PERFECTLY SPLENDID!!!!
Frikkin 2020 my dearest Readers, frikkin 2020 be doing me like…
I know I haven’t shut up about this since…what feels like forever, but 2020 is the Golden Year of Yuri! The amount of gayness this year has given us (and still has yet to) is for the books!!! I can say with almost 100% confidence that this year will never be beat! The only chance any other year has is if the whole world comes together and legitimize gay marriage! The whole nations will celebrate by releasing gay content left and right and the world will know peace!
But until that year comes, 2020 is it Ladies and Gentlemen!
Just yesterday I was writing the secret to my heart, which is Yuri in my favourite genre that is horror! Just yesterday! And what goes and happens!?!! The very same day Netflix gives us THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR!!!! But why is this such a big deal when nothing was made out of the other smash hit by the same director (THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE)?!
To tell the truth, I never understood the high praise the director gets for his series! Everyone is all – no one does horror like Mike Flanagan – and I’m sitting there unimpressed like – Are you all horror virgins!?! I never understood what was so special about the previous series nor am I of this one, horror-wise! Maybe compared to the West horror these series are all that but to me it’s nothing! I never got really scared in either HILL HOUSE nor BLY MANOR! But just because I didn’t get scared enough to label them masterpieces, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t bloody good horror shows!
Indeed, as far as the West Coast is concerned, no series comes close to these two!
So, why talk about BLY MANOR when I didn’t post anything about HILL HOUSE? Well, for starters, as you will most likely have heard from reviewers, this is more of a romance than horror! And while that might raise eye-brows, especially on this site, there is a very big BUT!
The main character is GAY!!!!
That’s right, our beautiful, perfectly splendid Dani (Victoria Pendretti) is gay and as the rules go, her love story took the majority of the effort! And while the start of their relationship, all the way up to their first kiss, was mediocre levels of writing, when they got to their special episode they had my fuckin soul!! Our other girl Jamie (Amelia Eve – awesome name!!!) has to be one of the best lovers in history! Her speech about the moonflower had me crawling at my screen trying to get into that damn world so I can fuckin kiss her and whisk her away to be with me instead!
Yeah, sorry Dani but it’s not like it would be out of character for the show given all the NTRing going on in the damn show! For those not in the know, NTR basically means someone coming and taking your girl from you under your nose!
Speaking of, the big bad ghost of BLY MANOR’s motivations were so luckster I literally didn’t feel anything for her! Maybe that was not the point but I just couldn’t wait for an exorcist to come and send her ass to hell! The fuckin gal she had treating her sister that way when she was the one that came and stole her sister’s love interest for herself! I was also expecting for the sister to play a bigger role in the handling of her in the end but she just ended up being a useless faceless ghost in the attic!
That’s another thing that did not click with me! There were things that didn’t make any sense or weren’t utilized well in the show! It was hard to tell who was alive and who was dead because they was very little differentiation between the two! Meanwhile, Dani’s dead Fiancé’s ghost was just forgotten about at some point! Surely it wasn’t just me who thought he would play a bigger role! At the very least put make the scene where he doesn’t haunt Dani anymore stand out in an impactful way! But he just…goes away! Like, what was all with the creepy haunting for?!! Shit, I would have even taken him attacking Jamie or something! I wouldn’t have liked it but it would have made sense! As for the Uncle, WTF, what the absolute F was up with him!?! Again, I ain’t the only one who thought he was dead too, right?!
God, even Tokyo Girls’ Style’s horror movie did the ‘actually they are already dead’ thing way better than this! And that is a damn Idol C-rate movie!!
Anyway, back to what made this series worth it for me – the gayness! Sure HILL HOUSE had one of the sisters as gay but she was so on the side that it wasn’t worth writing home about! But this, it was at the center, the emotions were perfectly splendid and they did the thing – they allured me in with the killer bait that never fails – two people who meet and change each other’s lives!
Because that’s what they do! Without Dani, Jamie was more interested in plants that she was people and she would have stayed that way! You see it the very first time you meet her where she doesn’t even acknowledge Dani’s presence at all! She is so guarded that she never lets anyone in at all, not until Dani!
Meanwhile Dani, her whole life she had been living a lie, a lie that ended in tragedy when her Fiancé died right after she dumped him and essentially called off the wedding to a relationship that they have had since they were under ten even! She is of course broken by this to the point of being haunted by him and is the reason why she jumps ship and leaves American for England!
She too then is afraid to get close to anyone because of the fear and the guilty that is literally following her around in the form of her dead Fiancé’s ghost! Even when they start to take that step this gets in the way and almost shutters the possibility of the two healing each other but they both fight on and try hard to make it work and they succeed! Despite her fear Dani pushes on and still tries to get close to Jamie and Jamie also draws strength of Dani because she sees how hard she is fighting given what she is going through and yet is still willing to try so she does to and lets herself accept someone for real!
God, that was the one scene that almost broke me! I literally smoked up with that scene! And yes, I am talking about the moonflower scene!
That’s the other thing, just earlier this week I finally got around to watching the CODE BLUE movie and that movie made me cry so hard! Seriously, I was bawling like the bitch I am! And it wasn’t because someone died, it was those perfect speeches that the series perfected to an art! And yet here, I was like, OK, to any sad story said I seriously didn’t feel even choked up!
But that moonflower scene people, that was a killer!
And that was just the beginning! We hadn’t even gotten to theory special episode yet and let me tell you, that is one that broke the camel’s back! I couldn’t hold it in anymore! Jamie man, she deserves the world the way she held their lives together like she was a surgeon holding a patient’s heart in their hand!
