The Parents in 'The Haunting of Bly Manor' Were Involved in a Tragic Accident

Spoilers for Netflix's The Haunting of Bly Manor ahead!

Netflix's The Haunting of Bly Manor proved that the creators of The Haunting of Hill House can make more than one season of a horror show that also brings the water works. Not only are there plenty of ghosts throughout the season, but there are also tragedies upon tragedies which led to most of the ghosts' deaths. The parents in The Haunting of Bly Manor aren't also ghosts. But their deaths are still as heartbreaking. 

Although the parents are characters who aren't as central as Dani (Victoria Pedretti), Jamie (Amelia Eve), Hannah (T'Nia Miller), or the kids, they are still important to the show. They are two characters who viewers don't actually see die on-screen, however, which has led to questions about their deaths. And being that they aren't among the ghosts of Bly Manor, it made their deaths a little harder to understand.

The whole reason Flora (Amelie Bea Smith) and Miles (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) are in need of an au pair in The Haunting of Bly Manor is because their parents die on their trip to India. Their Uncle Henry (Henry Thomas), Flora’s real father, is left to care for them, but his guilt is so strong about having an affair with his brother’s wife that he can't bring himself to be there for them.

In Episode 6, when Henry finally faces his demons, literally and figuratively, his inner demon who looks just like him makes a remark about Henry telling the children "exactly how their parents died." While this makes it seem like something nefarious happened, especially since Flora noted that they buried empty coffins, it may have just been a nod to the reason Miles and Flora’s parents took a trip to begin with.

They originally traveled to India in an effort to recreate their honeymoon and save their marriage. On the way, they died in an accident that wasn’t explained much to Henry on the phone. The demon might have referred to telling the children the reason they traveled at all, which was Henry’s affair with their mother.

More than likely, the parents died in a car accident or something similar which might have left them too mangled to have their bodies sent to Bly Manor for their funeral.

The way The Haunting of Bly Manor ended left a few questions for some. Like what happened to Jamie and who the couple at the end were supposed to be. It turned out that Jamie, the gardener, had been the older woman telling her ghost story all along. And the girl getting married was a grown up version of Flora.

The reason she and her brother Miles, who was also in attendance, didn't know the story, was because after they left the house, their memories of what had happened faded from their minds.

Jamie changed some of the names in the story and apparently used Flora’s middle name as her first name when she retold it. And in the end, it appeared that Dani had always been watching over her, but never came to her in an obvious way because she never wanted to scare her, as the original Lady in the Lake had done. It was a heartbreaking and mostly bittersweet ending.

At the end of the season, Dani becomes the new Lady of the Lake. In order to do so, she drowns herself in the lake at Bly Manor and assumes the role of the original ghost who roamed the grounds.

Only for Dani, who didn't die in anguish and was never evil, she won't have the same motivation as the original Lady of the Lake. Again, pretty heartbreaking. If you didn't cry at the end of the season, you may be made of stone.

The Haunting of Bly Manor is now streaming on Netflix.