Spoilers ahead for all of The Haunting of Bly Manor.
Ghosts in haunted houses don't always get the opportunity to explain who they are, why they're there, or what their general ~deal is. And while you might not always realize you're looking at a ghost (thanks a lot, Mrs. Grose), the second The Haunting installment, The Haunting of Bly Manor, does give every single ghost some spooky backstory.
In the first season of the anthology, The Haunting of Hill House, secret ghosts were all over the place, scaring viewers a second (or third, or fourth) time when they discovered them in the background. There are some major lurkers in Bly Manor as well. Yet, Flora's dollhouse gives a handy-dandy guide to what most of them look like and where you can most likely find them hanging about.
While many ghosts of Bly Manor have faded faces, who's alive and who's dead is still a major question mark of the second season of The Haunting. For example, while Lord Henry Wingrave's identical ghost is (probably) just a manifestation of his alcohol abuse, poor Mrs. Hannah Grose is pretty much a ghost the whole time we see her (so, apologies, Mrs. Gose, but you aren't featured in this list). As for the other residents and ghostly visitors, here's every time we spotted a ghost in The Haunting of Bly Manor with full acknowledgment that there are probably more sneaky ghosts out there.
Edmund "Eddie" O'Mara
Even before she gets to Bly Manor, Victoria Pedretti's Dani was very obviously haunted by the ghost of her former fiancé Edmund "Eddie" O'Mara. She keeps seeing a tall man whose eyes are coke-bottle glasses filled with an ominous light. Wherever she is, she sees him — primarily in reflections/mirrors — and we don't find out who he is until Episode 4, "The Way It Came."
Through flashbacks, it's revealed that Eddie had died after accidentally stepping into oncoming traffic after Dani broke off their engagement. Thankfully, he pretty much stops haunting Dani after she begins to express her sexuality with Jamie. But too bad there's plenty of other ghosts for Dani to contend with afterward.
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Peter Quint
Oliver Jackson-Cohen's Peter is said to have run away from Bly Manor, so when he keeps popping up on the property, Dani assumes he's trespassing. But alive people don't (typically) creep the way Peter does.
In "Altar of the Dead," viewers discover Peter died even before Rebecca did after the Lady in the Lake killed him. Since he pops up as a spirit quite a bit (and isn't that sneaky), here are the times he's particularly ghost-y.
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 9
Rebecca Jessel
It's no secret that Rebecca is dead from the start since Dani is at Bly Manor to replace her. But what's not known is that she didn't die by suicide because she was heartbroken over Peter leaving her. Instead, she took her own life to be with her ghost boyfriend in death at Bly Manor.
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 9
The Woman In The Red Dress, Perdita Lloyd
Flora was shown shushing this woman with no face in a red dress in the Bly Manor trailer, but it's not until Episode 8 that we learn her identity of Perdita Lloyd. She's been stuck in the attic of Bly Manor since she betrayed her sister Viola (more on her in a bit), but Perdita is freed once her sister's spirit lets go of the home. After killing Viola and stealing her husband, some could say 400 years of attic purgatory is getting off easy.
Episode 2
Episode 7
Episode 8
Episode 9
Flora's Friend
Flora is haunted by a boy with a faded face even when her parents were still alive. While he may be creepy as all hell, he's simply an innocent victim of ghost Viola who just wants to play with dolls.
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 6
Episode 8
Plague Doctor
Viola isn't picky about her victims — after her sister, the first person to feel her ghostly wrath was this plague doctor in his creepy bird mask. Once you notice his beak near the kitchen hallway, you can't unsee him.
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 5
Episode 8
Episode 9
The Vicar
Viola wasn't a big fan of priests when she was alive, so, of course, a vicar ended up being another one of her Bly Manor victims. The figure that appears in Episode 4 could be the vicar, but based on his location and white socks, he may also be this guy from Flora's dollhouse.
Episode 4
Episode 8
Lady In The Lake, Viola Lloyd
The main ghost who causes all the problems at Bly is the Lady in the Lake, a.k.a. Viola Lloyd, played by Hill House's Kate Siegel. While we can really blame her sister Perdita for making her a ghost, Viola is the one who tracks muddy footprints into the home every night, occasionally taking victims, before returning to rest in her lake.
Everyone who dies at Bly suffers the same purgatory fate as Viola... that is until Dani comes along and accepts the ghost into herself. But this spirit is sticky and she continues to haunt Dani.
Episode 1
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 7
Episode 8
Episode 9
Dani
After some happy years with Jamie, Dani eventually is taken over by the Lady in the Lake's spirit. Worried she'll hurt Jamie, she decides to take her own life at the lake in Bly Manor. But if you think all ghost stories are scary, the end of The Haunting of Bly Manor is a happy one since Dani's spirit comes to visit her love, the older Jamie (Carla Gugino), as shown by her hand on Jamie's shoulder in the last frame of the season.
Remember that in The Haunting world: Dead doesn't mean gone.
Images: Netflix