Victoria Pedretti stars in The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor. Pedretti plays a vital role in both seasons. Ironically, two of her most important moments in Hill House and Bly Manor take place in a similar setting.
[SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers ahead for The Haunting of Bly Manor.]
The biggest jump scare in ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ happens in a car
In the most significant jump scare in The Haunting of Hill House, Nell’s corpse thrusts forward as Theo (Kate Siegel) and Shirley (Elizabeth Reaser) bicker. Tensions were high when Nell died by suicide. Add to that Shirley’s assumption that Theo tried to kiss her husband, the mounting tension on the drive to Hill House, and the sudden appearance of Nell’s corpse and you get the perfect scare.
Victoria Pedretti has another major moment in a car in ‘The Haunting of Hill House’
Another significant scene in Hill House took place in a vehicle. In a flashback scene in “The Bent Neck Lady,” Nell sits with her brother, Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), in a car. “It doesn’t matter where you do it,” Nell says encouragingly. “What matters is you want to change.”
Before they make it to the rehab, Luke asks Nell to buy him heroin one last time. “I just need one more favor,” Luke starts, continuing:
Here it is. I need to get well before I go in. It helps. You get well one last time, you get to kind of get it out of your system and get well one last time and it helps. It’s really helpful. I was gonna have you stop here and I was gonna hop out and take care of it, but I owe that guy and if he sees me coming and I don’t have the money, he’s just not going to sell to me. But he doesn’t know you, so…
Luke pleads with Nell, promising to pay her back when he leaves rehab. “I can bullsh*t Steve, and Theo, and Shirley, but not you, Nell. Never you.” Eventually, Nell breaks and buys the drugs for Luke. Sadly, she doesn’t live to see him get sober.
“It’s some of the most incredible writing, and it was so painful to shoot that scene,” Jackson-Cohen told TV Insider. That was one of Jackson-Cohen and Pedretti’s biggest scenes in season one. Ironically, Pedretti had another major moment in a vehicle in The Haunting of Bly Manor.
‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’ has another pivotal moment with Victoria Pedretti in a vehicle
Pedretti plays Dani Clayton, a former teacher turned governess in The Haunting of Bly Manor. Initially, it’s unclear why she left her post as an educator in the United States. As her backstory is revealed in “The Way It Came,” Dani broke her fiancé, Eddie’s, heart and, ultimately, caused his death.
Dani agreed to marry her high school sweetheart, despite her attraction to women. When she finally breaks the news of her sexuality to Eddie, everything starts to unravel.
“I didn’t want to hurt you, or your mom, or you family,” Dani admits from the passenger seat of a parked car. “And then it was just what we were doing. I just thought I was being selfish. That I could just stick it out and eventually, I would feel like I was supposed to.”
Frustrated and hurt, Eddie exits the car, only to be struck by a passing vehicle. He is killed on impact, leaving Dani to live with the belief that she caused his death. His glowing eyes, created by the reflection of the oncoming car in his glasses, follow her to Bly.
Stream The Haunting of Bly Manor to spot more similarities between it and The Haunting of Hill House.