‘The Haunting of Hill House’ Recap: ‘Screaming Meemies’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

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Over the course of the past eight episodes, The Haunting of Hill House has achieved some outright storytelling wonders. It’s managed to tell a sweeping and powerful tale, one that has featured some outstanding character development alongside some powerfully disturbing scares and it’s made a point to give us something exciting and new in every single chapter in this harrowing tale. And as I settled in to watch the ninth episode of the series, ‘Screaming Meemies’, I have to admit that I was supremely curious as to what surprises would be awaiting me in this one. 
 
Because the fact of the matter is, we have in many ways come to the end of the road when it comes to this story. We’ve come to know just about every single character inside and out, we’ve established the power of the house and we have returned to it as well for that matter meaning that either a grand two part finale was about to take place as the family dealt with this evil flippin’ house at last, or the show had one last surprise up its sleeve before reaching that all important confrontation and as it turns out, the latter of those options was where the episode decided to go, because there was actually one last character left to explore in this tale; Olivia Crain, the mother that the family left behind on that fateful night.
 
Which, was quite frankly, a welcome place for this story to go because much like Hugh, her story has been mired in bad memories and the shadows of this story and oddly enough, she went to the back of my mind thanks to the powerful stories that came before her. But this tale ended up providing us with quite the backstory for her, since we came to learn that Olivia was struggling mightily with her sanity during her time in Hill House, and all of those odd moments we saw her experience came about from the fact that her sensitive tuning allowed for the house and its ghosts to communicate with her and unfortunately for Olivia, perhaps the most dangerous ghost possible in the house took a liking to her.
 
Because this tale also gave us a proper introduction to and quality face time with the ghost that grabbed Luke at the end of episode eight, Poppy Hill, and the madness she supposedly carried with her in life, stayed with her in death since she offered up some awful ideas to Olivia, the kind that unfortunately take root and well, we came to learn in this tale that Olivia wasn’t mad as Steven implies, nor was she evil. She was just…scared. Scared of the future for her family, scared that this house would break them and on that final night, she nearly hurt her children when her fear broke her and consumed her and while she was broken, and alone, the house influenced her fears and her pain one more time, allowing for her to die like her daughter Nell would someday, setting in motion years of pain for her family…
 
If anything, this was quite the tragic tale and you truly feel for Olivia through and through in this one since her soul is genuinely tortured in this story and well, what surprised me the most about this particular episode is that it raises more questions than it answers about the house. Because the only evil I saw here, was Poppy’s special brand of crazy, and the influence she had over Olivia, not a house where blood drips from the walls, nor did I see any spirits coming forth trying to physically harm anyone. It led Olivia to a choice, making its evil quite ambiguous and with only one episode left, I’m quite curious as to whether or not that ambiguity will become clear, or if the house’s true intentions will continue to be mired in mystery. Either way, this was just another great episode and well, whether I like it or not, it’s time to hit ‘play next episode’ one more time, and see how this powerful story ends…

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