‘The Haunting of Hill House’ Creator Claims Crain Family Plot Is ‘Done’

Netflix’s breakout series The Haunting of Hill House is currently hanging in limbo regarding a possible renewal, but should the streaming giant grant the series a sophomore run, it likely will not expand the story of the Crain family.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly following the Oct. 12 Netflix debut of the modern reimagining of Shirley Jackson’s novel, director Mike Flanagan revealed that season one’s ending is as final as it seems, and the Crain family’s story is “done.”

“As far as I’ve ever been concerned with this, the story of the Crain family is told. It’s done,” Flanagan told the outlet. “I felt like the Crains have been through enough, and we left them exactly as we all wanted to remember them, those of us who worked on it. We toyed with a cliffhanger ending and we toyed with other ideas, but ultimately, in the writers’ room and with the cast and everything else, we really felt like the story demanded a certain kind of closure from us and we were happy to close the book on that family.”

That being said, a second season isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility. Flanagan himself, along with several members of the cast, revealed their hopes for a season two. Flanagan even has a few ideas up his sleeve regarding what it could focus on.

“I don’t want to speculate too much about season two until Netflix and Paramount and Amblin let us know if they want one,” he said, adding that while the Crain story may be a closed book, there are many different storylines left to explore. “I think that there are all sorts of different directions we could go in, with the house or with something completely different. I love the idea of an anthology as well.”

“I think more than anything, the show is about haunted places and haunted people, as Steve says, and there’s no shortage of either. So, there’s any number of things we could do, in or out of Hill House,” he said.

While the season ended on a solid note, with the Crains managing to escape the Red Room and finding answers and closure with the house that has haunted them since their childhoods, Flanagan reportedly dropped several Easter eggs in the finale that could potentially set up a second season. Although he hasn’t revealed what those Easter eggs are, one possibility includes Poppy Hill’s “The Grattan Murders” nursery rhyme, which she recites to Hugh.

Fans can watch the 10-episode first season of The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix.