother stealing from him for drug money is bleak to say the least.
  • Takes more context in Episode 4 when we see Luke wasn't stealing for drug money, but rather to help his friend for the night.
  • The ending takes even sadder turn when you realize that Nell isn't there to scare Steve, but rather it was her slowly coming to the realization that she's dead. When you take in the context of how she died, you can actually see that the look on her face isn't anger or hate but one of pure terror and sadness.

Episode Two:

• Shirley finally breaking down over Nell's body after spending the entire episode dealing with the news in a stoic manner.
  • And much beforehand, Shirley being informed of Nell's death at the beginning of the episode: She's infuriated at Steve, all while Steve is drinking his sorrow's away during their phone call.
• The kittens, and Shirley's first brush with death being so traumatizing.

Episode Three:

• Theo's utter agony at re-living the rape of her patient.
  Rick: What are you looking at?
  Theo: Your smile.
• Theo's utterly soul-rending wail after touching Nell's dead body. Whatever she experiences causes her to collapse into a heap on the ground, unable to do anything but cry.
• Theo's rant to Trish about the utter trauma she had to endure from her patient's molestation at the hands of her foster father and how it connects to her now dead sister Nell. It leads to Sex for Solace by Trish and contrasting scenes of Theo on the final night at Hill House telling her father to not touch her as they left to Theo in the present telling Trish to touch her.

Episode Four:

• Luke being betrayed by Joey just so she can go back to her sad life of addiction. Worse is the fact that Joey was the first character in the series (besides Nell) that showed love and care to Luke.
• Luke hugging Steve in despair after Joey runs away from him with Steve's money and Steve barely able to return the hug except for a brief second.
• The Crains' treatment of Luke is pretty heartbreaking, especially for those who are very unstable and need those closest to them. While Luke didn't help his case with his relapsing, they constantly throw him under the bus despite his actual attempts to be clean, not helped by Shirley not allowing him to go to Nell's wedding despite Nell wanting him there.
  • The whole situation being saddening. Dealing with addict relatives who steal from you or only come around when they want money or don't even try to fight their addictions is terrible.
• Luke being jumped and having his clothes and shoes stolen. As if he hadn't suffered enough, the episode ends with Steve informing him of Nell's death.

Episode Five:

• The ending of the episode. Just... the entire ending. Nell's hallucination, seeing Luke sober, and dancing with her now-alive husband, overjoyed as the music plays and everything she's ever wanted comes to life. The look on her face is pure bliss, and it makes it all the more heartbreaking when we see her in the empty house, dancing with no one. Take into account that the House used Nell's happiest dream to mess with her and then caused her to commit suicide. It tricked her into thinking her sisters were apologizing, Olivia was alive, and that Arthur was alive again. All to take her.
  • Then, just to fuck with her even more, the House doesn't just drop her to her death, but through time and space, showing her and the audience the heartbreaking conclusion of one of the series' biggest mysteries - who is the Bent Neck Lady? Nell is the Bent Neck lady, and her entire life, she has been haunted by her own death.
• Nell's wedding dance. When you don't know what's coming, it's just a beautiful scene, one of few in which the characters get to just be happy. But on rewatch, it's impossible not to tear up knowing how tragically short their marriage is. Which of course is followed immediately by...
• Arthur's death, especially taking into account how much Arthur and Nell loved each other and how sweet and patient he was during her sleep paralysis moments.
• Nell's talks with Steve and Theo. Due to Nell already undergoing Sanity Slippage from Arthur's death, she ends up damaging her relationships with her siblings.
  • Nell telling Theo off over how she's pathetic for living in Shirley's guest house despite making enough money to be on her own instead of mooching after Theo and her began to fight over Nell's deteriorating mental state due to Arthur's death. What makes it worse is that episodes earlier, Theo was still bitter over the fight and hadn't talked to Nell since, which makes this Parting-Words Regret on Theo's part.
    • Even sadder was that Theo was genuinely excited to go spend the day doing fun things with Nell, who nipped that in the bud early.
  • Nell confronting Steve at a book meet-and-greet and ripping him a new one over his treatment of their family, labeling their dead mother crazy, labeling them crazy, and having the gall to profit off of the tragedy that broke them all. But while Steve attempts to shrug these arguments off, Nell slams him over how he's never protected her as a big brother should and she doesn't feel safe anymore with what she's lost. That leaves Steve with no response and even when he argues with her after the meet-and-greet, he has no retort to that, something followed up in the final episode.
• Nell's therapist's dismissal of Arthur's death. On the surface, it would seem logical given the "outsider looking in" viewpoint. Siding with Nell's insistence that it was Hill House would sound insane unless you know every detail, every haunting moment, everything. Whether it was a naturally forming aneurism or a result of the Bent-Necked Lady and therefore the deceased Nell's presence, it allows for the ultimate death of Arthur to remain complicated in the eyes of a science-based and science-driven therapist. It doesn't mean his death and its effect on Nell is any less tragic, which her doctor seems to either dismiss or doesn't fully understand, willingly or ignorantly. Arthur's death led to Nell's mental health decline, regardless of the results her doctor hoped and believed for. Hill House has found a way to haunt Nell at every turn, using all that she held dear against her and more.

