The Haunting of Bly Manor (Television Review)
The Haunting of Bly Manor
Season Two (Of The Haunting Anthology Series)
Netflix 2020
The Nicsperiment Score: 5/10
For some reason, Dani Clayton really wants to get away from her life in America. She seems to have nothing but pain behind her, and sees some strange spectral figure with glowing glasses every time she looks in a mirror. Lucky for her, she's able to leverage her experience as a schoolteacher in America into getting a job as an au pair--a sort of live in international nanny-teacher. The one catch: the job's at a giant, spooky manor in the English countryside, and one of the two children placed under her care seems like a creepy little sociopath. Maybe that's two catches. Whatever the case, it seems the pieces are in motion for Mike Flanagan's Netflix Haunting Anthology series to create a terrifying second season, just as high quality as its predecessor...
Except, that's not what happens. The series' first season, The Haunting of Hill House, was effective as both an insanely efficient scare machine, and a powerful drama. Bly Manor fails at delivering on either front. As to the former, it becomes very clear in the first few episodes that there will be little terror here-- just a bit of a creepy atmosphere. There are scenes ripe for horror, like an early moment where Dani is locked in a closet by the children--but instead of wringing (or setting up any future) horror out of the scene, the moment only acts as an over-obvious metaphor for Dani's closeted sexuality...which leads directly into the show's failure at the second element.
Here is what we know about Dani: she is secretly attracted to
women and she has experienced some mysterious past trauma. NEITHER OF THESE ARE
ACTUAL PERSONALITY TRAITS. As to what Dani would do in any given situation, I
have no idea. Most of Hill House's characters were well-defined by the
end of the first episode. Essentially ALL of Bly Manor's characters are ciphers,
given mysterious backstories that are only expounded upon later, and which are either
generic, or generally unsatisfying in a way that sheds no illumination on who
these characters actually are.
I kept up hope for the show until the fourth episode, which reveals Dani's backstory as something so simplistic, it could be written in a sympathy card. Before that episode, I knew she had experienced a loss and was attracted to women. By the end of the episode, I knew...the same things. But most egregiously, the episode ends with all of the characters--who are all employees of Bly Manor--sitting around a bonfire pontificating about those they've lost and how great those departed people were. The thing is, I don't know or care about these characters, let alone care about the people they're talking about that I haven't even met. "This is bad," I found myself saying aloud to my television.
At this moment, I thought about not finishing the season at all, but then discovered two things: the show switches story structures from episode five, up until the final, ninth episode, and Netflix has a 1.5-speed viewing option.
I kept up hope for the show until the fourth episode, which reveals Dani's backstory as something so simplistic, it could be written in a sympathy card. Before that episode, I knew she had experienced a loss and was attracted to women. By the end of the episode, I knew...the same things. But most egregiously, the episode ends with all of the characters--who are all employees of Bly Manor--sitting around a bonfire pontificating about those they've lost and how great those departed people were. The thing is, I don't know or care about these characters, let alone care about the people they're talking about that I haven't even met. "This is bad," I found myself saying aloud to my television.
At this moment, I thought about not finishing the season at all, but then discovered two things: the show switches story structures from episode five, up until the final, ninth episode, and Netflix has a 1.5-speed viewing option.
The
story structure the show switches to is essentially just a chaotic, yet brazen
ripoff of the storytelling methods used by the first three seasons of Lost, but
that structure has at least shown that it works, even if nothing revealed here is
anywhere close to as exciting or illuminating as what was revealed in Lost's
better early episodes. As to the 1.5 speed option, at least I then felt like the show was only wasting 64% of my time.
When Bly Manor finally reveals what's been going on, I still didn't feel like I knew who anyone was and I still didn't feel like I'd been scared more than once or twice over the entirety of the nine episodes. However, at least plot-wise, things finally made sense. I'm not sure why the show waited until the penultimate episode to even start to world-build here. I'm not sure why it didn't invest in making its characters into actual people. I'm also unsure of why it forgot how to be scary. However, I have a theory:
If you look at the credits for The Haunting of Hill House, show-creator, Mike Flanagan, directed every single episode, and wrote half of them. For Bly Manor, the now quite in-demand creator only wrote and directed the season premiere. Flanagan then handed off duties to a group of other writers and directors. Not one of those people is credited as writing more than one of Bly Manor's nine episodes. That original, powerful, singular vision is desperately missing from Bly Manor, and in its place, an unsteady, uneasy mess. Here's hoping, if there's a third season, Flanagan either re-dedicates himself to his duties, or hands the baton off to another auteur who can handle it.
Oh yeah, and this is supposed to be based on The Turn of the Screw. In likeness, there is a governess, two children, a house called Bly Manor, and some ghosts (immediately proven to be real here). That's about it.
When Bly Manor finally reveals what's been going on, I still didn't feel like I knew who anyone was and I still didn't feel like I'd been scared more than once or twice over the entirety of the nine episodes. However, at least plot-wise, things finally made sense. I'm not sure why the show waited until the penultimate episode to even start to world-build here. I'm not sure why it didn't invest in making its characters into actual people. I'm also unsure of why it forgot how to be scary. However, I have a theory:
If you look at the credits for The Haunting of Hill House, show-creator, Mike Flanagan, directed every single episode, and wrote half of them. For Bly Manor, the now quite in-demand creator only wrote and directed the season premiere. Flanagan then handed off duties to a group of other writers and directors. Not one of those people is credited as writing more than one of Bly Manor's nine episodes. That original, powerful, singular vision is desperately missing from Bly Manor, and in its place, an unsteady, uneasy mess. Here's hoping, if there's a third season, Flanagan either re-dedicates himself to his duties, or hands the baton off to another auteur who can handle it.
Oh yeah, and this is supposed to be based on The Turn of the Screw. In likeness, there is a governess, two children, a house called Bly Manor, and some ghosts (immediately proven to be real here). That's about it.
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