Spotting the hidden ghosts in The Haunting of Hill House was fun, but the spectral figures didn't always have a deeper meaning, something director Mike Flanagan says will change in his follow-up series The Haunting of Bly Manor. Hill House debuted on Netflix in October 2018 to rave reviews. The 10-episode TV show was nominally about a haunted house but, thematically, it explored inter-generational trauma and grief.
Hill House told a relatively complete story, so fans weren't sure how the series would move forward. Soon after the first season debuted, Flanagan announced that the show would be an anthology. The second season is an adaptation of the novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. The Haunting of Bly Manor stars Victoria Pedretti as tutor Dani Clayton, who moves to the titular estate to care for the orphaned Miles (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) and Flora Wingrave (Amelie Bea Smith). Henry Thomas appears as the Wingraves' uncle, Henry, and Oliver Jackson Cohen plays Henry's business associate Peter Quint. The cast is filled out by T'Nia Miller as estate manager Hannah Grose, Rahul Kohli as the manor's chef, Owen, and Amelia Eve as the groundskeeper, Jamie.
Vanity Fair spoke with Flanagan for a sneak peek at the upcoming season and revealed that the ghosts hidden in the background of The Haunting of Hill House will return in The Haunting of Bly Manor, but with a twist. Flanagan said, "This season we wanted our hidden elements to tell their own story. And very much unlike the first season, they’re actually going to be explained. By the end of the season, you’re going to know who they are and why they’re there." While Hill House explored broad themes of inherited grief and trauma that spans decades, Flanagan says Bly Manor will deal with more personal, smaller-scale horrors: tragic love stories and romantic longing.
The sneak peek also revealed that The Turn of the Screw is not the only inspiration for The Haunting of Bly Manor. Flanagan also drew from at least two of James' short stories, "The Romance of Certain Old Clothes," which deals with the Freudian concept of the uncanny, and "The Jolly Corner," which explores a person's obsession with their past and how their presence could have been different if they'd made different choices.
It makes sense that the ghosts in season 2 will have more meaning than in season 1; the Hill House ghosts represent the broad weight of the past, while it seems like the Bly Manor ghosts could represent specific lost loved ones. Factoring in the major themes of "The Jolly Corner," specifically, gives us a pretty good idea of what to expect from The Haunting of Bly Manor: it seems like an exploration of doomed relationships and how the ones left behind deal—or don't deal—with their pain. The series is expected to debut sometime in 2020.
Source: Vanity Fair