In what feels like a personal attack at me, Mike Flanagan, creator of Netflix's The Haunting franchise, decided that days before Christmas was a good time to announce that he has no plans for a Haunting Season 3, meaning The Haunting of Bly Manor could be the last installment we ever get. 2020, haven't you done enough?
Flanagan made the devastating announcement on Twitter Wednesday, Dec. 23, telling a fan, "At the moment there are no plans for more chapters." The writer-director continued, adding that while he'd "never say never," he's more focused on a slate of upcoming "projects for 2021 and beyond." He concluded his statement by assuring fans that "if things change we will absolutely let everyone know!" (For the record, this does not make me feel even a little bit better.)
To be fair, this isn't really a huge departure from what Flanagan has said before. Right after The Haunting of Bly Manor premiered in October, the showrunner told Entertainment Weekly that he didn't have anything in the works for The Haunting Season 3. However, he did tease that there were a lot of ghost stories still left to tell. "I feel like there's no shortage of ghosts in the world for all of us," he said, giving fans hope for a third season. "So, if we could find some common language with which to talk about them, then that's something we always aspire to do this season or beyond, if that's the way it goes."
Actor Oliver Jackson-Cohen, who starred in both The Haunting of Hill House and Bly Manor, kept the future of The Haunting similarly vague in a separate interview. "I think all of us would definitely collaborate and work with him [Flanagan] again, if the opportunity arose. But there is genuinely nothing concrete as of now," he told TheWrap after Bly Manor premiered.
Now, with Flanagan's tweet, it seems more likely that we might never get a Haunting Season 3. (Which, frankly, is offensive to Rahul Kohli and T'Nia Miller's chemistry in Bly Manor. I was really hoping to see them onscreen together again in the next season.)
Luckily, the end of Haunting doesn't mean the end of the show's incredible cast. Some of the Haunting cast is actually still working with Flanagan, just not on another installment of the Netflix franchise. Bly Manor's Henry Thomas (aka Henry Wingrave), Rahul Kohli (Owen), Kate Siegel (Viola), and Alex Essoe (Charlotte Wingrave), as well as Hill House's Annabeth Gish (Mrs. Dudley), will all be featured in Flanagan's new Netflix project, Midnight Mass.
The horror series, about an island community that starts experiencing supernatural events after the arrival of a young priest, finished shooting barely a week ago. In a series of tweets announcing the end of production, Flanagan called Midnight Mass "the biggest and most ambitious project of my career," and later added that the seven-episode miniseries would be "the most personal story I've ever told."
Midnight Mass isn't expected to hit Netflix until sometime in 2021. So until then, I'll be rewatching Bly Manor, enjoying Owen's cooking puns and trying to find all the hidden ghosts once and for all.
Image: EIKE SCHROTER/NETFLIX