Haunting of Bly Manor: Every Clue To The [SPOILER] Twist

Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS ahead for The Haunting of Bly Manor.

Bly is full of dark and hidden secrets, but The Haunting of Bly Manor drops plenty of clues leading up to its mid-series twist. Played by T’Nia Miller, Mrs. Grose was a key character in Henry James’ novella The Turn of the Screw, upon which the Netflix series is based. But whereas Bly Manor’s housekeeper was just little more than a deferent servant and sounding board for the governess in the original story, The Haunting of Bly Manor gives her a first name (Hannah) and a tragic story arc of her own.

Created by Mike Flanagan, who also created The Haunting of Hill House, this spiritual sequel is set primarily in 1987 and follows a young American woman, Dani, who is hired to care for two young children in the beautiful English countryside home of Bly Manor. Besides the two children and Dani, Hannah Grose is the only other person living in the house (chef Owen and gardener Jamie both live in the village). However, The Haunting of Bly Manor episode 5, “The Altar of the Dead,” reveals that Hannah isn’t really living at all.

As Hannah jumps back and forth in time through different memories, always looping back to Owen’s job interview, she’s eventually forced to confront the most painful memory of all. Miles, possessed by the ghost of Peter Quint, pushed her head-first into an empty well shortly before Dani arrived. Hannah Grose has been a ghost herself all along, but in deep denial about what happened to her. As much as she tried to suppress the truth, there are some key clues to her true nature scattered throughout the show.

Hannah’s First Appearance

When Dani first arrives at Bly Manor, she finds Miles and Hannah stood by the well, with Hannah leaning over it and looking into its depths. It’s not until “The Altar of the Dead” that the context behind this scene is fully revealed, but from her very first appearance on screen it’s hinted that something is not quite right about Hannah. She’s frequently caught staring off into the distance or daydreaming – a sign that she has drifted off into her memories.

Hannah Never Eats Or Drinks

One curious quirk of Hannah Grose that’s pointed out on multiple occasions in The Haunting of Bly Manor is that although she’ll sit down for dinner or a cup of tea with the other characters, she never actually eats or drinks anything. She gives the impression of drinking wine on the night of the bonfire, but could easily be pretending. Hannah is always ready with an excuse, whether it’s Dani’s poor tea-making skills, or declaring that she’ll eat in her room, or that she’s simply not hungry. The truth, though, is that she doesn’t eat or drink because she no longer needs to.

Hannah’s Four Candles

One of Hannah’s favorite places to spend time is in the chapel on the grounds of Bly Manor, and when Dani first finds her in the chapel there are four candles lit. When Dani asks what the candles are for, Hannah replies that they’re for “the dead.” At this point, however, there are only three dead people for Hannah to mourn: Dominic and Charlotte Wingrave, and Rebecca Jessel. Peter Quint is only known to be missing, so the fourth candle can’t be for him. Instead, without being consciously aware of why, Hannah is lighting a candle for herself.

Hannah Touching Her Head

Throughout The Haunting of Bly Manor Hannah has a curious tic: touching a specific spot on the back of her head without seeming to realize that she’s doing it. This is another symptom of the truth trying to push its way to the surface of her mind. When Hannah fell down the well, she died after hitting her head on a rock at the bottom. In these moments, she’s touching the spot of the injury that killed her.

Miles’s Bad Dream

After seeing Peter Quint at a window and fainting at the end of The Haunting of Bly Manor‘s second episode, Miles sleeps downstairs with his sister while the adults stay up to keep watch for Quint’s return. When Miles wakes up and is taken to bed, he tells Hannah that he had a dream that he hurt her and made her sad. Miles isn’t consciously aware of what he did to Hannah while he was possessed, but the fresh encounter with Peter apparently stirred the memory.

The Cracks In The Walls

In moments when she’s left alone with her thoughts, Hannah Grose’s worst buried memory starts to manifest as imagined cracks in the wall – first in the kitchen, then later in the chapel. This is actually a crack in the stone at the bottom of the well, which became the last thing that Hannah saw before she died. On a more metaphorical level, it represents cracks forming in the wall of denial that Hannah has carefully built up around her mind.

Making Dinner For Owen

After Owen’s mother passes away from Alzheimer’s disease, both Dani and Hannah decide not go to the funeral. This seems like a strange decision for Hannah, given how close she is to Owen, though she explains it away by saying that she doesn’t like funerals, adding that the funerals are for the living (another subtle clue). Yet despite Owen being away at the funeral, Hannah still makes his favorite meal for dinner – and sure enough, Owen shows up at Bly Manor in time for the meal, prompting Flora to ask Hannah how she knew Owen was coming. As a ghost, Hannah now experiences time in a non-linear fashion, jumping backwards and forwards through different moments. This allows her to revisit the past, but also gives her advance knowledge of the future.

Owen’s Shakespeare Quotes

As Hannah starts to reach the horrible truth in “The Altar of the Dead,” Owen (or the version of him that exists in her mind) guides her gently towards it. Owen has a love of puns and wordplay, but his quotes from the works of William Shakespeare are particularly significant. When Rebecca rejects his offer to taste the stew, he responds, “The sweetest honey is loathsome in its own deliciousness. And in its taste destroys the appetite.” This warning is spoken by Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet, a tragic tale of doomed romance much like Hannah and Owen’s. The morbid preceding lines in the play – “These violent delights have violent ends / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder / Which, as they kiss, consume” – are also a hint, albeit an unspoken one.

In the final loop through the job interview, when Hannah tells Owen that she’s having the “strangest dream,” he replies, “to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come?” Apparently Hannah’s subconscious is losing patience with her, because this rather on-the-nose quote from Hamlet is her way of telling herself that she is already in the sleep of death.

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Hannah Shaw-Williams
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Hannah has been with Screen Rant since 2013, covering news, features, movie premieres, Comic-Con and more! You can follow her on Twitter @HSW3K

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