Ranking the Flanaverse:
A Dive Into The Shows Of Mike Flanagan
What is a story? Why do we tell them? Does a story entertain? Does a story chronicle? Does a story evoke introspection? Stories do all these things. Mike Flanagan is a writer/director known for his use of gothic ambience, abstract representations of various aspects of the human condition and of course monologues. Let’s examine four Mike Flanagan limited series, and how these concepts are used to tell an overall story.
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The Haunting of Bly Manor:
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The Haunting of Bly Manor is based on the work of Henry James, particularly Turn of the Screw, and focuses on Danielle “Dani” Clayton. An American hired by the wealthy Henry Wingrave as an Au Pair for his niece Flora and nephew Miles (who he shows little interest towards) following the death of their parents at the illustrious Bly Manor, an old estate found in the rural Bly County of Britain. Soon after, she notices strange events such as the sense of being watched, mysterious muddy footprints as well as erratic behavior from the children themselves such as locking Dani in a closet for several hours. In her pursuit of an explanation, she is led down a rabbit hole spanning the history of the house. An experience consisting of greed, jealously, infidelity, revenge, remorse, love and the cost of toxic relationships.
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The series weaves these themes into an engaging tale beginning with her remorse for the circumstances surrounding the death of her former fiancé leading Dani to the decision to flee rather than face it as it continues to haunt her so severely, she covers every mirror as she sees him stare back each time she gazes into one. The decision leads to her to Bly Manor, where she is forced to confront her remorse and allow herself to fall in love. She and Jamie, the groundskeeper marred by the trauma of being raised in an abusive and exploitative foster care system, form a gothic style romance and an enduring star-crossed love which throughout remained unbroken.
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Henry also confronts remorse, as he is tortured nightly by a twisted doppelganger serving as a reminder of his betrayal of his brother. He chooses to barricade himself in his office, locking himself in with his tortuous guilt. He refuses to visit Bly Manor, due to the guilt from his betrayal.
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As Dani navigates through this journey, she meets the house’s other staff and residents each encompassing various accounts of Bly Manor. Flora and Miles are met whist struggling to grieve he loss of their parents. They are supported by the housekeeper, Hannah Grose, as she comes to terms with a loss of her own. Dani also meets Owen, a chef with aspirations of opening a restaurant in Paris, who chose to work at Bly Manor to be closer to his ailing mother. He forms a, ill-fated friendship with Hannah who desperately wishes to reveal why they can never be together.
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Those at Bly Manor are also met with many spectral beings. One being Rebecca Jessel the preceding Au Pair who was misled into ending her own life by the ignoble Peter Quint, her boyfriend and employee of Henry Wingrave. The two shared a deeply co-dependent and toxic relationship in life and death. The most malevolent of those trapped within Bly Manor is known as the” faceless lady”, a ghastly spirit who rises out of the lake and walks. She takes all unfortunate enough to cross per path.
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The Haunting of Bly Manor was a slower burn, and anyone expecting a plethora narrative twist or jump scares may lose interest. What it does do it does well, a story about the cost and rewards of love and how dead doesn't mean gone.
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Midnight Mass:
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Midnight Mass takes place on Crockett Island, a place reminiscent of a New England town from a Stephen King novel. Once Riley Flynn, a man raised on the island who left to become financially successful, returns home from a prison sentence in the wake of a drunk driving accident resulting in a woman's death he struggles to adjust to his new reality.
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Ostracized by his family and community he seeks refuge in the relationship be builds with Erin Greene, a childhood friend and teacher who has also returned following a recent pregnancy. She as well as most of the town frequent the St Patrick's Church, where recently a new priest named Paul Hill has been sent to substitute for Monsignor Pruitt who has fallen ill on a recent trip to Israel. The town starts to see things thought to be impossible, such as a teenage girl paralyzed in a hunting accident walk and a woman with dementia regains her lucidity as well as her youth resulting in a religious revival throughout the town. Though these deeds may seem miraculous, its further revealed they may not be what they seem. As it’s discovered these miracles were a result of a demonic being.
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This increase in religious fundamentalism soon leads the town to a path of darkness, driven even farther by the zealotic Bev Keane. Those that follow this path gain immortality, paid with the heavy price of taking mortality, resulting in the town’s inevitable destruction.
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Mike Flanagan described the series as a passion project, which is abundantly clear. The conversations between Father Paul and Riley, framed as AA meetings, are written as if it's an inner dialogue between two conflicting aspects of Mike Flanagan. The series emphasizes guilt (as both Father Paul and Riley are wracked with guilt over their choices), addiction, redemption, mortality and misplaced faith. It’s a masterful look into the process of moving forward after addiction, the guilt of the choices made during it, the path to redemption and the places it can lead you.
