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she asks Carla Guginos first line as Olivia Crain during an unspecifiedthenat Hill House.
The question everybody alive?
Its seen plenty of storms and worse than this.
Its gonna keep us safe, Olivia says of the house.
I thought you hated this house, Shirley responds.
Her mother: [slight chuckle] [sighs deeply].
Like all the Crains besides Olivia, Hughs character stretches between two bodies.
Ellipses haunt his every thought.
He rides coach to his daughters funeral while his sons sit in first class.
He insisted, Steve, the oldest, says.
Its not like we were really talking each others ears off before that.
At the wake, Hugh fumbles over platitudes his younger self wouldve delivered with ease.
Its been a minute, Theo offers.
Yeah, it has … Hugh responds.
Longer than a minute.
Or a long … minute.
Im not sure … which.
Parenting aint easy, as the refrain goes.
A parent is a parent, always parenting, per another cliche.
Parenting is also hard because being a person is hard,livingis hard.
How do you promise safety in an unsafe world?
How do you create a haven when your body and mind is far from a temple?
Hill House taunts the elder Crains with this knowledge, and it finds worthy prey in Olivia.
And as the shows dueling timelines attest, grief and trauma are states not only occasioned by death.
Grief lurks in the interstices of our most optimistic attachments.
In the nonchronological timescape of Hill House, endings comes first and vice versa.
Slot any number of summer-vacation comedies here, the scene beckons.See the family.
The Crains will be torn apart not long after, but even this precursory glance is a myth.
As Steven is informed inthe previous episode, his parents marriage was imperfect.
I dont even know how we got there.
I just know we fought, Hugh says.
His distress and sighs and furrowed brow cant distract from all the unsaids.
Not this time, not anymore.
What was the Crain marriage really like before Hill House?
But the Crains were back at it, says Hugh, proud.
They kept adding until, fatefully, subtracted.
Illness or something else?
Olivia, more absent with each subsequent appearance, is clearly unwell.
Her migraines intensify, painting black her minds eye like the mold reaching across the basement walls.
Well, both of us have been feeling a little loopy lately, Hugh offers one evening.
His tone finds its way into Olivias speech.
Do you think theres something wrong with me?
Like … like … like, really wrong?
she finally asks Hugh, her rock.
Hugh, the fixer, sighs and takes her hand.
I think maybe Mondays a little late for your trip.
It sounds like a euphemism.
What were you doing all this time away?
Hugh looks at the Red Room entrance.
I was holding a door.
Holding a door closed.
The monsters got through anyway.
Says Olivia, Thats what monsters do.
In turn, the misery of parenthood and illness come through most poignantly in the mouth of a ghost.
Its a horror, Olivia asserts.
Momentarily buoyed by the promise of having it all without pain, she is afraid once more.
Ill be alone again.
