'Haunting of Hill House' Season 2 Release Date May Change Season 1's Ending

We might not know if there’s going to be a The Haunting of Hill House Season 2 yet, but everyone’s still obsessing over the end of Season 1 — and what it could mean for the Netflix series’ future. The creator may have shot down one major theory about the finale, but an actor’s recent comment seems to say the opposite.

Then again, maybe there’s a way to make their conflicting statements on the Red Door Theory fit together — and reveal something interesting about Haunting of Hill House Season 2 at the same time.

Spoilers for The Haunting of Hill House Season 1 below.

In case you need a quick refresh, the Red Door Theory argues that the Crain family members who escaped the house at the end of Season 1 never actually escaped. The theory hinges on the fact that when the characters entered the red room they were forced to escape from dreams featuring red objects. Then in the finale, we see red objects in the “real world — like the red cake at Luke’s sobriety party.

In a recent interview with LADbible, Henry Thomas (who played Hugh Crain) didn’t exactly rule out that possibility.

“I think that’s a very astute observation, and if you keep thinking along those lines, I think it’s a good indicator of, perhaps, what Season 2 will bring,” he said.

However, according to showrunner Mike Flanagan, the Crains did escape.

“The ending can be read at face value,” he told TVLine. “If they’re still in the Red Room, it robs Hugh’s sacrifice (and the show itself) of any meaning.”

That may sound like a contradiction, but there’s a way those two statements can both be true. What if Thomas means that not everything is as it seems for the Crain family? They could have still escaped and gotten their semi-happy endings, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will last. Maybe everything goes south for them (or even just one or two of them) at some point soon after the finale.

Flanagan already spoke about turning the series into an anthology if there is a Haunting of Hill House Season 2. He told Entertainment Weekly that “the story of the Crain family is … done.”

But even if a potential Season 2 of the Netflix series focuses on a different family, that doesn’t mean we won’t also find out that the Crain family suffered in new ways and learn through other characters what came of them after the Season 1 finale.

In that way, Haunting of Hill House Season 2 could introduce a new set of characters while also adding an exciting twist to the end of Season 1 — assuming we get more episodes at all, of course.

The Haunting of Hill House Season 1 is streaming now on Netflix.

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