'The Haunting of Bly Manor': Why does Mrs Grose keep forgetting where she is? Mystery behind her memory explained
Spoilers for 'The Haunting of Bly Manor'
A significant shift from Henry James' 'The Turn of The Screw' in Mike Flanagan's 'The Haunting of Bly Manor' is the simpleton Mrs Hannah Grose (T'Nia Miller). In the books, the housekeeper is a prop with a mop, constantly encouraging and aiding the protagonist's whims and fancies about the alleged hauntings in the countryside mansion. In the Netflix original series, a sequel to Flanagan's Haunting saga that started with 2017's 'Hill House', Mrs Grose is a sophisticated woman, beloved by the wards our protagonist Dani Clayton (Victoria Pedretti) is taking care of. Mrs Grose is a hit with the rest of the staff at Bly Manor too, with their resident chef Owen (Rahul Kohli) brewing an ever-soaring soft spot for the chic housekeeper left jilted by her philandering husband. Our hearts ache for Mrs Grose's pain and tragedy as we see her lost and dazed, almost as if pulled out of a dream every time somebody addresses her. She never eats, and can never seem to place the children's ages correctly. What's the reason?
Hinted and teased throughout the series, the coffin is finally nailed all the way in Episode 7, when Mrs Grose herself makes the shattering discovery. In sort of a purgatorial loop referred to as being 'tucked away in a dream', Mrs Grose keeps returning to her first meeting with Owen. They talk about the same things Owen and Mrs Grose had discussed when she had interviewed him all those years ago for a job at the manor, but this time, the conversation keeps switching between memories of Mrs Grose's husband leaving her for another woman, and her trying to save Rebecca Jessel (Tahirah Sharif), the children's previous nanny, from falling for Peter Quint (Oliver Jackson Cohen)'s insidious schemes.
More than an interview, the memory sees Mrs Grose being confronted by Owen, the man who falls for her during his stay at Bly, and for whom she too falls for in secret, without addressing or uttering a single word about her feelings. In Owen's confrontation, he keeps asking her about her fears surrounding an increasingly contemptuous Miles (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth). All of 10, he has already been expelled from school for killing a pigeon, falling off a tree on purpose, and beating up another ward. Once back home, he starts acting like a rugged adult -- a man scorned in a little 10-year-old boy's body. It is only until much later it is revealed that the ghost of Peter keeps possessing Miles as a gateway outside Bly Manor's grounds of purgatory, but before Dani can save Miles, he already does more harm than good.
Right before Dani is about to arrive to Bly Manor, Miles overlooks a deep dried up well within the grounds. When Mrs Grose spots him in the act, he sneers at her about how sick and tired he is of her allegedly sanctimonious prancing around the estate and would love to put her in her place. Ignoring Miles' uncharacteristic warning, Mrs Grose leans into the well to see just what he might be looking at, or what's gotten into him, and Miles pushes her into the well. Mrs Grose cracks her neck and dies instantly in the spot, but Bly Manor being Bly Manor, her soul is trapped in its grounds forever. When we first meet Mrs Grose, it is actually her spirit looking upon the well, sliding her fingertips at the back of her neck. It's been a few years since Peter's spirit killed her, but her own spirit can't remember what had happened.
When Dani arrives, Mrs Grose says she was miles away from what's happening, and from there on, every time she comes close to realizing what might have happened to her, she is pulled out of her thoughts by some odd occurring at the manor or a disaster of sorts. It is only in the penultimate episode of the second season that our worst fears are confirmed as Mrs Grose discovers she has been dead all this time. Her body is finally discovered by Owen and the resident gardener Jamie (Amelia Eve) in Episode 9, after Dani saves the kids from the haunting, the possessions, and vanquishes the estate's purgatorial nature by allowing the Lady of the Lake's spirit into herself. After that, Owen gives Mrs Grose a proper burial and goes on to name his restaurant after a pun of his that she particularly enjoyed.
'The Haunting of Bly Manor' is now available for streaming only on Netflix.