Episode Six:

• Steve tries to encourage Luke to view Nell's body and tries to comfort him beforehand, but then Steve is the one who gets visibly upset and who beats a hasty retreat.
• Hugh seeing Nell as a little girl again in the casket.
  • Then him seeing her specter, as she calls out a distressed and futile "Daddy," before disappearing.
• Steve furiously telling his father the wrong parent died on the last night at Hill House. What happens afterwards is worse: The casket falls and the entire family, for the first time ever, works together to lift it, but it's still heartbreaking as the family still isn't unified but does feel some regret over how they're focusing on their own resentments against each other than the death of a loved one, an event that should ostensibly bring them closer together.
• In a flashback where the power went out around the whole house, the family is gathered in the foyer, only for Nell to suddenly vanish. Everyone scrambles to find her, only to see she was in the foyer all this time. Little Nell, scared out of her mind, cries that she was screaming and shouting the whole time, but no one saw her—just like how Nell was crying for help years before her suicide.
  "I was right here the whole time... none of you could see me...Nobody could see me..."
  • Young Luke is the most upset by Nell's disappearance, saying he thought he'd lost her. Then it cuts to present-day Luke, staring down at her corpse.
  • The final shot of the episode, after her family retreats, all of whom (except Hugh) leave pissed off at everyone else, her ghost is seen standing beside her casket, Bent-Neck and all, once again invisible to her loved ones, as her plea from the past plays over and over again.
  • The way little Nell's voice goes from panicked to resigned right at the end—as though it's her ghost, watching as her family continues to ignore her even after death.
• Shirley's reaction to the buttons, and who can blame her? Whether it was (as the audience can most likely assume) the work of ghosts or one of the Crains, it was definitely a fucked up move messing with Nell's corpse like that. Olivia's actress in an interview confirms that it was Olivia who placed the buttons on Nell's eyes, as a way of paying tribute to her daughter. Knowing this makes the small piece of the scene heart-wrenching, considering Nell was Olivia's "button".
• Shirley's plaintive admittance about certain cultural customs and their refusal to allow suicide victims to be buried in a cemetery or honored in any way due to the belief that it was a sin to kill oneself, alluding to her mother and Nell's deaths, and ultimately wondering why Nell didn't feel as though she could talk to Shirley before it came to that ultimate fate. Makes it all the more heart-wrenching when you consider how isolated Nell herself felt from her family. Everyone had already written her off as either off her meds or unhinged since seeing her new psychiatrist. Hugh was the only one who believed something was wrong when Nell called and made mention of the Bent Necked Lady's return, but it was already much too late to do anything to help her.

Episode Seven:

• Horace Dudley's recounting of his and his wife's experiences at Hill House is mostly Nightmare Fuel, but the parts about their daughter being stillborn, and how afterwards he and Mrs. Dudley were haunted by a baby's cries in the house, are very heartbreaking.
• The very split-second moment where Luke tries to spread earth on Nell’s grave that turns into a heartbreaking nightmare. For everyone else, it was a normal passage of rites for the dead; no unusual activity to be noted. Once Luke is alone at the gravesite and apologizes to Nell, he is interrupted by the sight of Nell, in her Bent-Neck Lady glory, standing over him and her own grave. In his distraction, a hand reaches up from inside the grave beneath Nell’s casket and yanks him down. Olivia, pale and pockmarked by death, begs him to stay with her. Understandably, the whiplash of the event terrifies Luke, but we as the audience begin to understand the desperation this family is going through—both in life and in death. Sadly, for Luke, only he was privy to the heartbreaking scenario of his mother begging him to stay, while Steven—who was the only one to came to Luke’s aid—had seen nothing at all. The worst part is that Luke insists that Nell and their mother had been there, and Steven stubbornly insists that nothing had happened, and that Luke had seen nothing, “because they’re dead”.
  • What's worse about this is that Steven is still desperately trying to cling to the notion that whatever anyone in his family is seeing is part of a sickness, a mental illness, as a way of excusing family members and their past actions that have not been treated properly.

Episode Eight:

• Theo's breakdown after being scared by Nell's ghost and telling Shirley why she touched Kevin the way that came off like Mistaken for Cheating: When she touched Nell's body, she felt The Nothing After Death and could not feel anything else, hence her excessive drinking throughout the episode. She wanted to feel something because she felt dead. It even makes Shirley realize that Theo wasn't trying to ruin her marriage and makes peace with her afterwards.

