'The Haunting of Bly Manor': Who keeps making 'prank calls' to the house? Henry forced to face himself
Spoilers for 'The Haunting of Bly Manor'
Ever since Dani Clayton's (Victoria Pedretti) arrival at the titular Bly Manor, things have been far from the 'perfectly splendid' that her new ward Flora Wingrave (Amelie Bea Smith) keeps insisting. While Flora and her brother can be labeled a bit off, they aren't the only ones. Wrapped in the gloom left behind by their last live-in nanny's death, the entire staff of Bly Manor is a little bit off. Let's add to that a strange man with a devilish grin that Dani keeps seeing on the parapet, and the mysterious calls that keep coming at all odd times of the day, and voila - you have a regular day at Bly. The staff believes these calls are pranks – either from locals or the infamous former employee of Bly owner Henry Wingrave (Henry Thomas), Peter Quint (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). But is that it or is it someone much closer home?
The answer comes all the way in Episode 6, when Henry is forced to face himself. The episode kicks off with Henry hallucinating his own self, mocking and chiding him for his past. Soon we learn the dark details of what he's running from, and the main reason why he doesn't want anything to do with Bly. Rooted in the deepest corners of his being is the murky truth of how Henry got banished from Bly by his own brother, Dominic, right before the Wingrave couple died.
Henry had been having an affair with his brother's wife, Charlotte. In fact, Flora was his daughter - a secret that Charlotte had kept to herself until six years later, when Dominic had finally done the math and confronted her. When Dominic asked Charlotte if she loved him, her tears were answer enough for him to banish his brother Henry from ever visiting Bly, or contacting his kids ever again. Shortly after, Charlotte snapped off ties with Henry and embarked on retracing her and Dominic's honeymoon in India, where the couple died in a tragic accident. When Henry got the news, the guilt of it all consumed him so intensely, he could neither face Bly, nor the kids; especially not Flora after whatever had happened.
So Henry resorted to making mysterious calls at Bly Manor, hoping Flora would pick up the phone the way she used to back when her parents were alive and he would call to check on them. Flora would always answer with 'Flora's residence' and that was some Henry yearned for years after the death consumed their family. All he wanted was to listen to Flora's voice without stepping inside or facing her to keep his brother's last wishes. So he stuck to phone calls and made peace with sounding like a random pervert pranking the family for years until tragedy took over and he had to visit the grounds of Bly.
'The Haunting of Bly Manor' premiered on October 9 and is now available for streaming only on Netflix.
