The Last Twist in "The Haunting of Bly Manor" Is Easy to Miss
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The end of Netflix's The Haunting of Bly Manor reveals the identity of Carla Gugino's mysterious narrator character.
The final episode also unveils what happened to Flora and Miles as adults. Here's what else to expect from the finale.
Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Haunting of Bly Manor.
The Haunting of Bly Manor begins with Carla Gugino settling in to tell a long ghost story to a few wedding guests—which frankly, is the ideal way for all TV shows to start (take note, producers). Her long-winded tale comes to a close in the Netflix horror series' ninth and final episode.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the narrator's ghost story is true—and all the main characters are present at the wedding, which takes place in 2007 in California. Gugino is playing an older version of Jamie (Amelia Eve), the former gardener at Bly Manor.
"I glow up into Carla Gugino. Winning!" Eve tells OprahMag.com. "I couldn't wait to get to episode 9, so I could finally get involved in that." Owen (Rahul Kohli), the chef at Bly, is there, too—though you might not have recognized him without his signature bushy mustache.
By far, the most dramatic change is among the Wingrave orphans, who were children in Eve's tale. To the tune of Sheryl Crow's "I Shall Believe," all the characters at the wedding reception flash back to their younger selves.
Turns out the bride is Flora (Amelie Bea Smith), all grown up and sporting an American accent. She's marrying an unnamed American (played, inexplicably, by Greg Sestero of The Room). Flora's brother, Miles (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth), no longer has the mischievous glint in his eye that indicate he's being possessed by a Scottish groundskeeper. He's a lanky twenty-something guy watching his sister get married.
And that's just the start of the finale's poignant revelations. Here's what becomes clear in the end of The Haunting of Bly Manor.
Jamie's ghost story is far from spontaneous. In fact, it was a set-up.
Rewind back to the very start of The Haunting of Bly Manor, when a few of the wedding guests are swapping spooky stories. That's when Jamie makes her entrance. She casually announces she has a ghost story, too, but warns it will be long.
A middle-aged man—who we now know to be Owen—encourages Jamie to go on. "It seems we have time enough and wine enough. Why not?" he says. Behind him, an old man—the version of Henry—nods at Jamie encouragingly.
Turns out Jamie's tale is a set-up orchestrated by the surviving Bly Manor adults. Jamie is telling this story to reacquaint Flora and Miles with their past, which they have long forgotten.
That's right: Flora and Miles don't remember their experiences at Bly.
Miles and Flora have no idea they're the stars of Jamie's epic ghost story. For them, Jamie's story is an entrancing, if a bit grim, pre-wedding fable. And Owen and Jamie, are likely just people their uncle, Henry, invited to the wedding.
As Owen reveals earlier on in the finale, Bly is almost entirely lost to Miles and Flora. After the drama at Bly unfolded, Henry raised his niece and nephew in the United States. They lost their British accents, as well as all memories of the haunting at Bly. In their minds, Bly was just their childhood home—not the site of terrors.
"The details. The specific moments. The fear of it all that we were so afraid would infect the rest of their lives has faded away, and all that's left is the shape of it," Owen says.
Today, Flora even goes by a different name. She tells Jamie that "Flora" is her middle name, and thought the character in the story's name was a quaint coincidence, not a sign.
The biggest twist of all? Jamie and Dani are still together...sort of.
As we learn in the last episode of The Haunting of Bly Manor, Dani (Victoria Pedretti), the American au pair in the show, is still at Bly. She's now the Lady of the Lake, Bly's resident ghost.
But according to the final moments of The Haunting of Bly Manor, Jamie has a way of meeting with her departed wife. Like Viola, the original Lady of the Lake, Dani exists in a twilight reality, between alive and dead. Unlike Viola, it seems she can leave the premises of Bly.
In the final moments, Jamie falls asleep with the hotel door open, and the tub full. The show's final shot is of a hand resting on Jamie's shoulder—Dani's hand. The show's tagline is, "Dead doesn't mean gone." For Dani and Jamie, the meaning of the phrase is literal. Dani died, but she's still in Jamie's life.
Um, how long did it take Jamie to tell that story?
There's one question that The Haunting of Bly Manor hasn't answered, and probably never will—though it will absolutely keep me up at night. If it takes 9 hours to watch The Haunting of Bly Manor, how long did it take Jamie to tell the story? Did she keep the hotel guests captive, like the Lady of the Lake? Note to future wedding guests: Limit all stories to a few minutes, unless you're Carla Gugino.
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