What I love most about the haunting series is it’s always so thematically whole. Like, hill house was like: we’re going to explore familial trauma and grief and how people coping in different ways can drive families apart and childhood trauma really sticks through adulthood—and it did it through bouncing back and forth chronologically, portraying the house of their trauma as a living thing that eats people up and having the family ultimately come together and heal through love
And Bly manor is like: we’re going to explore the trauma of loving someone despite risk of losing them in its many forms and we’re going to do it through ghosts who ‘possess’ rather than love, show multiple levels of love and loss and the haunting is going to come from a person who was forgotten by those she loved rather than the house itself.
And it’s just great. They really center their stories around theme first and that’s what makes it excellent.