The queer love story at the center of THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR not only tugs at the heartstrings, it’s actually a refreshing break from the ill-fated trajectories of most LGBTQ+ characters in horror (Warning: this thread contains major SPOILERS).

In many (older) horror films, female sexuality tends to doom a character, and queer sexuality often fares even worse. For many years, queerness or explicit sexual behavior were seen as a “moral failing” to be punished.

Despite changing cultural attitudes, the classic horror format hasn't changed much; characters who engage in sexual activity of any kind are almost always among the first to die. The Final Girl is almost always virginal, chaste, and very straight.

From 1934-1967, film studios were required to adhere to the Hays Code, a strict set of guidelines designed to keep films from “corrupting” the viewer – effectively banning nudity, “sexual perversion” and other untoward behavior in movies.

Although culture has evolved, the fates of LGBTQ+ characters in genre films largely haven’t. Even after the Hays Code fell out of favor, filmmakers still tended to save the happy endings for “respectable” heterosexual characters.

From subtextual lesbian ghosts (The Uninvited, 1944) to bisexual vampires (The Hunger, 1983), queer-coded characters were either predatory villains or abruptly killed off. Too often, gay characters are expendable and tokenized, rather than driving agents of the central plot.

In Bly Manor, the budding romance between Dani, the American au pair, and Jamie, the manor’s gardener, is the heart of the story. Their bond is a triumphant representation of a queer relationship, even within the framework of a classically gothic English ghost story.

Dani (Victoria Pedretti) arrives at Bly Manor still reeling from the death of her childhood love Edmund, who died in an accident immediately after Dani attempted to call off their wedding. She is haunted by frightening visions of Edmund in the split second before he died.

Since she’d only ever been with Edmund, Dani seemingly never had a chance to figure out her own sexuality – a point underscored by her flustered reaction to a compliment from a cute seamstress in a flashback. (Sure, straight girls admire each others’ shoulders all the time!)

It’s occasionally quite easy to forget that this show is set in the 1980s! While gay marriage wouldn’t be legal for quite some time and the AIDS crisis was still in full swing, it was certainly possible for two women to carve out a life together.

Even after Edmund's death, his mother pressured Dani to play the part of the grieving widow. Now at Bly, a full ocean away from Edmund's family and their heavy expectations, Dani is finally free to figure out what *she* wants.

From the moment Jamie (Amelia Eve) shows up in her EXTREMELY GAY overalls, usually seen leaning casually against a rake or whatever, her soft butch magnetism overwhelms every scene she appears in. She nicknames Dani “Poppins,” which is almost disturbingly cute.

At no point does Dani agonize over her first physical relationship with a woman or treat Jamie like an experiment; in fact her only hesitation comes from the literal ghosts. Jamie is good-naturedly patient with Dani, which only serves to make her more dreamy.

During a quiet moment, Dani tells Miles how lucky he is to be able to select which people he’d get to keep as his chosen family, and it’s clear that Dani and Jamie have chosen each other.

At long last, Jamie woos her with a seduction technique women have been using on each other for centuries: she lures Dani into the garden to show her a rare flower and tell her about all of her past traumas.

Obviously, this leads to a night of passion. Honestly did not picture Dani as the big spoon in this relationship!

Their romance may be relatively brand new, but their feelings for each other are so strong that not even a mild case of spirit possession is enough to keep them apart. Who among us has not committed to a lifetime of working through someone else's ghost issues after one date?

And then, unlike so many queer couples in horror stories (SPOILER ALERT) they make it out alive! The dreaded Bury Your Gays trope magically fails to claim a new victim for shock value; Dani and Jamie are free to ride out of Bly together in Jamie’s truck. Of course she has a truck

While Jamie and Dani face an uncertain future together, they get pretty cute and domestic real fast. They run a flower shop in Vermont together, they cook poorly, they get married (or civil partnered, as close as they could be in the 80s)! Who cares if Dani’s a little haunted?

Even after Dani’s been overtaken by the Lady in the Lake, Jamie goes so far as to return to Bly to search for her love in the murky depths! Our last shot of Jamie sees a mysterious hand on her shoulder (Dani’s?), seemingly showing that even death has not truly separated them.

Although Bly Manor is painted as a ghost story, as the bride points out it's really a (queer) love story, one about two women processing their feelings all the way into the afterlife and beyond. That's not just triumphant, it's perfectly splendid.