— 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.
Image courtesy of Amblin TV and Paramount TV
Luke uses a pay phone to call Nell, but he gets no answer (and we know why). He leaves a message.
Back to young Luke, he wakes up at night to the sound of dogs barking, and then hears a tapping noise coming down the hall outside of his bedroom door. He peeks out the door and sees an impossibly tall, thin man, feet floating several inches above the floor, and the tapping noise is the can he carries. He is pushing open each door down the hallway, peering in. Terrified, Luke quietly closes his bedroom door, and hides under his bed.
From under the bed, Luke can see the door open, and the man’s feet still floating above the floor as he moves closer. We see the man’s shadow as he picks up Luke’s “big boy” hat and puts it on his own head. Luke has been holding his breath, and can’t do it anymore; as he gasps in a breath of air, the man hears him, and bends over. We see his long, thin fingers and then his terrifying face looking directly at Luke, who begins screaming. THIS, my friends, is, in my opinion, the most terrifying scene so far! I was talking out loud to the TV, saying, “Oh, no, no,no,no” and “What the hell IS that?”
Adult Luke wakes up on a park bench, and spots Joey buying drugs across the street. He approaches her, and they talk briefly, then he uses the pay phone to call the rehab, and asks if they can both come back. Paige tells him it’s not a hotel, if you run, you lose your spot. “You did it to yourself.”
Throughout all of this, Luke keeps rubbing his neck as if it hurts. He tells Joey they can get a hotel room until the drugs she has taken wear off. Neither of them has money, and he sees the silhouette of the tall man in the dark. Luke is hesitant, but decides to ask Steven for money. He tells Joey again that Steven won’t believe he is clean, Joey is the only person besides Nell who believes him. He tells her about “the twin thing,” and says that once, he broke his ankle. Nell called him and said her ankle was really hurting, so she knew he was injured.
Image courtesy of Amblin TV and Paramount TV
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When they get to Steven’s house, Luke tells Joey to stay across the street, Leigh will know that she is high. Leigh answers the door, but won’t let him stay there; she tells him that she and Steven are not together, they separated a month ago.
Luke thinks back to visiting Steven and Leigh with Joey a while back while, when they were on a Day Pass. At dinner, they talk about rehab, and all of the rules. Joey tells them that Luke is also a good writer, he once wrote an essay about an imaginary friend (who is, of course, Abigail). She is very impressed with Steven and Leigh’s house, and says all it needs now is kids to fill it up. By the looks on Steven and Leigh’s faces, we can tell this is a sore subject.
While Joey and Leigh chat outside, Steven takes the opportunity to get in some digs at Luke. He refers to Joey as “slick”, and Luke defends her. She was with him when he was going through withdrawal, and Steven sarcastically states that he doesn’t know what withdrawal is like. Luke tells him that he had body aches, and was always cold, can’t he even give Joey a chance? Steven’s response is that no, he already gave them all to Luke. Luke says he is glad to be 30 days clean so Steven can make him feel like sh*t again.
We are back to the night Steven came home, only to find Luke coming down the stairs with his iPad and camera. Now, of course, we know that Luke is not using, and has a different reason for wanting money. Again, we hear Luke tell him this isn’t what it looks like, and Steven curtly respond, “You cold?”
Still shivering from the cold, Luke returns to Joey and gives her the money for a hotel room. She requests to duck into the “junkie room” for a quick fix, and says she’ll be back in a flash. She doesn’t return, of course, and Luke can’t find her. He sees the tall man again, in silhouette.
We return to Luke’s group meeting at the 90-day clean mark, and he is speaking. He says it has taken him ten years to get 90 days clean, and that #4 (the Fearless Inventory) has always been the most difficult for him. He was always a scared kid, and it didn’t get better when his Mom died and he went to live with his Aunt. He kept expecting her to come back. Now his family won’t believe him, and doesn’t blame them after all the bad things he has done. He thanks Joey and Paige for supporting him.
Image courtesy of Amblin TV and Paramount TV
Present day Luke has been beaten, his shoes and coat stolen, and he is walking around barefooted, shivering. He counts to seven over and over again as he walks, and we can see the tall man standing with his back to us. Luke calls the rehab, and begs Paige to let him come back. He tells her he didn’t use drugs, he is cold, and he needs a bed. Paige tells him that she and Steven will come get him. While waiting, he sits on the bench and counts to 7, over and over again.
At Hill House, it’s night time, and Nell sits on her bed crying. Luke sits up and puts on his glasses, and Nell says, “You’re awake.” “Well, yeah, because you’re awake.” She tells him she saw the bent neck lady again, that Mommy and Daddy don’t believe her, they say it’s just a nightmare. Luke tells her that he believes her, and he has an idea.
Luke gets out Nell’s box of buttons, and starts to take out some of them out and lay them on the bed in a circle, telling her she needs seven of them. When she asks why, he says “Mom, Dad, Steven, Shirl, Theo, you, me…it has to be seven. It helps if you touch each one and count out loud. It keeps you safe.” He tells her that sometimes “you have to do it a lot.”
Adult Luke is walking and counting, and the tall man can be seen behind him, standing with his back to Luke’s back. When Luke turns, the tall man has Olivia’s face, wearing that creepy bowler hat. Headlights shine in his face, Steven and Paige have pulled up. Luke hugs Steven and says, “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t help her.” He is weeping, and tells Steven he is so cold, and his arms and legs are stiff, just like withdrawal (or death, right?), but he didn’t use. “You believe me, right?” Steven tells him that Nell is dead, and that it was suicide. Luke’s face is stricken, and he rubs his neck. “No,” he says, “it wasn’t.”
Wow, what a great, emotional, well-rounded episode! Luke just broke my heart in this one. Oliver Jackson-Cohen came across as so vulnerable, sweet, and broken. And, we all know how I feel about little Luke (Julian Hilliard), I just want to scoop him up and protect him from all of the ghosts. But, seriously, this one made me ugly cry, nicely done. Plus, the scene with Luke hiding under the bed from that tall, creepy man was sooooo scary.
How do you feel about Hill House so far? Do you think it’s a great balance of horror and family drama, as I do? Let us know in the comment section below.