If Nellie was pure hope that was brought down by the house, then her mother was the true tragedy of the entire show. Olivia is such a sad character and I was glad that they brought this out in this episode. Everyone says that Hill House is a horror and yes, it has horror elements but in truth, it’s a tragedy about a broken family. That’s where Olivia’s story truly lies.
Following the awful cliffhanger of the last episode, we now go back to see Olivia’s full storyline. She was a woman who was haunted by the thought of losing her children and the evils of the house played on that. It starts with her telling the story of her father dying when she was a young girl. It’s a small scene in comparison to the rest of the show but it makes for an incredibly compelling moment and this is in no small due to the abilities of Carla Gugino. She’s absolutely terrific in this entire series but this is the episode where she obviously really gets to shine as an actress.
Olivia starts to get terrible migraines and have these awful visions of Luke and Nellie dying. It starts with her seeing Luke OD’d on the floor and Nellie’s body in the morgue. Nellie rises and just starts sobbing and pleading with her by just saying “Mommy” over and over. That alone would be enough to drive me insane but it just gets worse from there.
This is the episode where we actually meet Poppy Hill who I view as the primary antagonist of the series. She’s this young and beautiful flapper girl that keeps pressuring Olivia into “Saving” her children. While pleading with her to do it she keeps talking about how she lost her own children and that the only way to save her children is to “Wake them up” from the nightmares. Catherine Parker plays Poppy as though she is purely insane and evil. She does a phenomenal job especially when she starts to talk about her own children. One of the few complaints I have about the show is that we know so little about Poppy by the end of the show.
When Olivia wakes up she begins to agree that something is wrong with her. She initially tries to fight against it but then she finally comes to terms with it and begins to make plans to leave early. This is when we start to see the other side of the scenes where Olivia was talking to herself or weird things happened throughout the series. I.E. Her breaking the mirror and her standing in the twins room.
Olivia leaves and lies to Hugh about where she is. She never went to her sister’s house, she went to a motel and then comes back to the house and plans on killing the twins with Rat Poison. it’s here that we see Abigail is with Luke and we get a very odd twist here. We, the viewers, have thought that Abigail was a ghost the entire time but she’s actually a living person which is why the next part is so incredibly tragic. Olivia prepares a “Tea Party” for the children and takes them to the red room and they all prepare to drink together. Hugh gets there just in time to save the twins but it’s too late for Abigail. She drinks too quick and starts to choke. Hugh throws Olivia against the wall and grabs the children.
Hugh runs and gathers the kids while the ghosts of the house all starts becoming restless and following him and Olivia as she tries to find the kids. We also get a fantastic turn of seeing Olivia turn the door handle while Hugh and Steve wait on the other side. It’s a callback to the very first episode which I absolutely loved. Hugh gets Steve out and Olivia watches as they pull away while Poppy starts chanting and ranting about how the world will kill her children now because Hugh took them from her.
Olivia finally decides to “wake” herself up before Hugh can get back to her. It’s easily the saddest episode of the season in my opinion.
