Ranking Every Episode Of The Haunting Of Hill House

2. Episode 9: Screaming Meemies

After eight long episodes of seeing Olivia, the Crain mother, through the eyes of other characters, Screaming Meemies finally allows us to see those final days in Hill House through her eyes and it is immensely powerful.

First and foremost, it has to be noted that actress Carla Gugino spends the entirety of this series knocking it out of the park with her performance as Olivia, but nowhere else does she get the chance to shine quite like this. She plays Olivia as a mother at her wit's end, desperate to do whatever it takes to keep her children safe after suffering visions of them dying.

The most brilliant aspect of Gugino's performance here is that she plays it as if Olivia kind of knows she's losing it. It isn't just a blind following of Hill House's wishes, Gugino fills the character with a near-constant doubt and dread that what she's doing can't be right, but she can't find another way to do it.

The tea-drinking sequence with Nell, Luke, and Abigail is a gritting-your-teeth-in-suspense sequence that is easily a highlight of the entire series and the twist of Abigail being the Dudley's daughter subverts expectations from the source material in a brilliant way.

Considering that this is an episode that essentially hits the pause button on the modern-day storyline, it is a miracle that it plays even half as well as it does. Gugino and Flanagan proved they are a deadly combination with their film Gerald's Game, and this episode only goes to further cement that.