15 "Haunting Of Hill House" Questions That We Need Answers To Right Now

The Haunting of Hill House has haunted our souls.

🚨Warning: Spoilers ahead!🚨

Hello, we're Nora and Casey, and we just watched The Haunting of Hill House, the glorious masterpiece that everyone is talking about.

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Think we're being a little loose with the word "masterpiece"? Well, Stephen King called it "close to a work of genius," so, IDK, but that sounds pretty much like a masterpiece to us.

Stephen King @StephenKing

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, revised and remodeled by Mike Flanagan. I don't usually care for this kind of revisionism, but this is great. Close to a work of genius, really. I think Shirley Jackson would approve, but who knows for sure.

01:47 AM - 17 Oct 2018

The series follows the fractured Crain family — in the past and present — as they confront the haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events (and ghosts) that drove them from it.

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It's truly an amazing show that is equal parts horrifying and emotional...but that doesn't mean we don't have a TON of questions after that seriously insane (and raw) finale!!!

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Here's everything we just can't stop thinking about:

1. What's up with Theo's powers? Like why is she the only Crain to have powers?

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Listen, we would die for Theo (and Luke and Shirley and Nell, but definitely not Steve), but why does she have "the power of touch"? We're not against her having powers, but why is she the only one with them? How did she get them? Like, everyone is just OK with her wearing gloves all the time without her explaining why she's wearing them? Olivia mentioned her side of the family being "sensitive," but that really doesn't answer anything at all. We love her powers and want more of them, BUT WE NEED ANSWERS.

2. When Hugh grabbed young Theo, she was able to see everything that was going to happen, so why didn't she say anything?

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TBH, we didn't even remember this moment until we saw this Tumblr post, but it's SO IMPORTANT. So, Theo had a flash of literally everything that was to come — the deadly tea party, the skeleton in the wall, Hugh shoving Olivia — and yet, she didn't seem to use this vision to her advantage. Did young Theo block out this memory and older Theo just didn't remember? She was probably just too scared/in denial...BUT STILL.

3. Did Olivia and Nell die of their own volition or did Poppy and Olivia, respectively, kill them both?

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We're sure the answer is somewhere in the middle, but we really want to know if Poppy and Olivia (or, rather, the ghosts of them) directly killed Olivia and Nell, or if they both killed themselves. Obviously both Olivia and Nell were driven to their deaths by Hill House, but it's unclear if the ghosts actually pushed them to their deaths. Either way, Hill House killed them.

4. OK, so how does the Red Room actually work?

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The twist that the Red Room was the dancing studio, the treehouse, the reading room, the game room, and more was truly so good...but how does the room actually work? It's obviously whatever the person inside the room needs it to be so they can be at peace so the room can digest them, but it's crazy how Theo was in the dance studio while Shirley and Nell were on the outside trying to get in. Our only educated guess is that the house truly is a maze — just like how we see the maze of the house during the opening credits — and so Theo was able to enter it from a different door? But that doesn't really explain it. TELL US HOW YOU WORK, RED ROOM.

5. And how did they get into the Red Room without knowing it?

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Does the Red Room disguise itself as different rooms/doors? Obviously, it has to. But, we really want to know how it worked for Luke's treehouse. BECAUSE TREEHOUSES ARE OUTSIDE. So, is the Red Room able to magically appear outside in the backyard so that Luke could see it? Damn this Red Room.

6. How much does the mold have to do with people going crazy?

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As soon as Hugh finds out that literally the entire house was infected by black mold, we knew it was going to cause trouble. When we finally get to the Red Room the stuff is EVERYWHERE. So, we're going with the theory that the mold has something to do with all of Hill House's inhabitants seeing ghosts/being haunted, even though it's never explicitly discussed. Obviously the ghosts also are mostly to blame, but you can't ignore the black mold.

7. How does time actually work on this show?

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Once we watched "The Bent-Neck Lady" episode, it became pretty clear that time worked different in this universe. Like, Nell was haunting her younger self for YEARS. So, how does time work here? Because adult Nell was able to appear in the past as a ghost and I just really want to know HOW. Her line comparing time to rain, snow, and confetti falling all around us vs. time existing in a linear way explains it a little bit, but we want to know more!!!

8. Who put the buttons on Nell's eyes?

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Honestly, it's one of the more creepy moments in the series and it's never explained! The Crain siblings see that two random buttons are placed on Nell's eyes and no one investigates further. On top of that, when various moments are being explained in the end, the random buttons appearing isn't one of them. (Educated guess: It was probably ghost Olivia because she called Nell "buttons.")

9. Why didn't the gasoline work in the house?

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Alright, we just knew that Luke wasn't going to be able to burn down Hill House so easily. C'mon, the house literally holds people hostage, so some gasoline and a match wasn't going to to bring it down. But, why didn't the house catch on fire? What was the supernatural reasoning behind it all?

10. Did Luke die and then come back to life?

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The Crain siblings trying desperately to save Luke in the Red Room only added to the tears during that season finale. But here's the thing: Are we supposed to assume that Luke died, ended up in some version of purgatory, and then Nell brought him back to life? Or was he never dead and was just on the brink of death?

11. Is it just us or is anybody else wondering about the Clock Guy ghost?

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This ghost who was fixing the clock was pretty important because he was literally the only thing that made Steve realize that some crazy shit happened. But, what we want to know is what was this ghost's deal? He became an important part of the Crain's story, but we never learned anything about him. How did he die? Was he doomed to fix this one clock forever? We need to know.

12. Speaking of the ghosts, was Shirley's bar fling actually dead? Or was he just an hallucination haunting her?

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Shirley saw this guy from the bar multiple times throughout the series before we learned that it was actually a guy she cheated on her husband with. So, if Shirley kept seeing him — in a similar fashion to how Nell saw the Bent-Neck Lady or Luke saw the Bowler Hat Man — is he dead? Every other person the Crain family saw were ghosts, so are we supposed to assume that he's dead and haunting Shirley or is Shirley hallucinating him?

13. Now that Abigail is dead, how do Mr. and Mrs. Dudley spend time with her?

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We totally get Mr. and Mrs. Dudley not wanting to let go of the house because that would mean letting go of their MURDERED daughter — sorry, but Olivia straight-up murdered their daughter — but what are the logistics of that? Are they only able to visit her at night when all the ghosts come out? When Mr. Dudley walks out carrying dead Abigail in his arms, Mrs. Dudley is seen walking away while holding ghost Abigail's hand — are they walking out of the house together? We're just trying to figure out ghost technicalities right now.

14. The Dudley's were super old when they eventually returned to Hill House. Was this a flash forward or do they age differently than Hugh Crain?

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In the end, we see the Dudley's returning to Hill House where they plan to die and live with their children forever. The thing we don't get is why they were so old. We're assuming Hugh was around the same age as them, but he did not age that much. So, were their deaths included in the two-year flash forward we see at the end?

15. And finally, why is Poppy the worst person/ghost that has ever lived/died?

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She's a liar. F you, Poppy and your screaming meemies.

Tell us your thoughts in the comments because we want to know them! There are so many cool things in this show and we need all the answers.