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Netflix: The Haunting of Hill House Season 1 Ep 4 (The Twin Thing) recap

By Carla Davis

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— Courtesy of Netflix

Episode 4 of The Haunting of Hill House belongs to Luke, so we finally get to decide if we like him, or dislike him due to his drug habit.  It’s a pretty good story, and contains the scariest scene in the series so far (and that’s saying something).

Cute little boy Luke is sitting outside, showing his drawing to his “imaginary friend” Abigail. He sadly tells her that this is the thing he saw in the basement, but no one believes him.

We cut to adult Luke, in a rehab group meeting, where a blind Iraqi war vet is telling his story. It’s pretty gruesome, as he found a little girl with her eyes melted “like runny eggs,” and the story ends with the disclosure that the trauma caused him to stab his own eyes out with a knitting needle while on drugs.

Two days before this, Luke spoke in the meeting, and he was 90 days clean for the first time.  In his quiet, unassuming way, he seems proud. Luke as an adult is shy, and just seems tired most of the time. To give him credit, he seems ashamed of the way he has mistreated his siblings.

At Hill House, Luke is in his tree house, with the creepy drawing on the floor. Around the picture of the ghastly creature he saw in the basement, he places green army men, counting them out loud, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.” Then he is in Hill House showing the drawing to Hugh, and tells him the house is “bad.” Olivia walks downstairs looking for Nellie, who is hiding behind a box. She comes out of hiding when her mother says she has a box of old buttons Nellie may like.

In the box of stuff Olivia has brought down is an old-fashioned men’s black bowler hat, and Luke asks if he can have it. Hugh puts it on his head (thereby rendering Luke an 11 on the cuteness scale of 1-10), and they agree that it is a “big boy hat.” Hugh tells him that big boys know the difference between what’s real and what is imaginary. Nell says that Luke loves the hat, and when Hugh asks how she knows he loves it, she replies, “It’s a twin thing.” (Now Nellie is an 11 as well).

Image courtesy of Amblin TV and Paramount TV

When the twins leave, Olivia tells Hugh her vision of the room they are standing in, which includes a boy in a wheel chair. She also asks him to get rid of the ropes hanging around the tall iron spiral staircase, because they are an accident waiting to happen. Is this foreshadowing?

Back in rehab, Luke is in his room with his pretty friend Joey. She asks if he is having a hard time with the fearless inventory he is attempting to write about, and he wonders how far back in his life he needs to go. High school? He has lied and stolen from his brother and sisters, and has taken money from them many times. He is clearly ashamed of himself. Joey seems distracted, but denies that anything is wrong, and Luke congratulates her for being nine months clean.

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The caseworker comes in to tell them it’s time for lights out, and tells Luke that his brother called. Joey says he should call him and let him know about his ninety-day chip, but Luke’s response is “he won’t believe me.” He says the only one who would believe him is Nell, “it’s a twin thing.”

Later that night, Luke awakes suddenly, clutching his neck. He sees the adult Nell standing in his room, and she urgently says one word: “Go.”

At Hill House, little Luke and Nell are playing with the brass “intercom” system they found. Nell is upstairs, and throws three of her buttons through the tube, but Luke only sees two fall into his hat. Nell comes downstairs, and they are trouble shooting to figure out how to get the missing button to go down the tube. Suddenly, the button comes shooting out, and they hear a voice whispering through the intercom. Nell tells Luke that he is scared, which he denies. She says she can tell he is, and when he asks how she can tell, she responds, “because I’m scared.” Must be that twin thing again!

Luke wakes up at rehab, and finds a note under his pillow. He reads it, but we don’t get to see it yet. At group, Paige (the case worker) announces that Joey chose to leave in the middle of the night. She can tell that Luke is upset, and tells him that this is why relationships are discouraged in rehab. Luke shoots back that he and Joey are just friends, and how can anyone expect to make it through this without friends? He leaves and goes to his room, where he re-reads Joey’s note. It reads:  Don’t follow me. Of course, he does.

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