Episode Nine:

• Olivia's descent into madness. Seeing her go from a loving person to a borderline lunatic is pretty heartbreaking considering how devoted she was to her family.
• Abigail's death, especially if you hate seeing children get hurt or die in media.
  • What makes Abigail’s death even more heartwrenching is that most of the Crane family didn’t even believe that Abigail was real and had only been a figment of Luke’s imagination, akin to an imaginary friend. It was ambiguous for even us as the audience, at first. Unfortunately, she was very real, and now her spirit is just one of many that now haunts the halls of Hill House.
• The last scene is the family first arriving to the house. They're all excited and happy, and as the kids go off to explore, Hugh and Olivia have this exchange:
  Olivia: You guys go on without me.
  Hugh: How could we?
• The Newton Brothers' music composed for the show can really tug at the heartstrings when paired with certain scenes. What comes to mind especially so is "I Want To Wake Up So Badly," which coincides with Olivia's last moments alive in Hill House, right up until the moment of her death. The way the music builds to a crescendo as she struggles with her mental state, and her believing that she is merely dreaming, that Poppy is trying to help her. Just as Poppy reaches for her while Olivia dangles over the railing at the top of the library, the music comes to a sudden hushed stop with the last striking chord of a piano fading as soon as Olivia falls, perfectly reflecting the sudden end to the loving mother's life.

Episode Ten:

• Hugh has spent every day since he left Hill House utterly convinced that he sees and talks regularly to the ghost of his dead wife, Olivia, who doesn't hold him responsible for her death. When he meets Olivia's actual ghost in person, she tells him bluntly that, no, she has not been with him at any point until now- all the time previously, he had just been imagining her. And she blames him for her death.
• Shirley, Theo, Luke, and Steve finally apologizing to Nell for not being there for her when she assures them she doesn't blame them and that she loves them.
  "Think of me, when you're standing in the rain."
• Luke weakly telling Nell he can't live without her. Nell's response? "I'll let you in on a secret. There's no without. I am not gone."
• Nell's final words to her siblings: "I love you completely and you loved me the same, that's all. The rest is confetti."
  • The apologies from each sibling is so damn devastating, Theo apologizing to Nell for their Parting-Words Regret, Shirley apologizing for not picking up the phone on that fateful day, and Steve struggling to apologize for never being there for her. And despite all of that, Nell still forgives them all, notably telling Theo that their final words "weren't their last" and even comforting Steve by saying that even if he did try to help her, it wouldn't have changed much.
• Hugh discovering Olivia's body after taking the kids to a hotel, and his agonized wail upon the discovery. Then he begins to tell the Dudleys "I can fix this. I can fix this," as he cradles Oliva's body when he sees them there.
• The Dudleys discovering their daughter's body in the Red Room, and as an older Hugh and Steven look on as the memory plays out, Hugh remarks that it was "all of their children" they have lost.
• Horace Dudley's words to Hugh when he threatened to burn down the house:
  "This house is full of precious, precious things. And they don't all belong to you."
• The reveal of Hugh's Heroic Sacrifice, along with Steve quietly apologizing to his father after Hugh apologized for doing what he did to save them. The look on Steve's face is heartbreaking.
• Steve tearfully watching Hugh's ghost join Olivia and Nell in the Red Room as the door slowly closes, leaving him alone. Before that, crossed over with a Heartwarming Moment, Hugh tells Steve that he, Luke, and his sisters were the greatest things that have ever happened in his life.
  Hugh: This is yours now. The House, the secret, and the promise. I just want you to know...you, your sisters and brother, were the best part of my...my...(sighs)..never been prouder. Take care of each other.
  Steve: D-Dad..
  Hugh: (now his young self) And be kind to be each other, and above all else..be kind. I was so lucky... to have been your dad. (He then enters the Red Room and embraces Liv and Nell as the door slowly shuts)
• And afterwards? Steve is seen walking out of Hill House, however the camera reveals all the other ghosts slowly following him/looking at him with such sadness, implying they too want to leave Hill House, but can't as they are bound to it forever.
• An elderly Horace Dudley carrying his wife through the woods to Hill House on the eve of her death, and moments after he's laid her across the front foyer, she passes away and her ghost is standing before him, holding the first child they had lost decades ago, and Abigail joins them.
• The final lines of the series, which also references the novel as well, all while shots of Hill House in ruins are shown. The last shot of the series is the exterior of the House's bright windows beginning to darken:
  "Fear. Fear is the relinquishment of logic, the willing relinquishment of reasonable patterns. But so, it seems, is love. Love is the relinquishment of logic. The willing relinquishment of patterns. We yield to it or we fight it. But we cannot meet it halfway. Without it, we cannot continue for long to exist sanely under the conditions of absolute reality. Hill House, not sane, stands against its hills holding darkness within. It has stood for a hundred years and might stand a hundred more. Within, walls continue upright, bricks meet neatly, floors are firm and doors are sensibly shut. Silence lays steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House. And those who walk there, walk together."

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