You see, the two were living on borrowed time! In order to save little Flora from the bad ghost, and in turn saving every soul that was trapped by her, Dani accepted the Ghost’s tainted soul into herself and with every passing second she was being devoured and taken over! It was literally like watching a time bomb slowly counting down to the end and Jamie was strapped down in the chair that had that bomb tied to it!
But instead of acting like we all would, like we have seen others act when they leave their loved ones because they just couldn’t take it anymore, Jamie stuck to Dani’s side and she was the one that grounded them and Dani, who was slipping away slowly but surely!
I tell you, that episode had me in shambles!
Indeed, the seconds eventually got close to zero and after one night Dani woke up from a bad dream and found her hand over a sleeping Jamie’s throat ready to choke her and play out her dream, she decides to take the bomb with her and fall on top of it with just two seconds left and sacrifices herself in order to save Jamie! She goes back to Blye Manor and drowns herself in the lake and thus trapping the Ghost with her forever!
Jamie of course figures out what was happening and drives to the lake and tries to dive at the bottom to not only save her other soul but have Dani take her with! Dani of course didn’t want that and from what we are told, neither did the ghost anymore! The love the two shared that she experienced as she took shelter in Dani’s body all those years changed her back into her good self!
I think it goes without saying that Danielle is one of the best horror heroes of all time!
But what of Jamie then, the one that was left behind! How did she handle the fact that the one time she decided to let someone else in again, they ended up leaving her!?
Nothing!
Like I said, these two changed each other! And from what we see, Jamie did not fall for anyone ever again! I mean even if they were married (not officially, but it doesn’t matter as long as the two know it as so), many widows have remarried or found other lovers, but not Jamie it seems! And not only her, even Owen to, it seems never loved anyone else as at Flora’s wedding, the two were alone!
Not only that but even after all these years without Dani, Jamie still waits for her Ghost to come back to her! She leaves water in the bathtub, in the sinks, no longer covers mirrors up, leaves the door open and sleeps in the couch that she turns to face the door because even after all this time, she is still waiting for her Dani to come back to her! She still hopes to see that lovely ghost face in the reflections of the water or behind her in the mirror (like Dani’s Fiancé did to Dani)!
Seriously, THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR might not be all that in the scare department (read, personal opinion) but Dani and Jamie’s love story was bloody fantastic! Perfectly Splendid, as Flora would say! Seriously, I went in for the horror but I stayed for the romance! Theirs is one of those that despite being a TRAGIC END, it is a fuckin GOOD END!
PS: Dani does come back to her in the end, even if Jamie is sleeping, but hey, that is only the beginning, of another chapter in their lives I am sure!
The only mystery though and only question I have is, who is the hero that is the dresser that awakened Dani to her true self?! We never got to see her again! I thought she would appear again but alas! A shout to her though for opening Danielle’s eyes, with a single touch and a compliment no less…A toast you you girl, you are an hero!
So yeah, I bloody recommend this one! If it weren’t for another gem that is on the way, this one would be the 2020 Halloween gift, it most certainly is if we are talking about TV Shows but there is something else coming that will be King of 2020! And I will bloody be covering that best bet your perfect butts!
Until then…
Ja
百合 Goggles 
October 10, 2020 at 19:03
2020 really spoiled us.
Movies, series, and even video games !! What an incredible year!
Mike Flanagan gave us one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, love story in the horror genre. I liked the respect and attention given to this relationship and these characters.
When I think back to Dani and Jamie, their love, I have tears in my eyes.
October 10, 2020 at 19:20
Theirs truly is a special one! They somehow managed to make a tragic ending beautiful and that is what stuck with me most! If they had both survived, I would have called BS!
And the fact that it was so natural and they did not make a big deal about it being gay, I hope we have reached that point now! I hope others are taking notes!!
Definitely for the books, this one!
October 11, 2020 at 03:32
Once again a splendid review as Flora said, I swear I didn’t expect it to be a love story, but I was very surprised by the development of its history. appearances by Dani’s ex-fiance found it more frightening than the ghost of Lago, I understood that she was traumatized and feeling guilty for what happened to him but for all the fear she showed she had a slight impression that he was obsessive what her aunt hurt ever but from the flashbacks that were shown he seemed to be a good person with that I thought it was a bit exaggerated as her outbreaks were shown
Dani and Jamie’s relationship was the most beautiful thing I saw developing, how they supported each other and helped to heal each other’s wounds and built a life together, I didn’t expect last episode as it surprised me a lot, it was beautiful but it was sad to see that Dani had to sacrifice herself for fear of hurting the person she loves the most, the older Jamie doing her night ritual to wait for her beloved was so sad but knowing that Dani was with her was what kept her healthy, that final episode was a full plate to enjoy.
Is it just me that is having a slight impression that at the same time that Netflix throws a bucket of cold water on our heads it hugs us and pats us on the back consoling us?
I was so sad about the cancellation Teenage Bounty Hunters, I expected a sequence in the story Sterling and April I thought it was so wrong how it ended deserved a conclusion in the story much better than it was the actresses did an excellent job and their chemistry was great. So sad
October 11, 2020 at 09:16
Thank you too for always being here.
As for Dani’s ghost, her reactions were a bit misleading but I never saw it as fear of evil like with the Lady of the lake. I saw it more of her own guilt, especially since we saw how her fiancé died. I was more disappointed that his leaving her wasn’t made as equally important.
I think we will forever be in a love/hate relationship with Netflix. But part of the problem is with the creators. Another great thing about Bluetooth Manor is that the story is conclusive. There are no, to be continued, bulshit. If other creators took this approach and did what they wanted in one season, we would all be happy fans.
October 12, 2020 at 01:18
True😊