‘The Haunting of Hill House’ Recap: ‘Witness Marks’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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Confrontation, especially with family members, is something that few people look forward to in life. After all, it takes a lot of effort and nerve to finally tell someone in our family exactly how we feel about a particular issue that’s created a conflict, and to make matters worse, there are no guarantees that taking the time to air out your grievances will provide either party with resolution, and worst of all, it could complicate matters further and escalate an already icy situation. All of those possibilities are why we tend to avoid confrontation as a whole, but like it or not, as some point, things will come to a head and both parties will clash and well, when it comes to The Haunting of Hill House, that all-important moment arrived in the next episode, ‘Witness Marks’.
 
Which in all honesty, should come as no surprise. There’s a lot of bad blood in the Crain family, and a lot of ugly things were said and revealed in ‘Two Storms’ and now that Nell has been laid to rest, it was only a matter of time before everything came to a head and thankfully, this episode took the time to explore all the issues brewing within the family by giving us equal face time with everyone that had a proverbial hatchet to bury and how it pulled that off, was actually quite impressive. Because Luke’s disappearance allowed for Theo and Shirley and Hugh and Steven a have little bit of quiet time wherein, they could finally sit down and discuss their respective problems and well, these two confrontations started off pretty damn ugly.
 
Because this allowed for Shirley to unleash her fury on her sister for revealing the secret about Kevin’s decision to take the money and it also allowed for Theo to fire back for a change on Shirley’s ‘holier than thou’ attitude and similar emotional punches were thrown inside the car that Steve and Hugh were riding in as they searched for Luke around town as the son lectured the father for his mistakes and vice versa and it truly seemed as though there would be no resolution when it comes to this family’s problems. But eventually, Theo and Shirley came to realize the error of their ways, and Steven finally saw Hugh as a father that cared because Hugh did finally play the part at last and oddly enough, I enjoyed every single second of these moments due to the fact…that it needed to happen.
 
After all, they’re family, and bad experiences or no, that will never change and now that they are losing people they love, mending their messes is paramount. But, while it seems as though this particular tale stepped away from the scares that we all came to here to see, we do need to talk about those moments as well because holy crap, were they impactful. After all, the banging on the walls sequence was downright chilling and Nell’s surprise appearance straight up scared me so bad I woke up my sleeping beagle when I cried out in surprise and of course, that ending is about as ominous as it gets since we came to learn that Luke planned to burn Hill House to the ground, only to discover…it won’t go quietly into the night.
 
If anything, that closing scene makes me damn nervous, simply due to the fact that we don’t know if Luke’s okay since a ghost we’ve never seen before got its cold and chilling hands upon him and Hugh’s revelation that the kids are an ‘unfinished meal’ to the house only further compounds my worry for Luke’s future. Either way, this episode certainly serves as the grand setup when all is said and done. Because with their issues resolved, all that remains is the house and I’m quite curious to see if I am about to watch a powerhouse two-part finale, or if the series has another surprise storytelling wise up its sleeve, and the only way to find out, is to push ahead so on that note, I’m off to see what other horrors await us in this awful house. Until next time.   

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