The Haunting of Bly Manor
As a pair we are not great for binge-watching, heck if a movie is over 2 hours long we tend to pause half-way through and go out and do something. The first time we ever watched more than 2 episodes of anything in a row was when we stayed in a five star hotel and we were dying to see what happened next in Umbrella Academy. So you can imagine how captivating we had to have found Bly Manor in order for us to stay watching it for 4 and a half hours straight.
The first two episodes felt a bit ‘meh’, but looking back, maybe it’s because there was a lot going on, and they deliberately don’t tell you much to keep you wanting more. Like I said though, by about episode 4 we weren’t moving from the couch until we knew what Hannah was, and why the little boy seemed just a little odd one minute, and a straight up jackass the next.
We didn’t feel like we were rooting for any character in particular if I’m honest, which I guess could be counted as a con for the series, or maybe it’s just another reason it was so good; despite the fact that you didn’t love anyone in particular you kept watching. It wasn’t like they didn’t give you back story on most of the characters, even just a little bit. Some were obviously more explained than others. But the most concerning part for me was that I felt nothing towards the main character Danni. She was very plain Jane, from her storyline to her dialogue. I understand she must have suffered some amount of turmoil brought on by battling her own sexuality and feeling the pressure to marry her best friend. But I stopped feeling sorry for her when I realized that the man she was supposed to marry was supposed to be her best friend since childhood… and she couldn’t even tell him, not necessarily that she was gay, but that she didn’t want to marry him. If you can’t talk to your best friend and partner about these things, then who can you talk to?
I felt the Gardener, Lula, was a little try-hardy too, like she was supposed to seem tough and impenetrable, which did kind of come across I guess. I did like the twist of the narration at the end as well, very very well done. If I had to choose I reckon my favourite characters would have been Hanna, the housekeeper, and Owen the.. Chef? Cook?. I take pride in pointing out straight away that Hanna was never seen to be eating, and when my better half asked my why I thought this was, I came out with the most outrageous reason I could think of, and he laughed… and then 5 episodes later he’s bouncing in his seat saying “holy sh*t, you were right!”… still shocked me though. And we did love the twist, no matter how tragic it was.
We did really enjoy Bly Manor, and while we had entered it not hoping for much, we were pleasantly surprised. We had watched The Haunting Of Hill House last year, and when it had ended we had hopped straight onto Google to find out when the second season was. Now maybe we picked it up wrong, but we had thought that the next season, while using a lot of the same actors, would be a different story, but in the same house… seems we were wrong. So now we have to ask…. will there be a season three, and if so… how many of these will they do, and how many haunted manors do we believe there are in the world?
I would love there to be 3 or 4 seasons, with different manors around the world, and then a final 5th season, slowly pulling all the stories together in some spooky shape or form. But the writers of these shows really seem to know what they’re doing, and we wait with bated breath for their next announcement.
