The Haunting of Hill House has very quickly become one of the most critically acclaimed Netflix series of all-time, with many many of the episodes being some of the best the streaming service has ever produced.
Spoilers ahead!
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Created by Mike Flanagan and based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House very effectively captures the depth and complexity of loss and grief while also scaring the living hell out of its audience.
Scroll down to check out the list and let us know in the comments what your favorite episode of The Haunting of Hill House is!
EPISODE 6 – “TWO STORMS”
This is bound to be a controversial choice for best episode — due to most citing “The Bent-Neck Lady” as the best — but “Two Storms” is leaps and bounds above, not just other episodes of the series, but anything else that most other TV shows have done.
Coming right after “The Bent-Neck Lady,” this episode sees the remaining Crain children and their father navigating the emotions of seeing each other — and their father — again after years of being estranged.
The emotions are only made more heavy by the fact that they are all their to mourn the loss of their sister.
Captured in just a few long-form shots, the modern-day funeral home setting with the grown-up Crain family seamlessly changes to Hill House-of-the-past with the younger version without even breaking the sequence. This fluid movement is also used to pan around the family during their dialogue and reveal hauntings in their presence that they either do not notice or are crippled by the fear of. Its a truly fascinating way to explore the way grief does not just break up our existence but instead becomes and integrated part of it.
With acting performances of award-winning caliber given and Michel Gondry-like cinematography that so beautiful and brilliant even those words are not enough to accurately convey how flawless it is, there is simply no logical debate to argue. “Two Storms” is the best episode of The Haunting of Hill House.
EPISODE 5 – “THE BENT-NECK LADY”
Focusing on the life of Nell, “The Bent-Neck Lady” tells the youngest Crain’s story, spotlighting her tragic sleep-paralysis affliction and the death of the one person who she felt comfortable letting her guard down with.
As stated in the previous slide, “The Bent-Neck Lady” is cited by many as being the best episode of The Haunting of Hill House, and, that’s understandable.
The main reason why its so highly regarded, is due to the fact that it ends with one of the best twists ever, paying off hours of build-up and mystery that you didn’t even know you were waiting to see pay off.
EPISODE 10 – “SILENCE LAY STEADILY”
The season finale of the series is the culmination of the Crain children’s journey through grief, and in the final episode viewers see them confront the ghosts — both literal and metaphorical — that have been tormenting them since their childhood.
Many of Hill House’s secrets are revealed in this episode as well, with the biggest being what really happened to Clara and Horace Dudley’s daughter, and the deal they made with Hugh Crain (Henry Thomas/Timothy Hutton).
The series (season?) ends with a the loss of yet another Crain family member but a happy future for the remaining ones, which leads to speculation of whether another season of the show even needs to be attempted.
EPISODE 9 – “SCREAMING MEEMIES”
The significance of episode nine, “Screaming Meemies,” is that it reveals what really happened to Olivia Crain, the Crain family matriarch, the night that she died.
The children have carried her death with them for their entire lives, but none of them ever knew without a shadow of a doubt what actually transpired, which was that the “possessed” house mentally and emotionally tortured her into killing herself, which Nell’s death mirrors in many ways.
This episode also surprised fans by revealing that the young girl named Abigail that Luke played with was not just a figment of his imagination, but a real-life girl.
EPISODE 3 – “TOUCH”
“Touch,” the third episode of the show, focuses on Theo Crain (Kate Siegel/Mckenna Grace) and her ability to have psychic premonitions of people when she touches them, sort of like Bruce Willis’ character from Unbreakable.
Theo is somehow simultaneously the most likable and yet most unfriendly member of the Crain family, which certainly works to her advantage.
Over the course of this third episode, we also see a flashback to when the family discovered Theo’s sexual orientation when she’s found in a hilariously compromising situation with a bridesmaid at Nell’s wedding, and Grace is given many opportunities to shine is her role as young Theo.
EPISODE 4 – “THE TWIN THING”
One of the more emotionally painful episodes, “The Twin Thing” lets the audience in on the tragic story of Luke and his debilitating drug addiction.
Throughout the episode, Luke is shown pursuing sobriety while being followed by the tall Bowler Hat Man, who seems to very clearly represent addiction and the ominous sense of impending doom that comes with it.
Viewers are eventually shown that his family’s failure to believe him when he claimed to see a little girl — blowing off his claims as an overactive imagination — was what drove him to use drugs as a crutch.
We then learn in the finale, depressingly, that the girl was real all along.
EPISODE 8 – “WITNESS MARKS”
Episode eight of The Haunting of Hill House is a great episode that begins the descent into the end of the show by revealing just enough to keep the momentum going.
Among many other things, we learn that Luke never actually had the treehouse that he so fondly “remembered” playing in, and that Steve is separated from his wife because he never told her that he got a vasectomy before they met.
This episode also sees Theo deliver a very powerful speech to Shirley after having been caught in another one of those compromising situations with someone more awkward than a random bridesmaid.
EPISODE 2 – “OPEN CASKET”
In just the second episode of the series, the emotional depth of The Haunting of Hill House is fully established when Shirley has her younger sisters body brought to her funeral home so that she can be then only to prepare her for the funeral.
We also find out that Shirley was adamantly against Steve’s Hill House book and refused to take any royalties from him, but that her husband Kevin and Theo felt exactly the opposite.
This episode also contains the hard to watch dead kittens plot line, which sets up Shirley’s future as a mortician.
EPISODE 1 – STEVEN SEES A GHOST”
The very first episode of the series is kind of exactly what you want from a show, in that it compels you just enough to get invested, but the best is still very much to come.
Setting up the whole series, we learn basic information about the family, with the majority of the episode focusing on Steve, who always claimed to not actually witness anything supernatural while at Hill House, but ends up seeing a ghost that he wishes he never did.
By the end of the episode, with the show’s first shocking twist, viewers are hooked and desperate to keep watching more of this cathartic ghost story.
EPISODE 7 – “EULOGY”
Last, but certainly not least, we have “Eulogy,” the seventh episode of The Haunting of Hill House. Just because this episode comes in last on the ranking list in now way suggests it isn’t a quality episode.
To the contrary, the “worst” episode of The Haunting of Hill House is still far superior to the majority of what most television shows are churning out these days.
“Eulogy” sees the family in the immediate wake of Nell’s death, with Shirley seething in anger at Kevin and Theo, and Luke deciding to take matters into his own hands and burn down the home that he believes took his sister from him.
This episode perfectly sets up the final act of the series by throwing out loose ends that you find yourself achingly eager to see wrapped up.