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Fall of the House of Usher:
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The Fall of the House of Usher is adapted from the writing of Edgar Allan Poe. The overall narrative takes place in the dilapidated Usher house as Roderick Usher, the CEO of the predatory Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, as he confesses his role in the deaths of his spoiled and morally bereft children to his rival and former friend C. Augustine Dupin (whose name is derived from a Poe character considered to be the first detective in fiction). The Ushers are analogous to the Sackler family, the founders of Purdue Pharmaceuticals and developers of Oxycontin (an opioid medication thought to have been a large contributor to the opioid crisis) who have been described by many as the “most evil family in America”.
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On New Years Eve 1979 Roderick Usher and his sister Madeline visit a bar after committing a crime to set up an alibi, they are met with the bartender Verna. As the night draws to a close Verna offers them a deal which grants them wealth and legal immunity, however it would come at a dire consequence. They walk out of the bar as daylight stretches across the waking streets, dismissing the entire encounter as an odd dream.
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Many years later Roderick has taken over Fortunato Pharmaceuticals and Madeline is appointed COO, in time making the Usher family one the wealthiest in the America. Now elderly and infirm, he endures the loss of each one of his children die in horrific ways befitting their horrific actions. Each death ties into various Poe works such as the Masque of the Red Death, Murder in the Rue Morgue, The Black Cat, The Tell Tale Heart and The Pit and the Pendulum. Arthur Pym, the family’s lawyer along with Madeline discover that Verna has been present each time. She appears the same as she was in 1979, and the question begins as to her involvement. Her presence continues, as empire the Usher family had built on avarice and suffering collapses. Concluding with Rodericks confessions to Dupin in the rotting house, which like the Usher empire implodes upon itself.
The series integrated the diverse category of Poe’s stories, poems and the only novel he had written along with stunning imagery which seamlessly convey the gravitas of their destruction and perfectly unlikable performances into a modernized version of the decisions made out of greed in order to obtain wealth and power and how the ones who make the decisions are not always the ones who pay the price.
Verna takes many forms; theorists have a variety of interpretations. This is because who and what she is was predicated on the road taken. Verna can be a harbinger of death, bearer of justice, courier of truth and of mercy. Verna is what she needed to be as an arbiter of the agreement made. The Fall of the House of Usher is closely and perhaps sits alongside the best series Mike Flanagan has ever done.
The Haunting of Hill House:
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The Haunting of Hill House was derived from novel of the same name from Shirley Jackson. The series focuses on the Craine family who move into the fabled Hill House during the summer of 1992 in effort to renovate and sell it. As they try to restore the capacious and beautifully broken Hill House the father Hugh and wife Olivia as well as their children Steven, Shirley, Theodora (or Theo) and the twins Luke and Elanor (or Nell) all share encounters with the estate’s ghostly inhabitants. Most notably the gangling “Tall Man” who stalks Luke as he floats though the dark halls, the “Bent Neck Lady” who hovers over Nell with urgency and warning, and the devious Poppy Hill who inveigles Olivia into a tragic state culminating in a harrowing act as Hugh gathers the confused and frightened children and races during the night to save them.
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The happenings of that night leave each child shaken, each overcome by fear and uncertainty, only having pieces of the truth. Hugh refuses to reveal it to them as he believed it would be too devastating, the children estrange themselves from him out of anger and resentment which he endures as a means of what he sees as protection. As they become adults the children are tormented by the fragment they underwent and engaged in destructive mechanisms to cope. They conceal themselves in addiction, denial, anger and meaningless encounters.
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Nell, to gain closure, returns to Hill House resulting in the house manipulating her into ending her life. The family is brought together, airing their grievances during her wake. Luke decides to destroy the house, arriving with gasoline which quickly evaporates. The remaining Craine family hurry to save him, and while there shown the truth of that night and the past traumas that are haunting them with no choice but to challenge it. Afterwards, they begin to truly heal.
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Though the series took some liberties from the book, it captures the overall meaning Shirley Jackson intended with evocative visuals cementing the eerie and isolating feeling that stays with you long after watching. She has said "No one can get into a novel about a haunted house without hitting the subject of reality head-on; either I have to believe in ghosts, which I do, or I have to write another kind of novel altogether." It does just that, reflects a unifying truth, our fear of mortality and desperate desire to linger in the good times. To spare ourselves the pain of existence. The meaning of the Haunting of Hill House and Shiley Jackon’s message can be summed up by Steven, "A ghost can be a lot of things. A memory, a daydream, a secret. Grief, anger, guilt. In my experience, most times they're just what we want to see. Most times, a ghost is a wish". (“100 Best Quotes From ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ - Sarah Scoop”). The ghosts in The Haunting of Hill House serve as manifestations of the issues that plagued each of the Craine's, serving as a deeply introspective peregrination on existentialism.
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Though Midnight Mass and especially Fall of the House of Usher are close the Haunting of Hill House due to the atmosphere, the emotional performances and the poignant story that leaves you different than before.