That final frame with the Jester having a smile as it approached Dad from the closet is so heartbreaking with that extra information. It's just a little girl excitedly running to her dad.

A caterpiller has 10-20 days to become a butterfly. This is why there are 10 knocks.

'Folly' frustrated me, so I looked it up:
"A folly is a costly, decorative building constructed primarily for aesthetic appeal rather than practical use. They are frequently built to resemble ancient ruins, temples, towers, or OBELISKS."

If Abby really is the Jester-- thats so fucking sad, but also beautiful. You have 2 different points of view- with Dad wanting to view Abby as a caterpillar (weak/first stages of life/a baby/innocent) but then you have the possibility of Abby being the Jester which demonstrates the reality of what happened to her (tragic/decaying/wandering in the house/mimicking her cries) god, the creator of this series really knows how to project grief in such a way that it scars you, then makes you feel bad. Good on you Caleb! i hope you cover more analog horror in the future! I'll be watching!

My theory is that Abby didn't die, she had major brain trauma that resulted in a high-needs disability. Court jesters were historically disabled people, "you're not how I remember you."= you're still here but different, and the crying to me doesn't sound like a baby but rather the vocalizations of someone with a major disability that effects the brain/their ability to verbalize.

Children are often associated with caterpillars that will one day become butterflies ('one day you'll grow up into something great!'), but this attitude is rarely extended to children with disabilities that will require life long care. This is why we see the caterpillar in the graveyard. The old Abby, the one that could have grown up into something great, has died, at least to the father. Abby is not how he remembers her.

What is often not talked about is how the caretakers of high-needs disabled people, particularly parents who were not planning on taking up such an intense life long commitment, are often under extreme pressure and can struggle mentally both because of this pressure of continuing care and how (in the case of a new disability) their dreams for their child often can no longer be. Additionally with the father, if it was an intruder who caused the accident, he is probably constantly blaming himself for something he could have prevented. This resulting in his choice to end his life.

I went an watched the whole thing myself before viewing this and honestly when I realized Friend was saying "David" my heart kind of broke. I'm also convinced when Friend turns off the light you hear "goodnight"

I don't think Abby is dead, but she suffered an accident and became disabled. Jester cries sound more adult. If you've been around heavy disabled people they can cry like this or throw stuff, since they can't communicate. And the way Jester runs towards dad so happy, also reminded me of this. The way friend acts around David is also similar, quietly being around him, not talking.
You can also read this with the fish, it came back as a butterfly, something entirely different, that the dad and son don't know how to react. When David comes back to the house, Dad was in a horrible state and unrecognizable to him, most likely caretaker burn out. The smell of smoke is from cigarretes because of stress

I feel like Dad not wanting to remember Abby as Jester is equal to a parent not wanting to remember their child only by how they died. You want to remember them as the innocent child they once were, but the way their life ended was so brutal and cruel, it could not measure or even fit in the kindness of the kid you once loved, leaving you with Jester— the representation of said death

i don't think i've ever had a horror piece reach into my chest and twist my heart as much as this. it resonates so unbelievably close to home as a lone survivor of a dead family. the timing couldnt've been better, really, for a story about how grief all-consumes. thank you for this in-depth dissection of it.

My theory on the number 10 is that 10 knocks imply a complete countdown. The 10th knock means the creature’s preparation is complete, time has run out, and it is ready to breach the home. Since 10 spiritually represents the natural end of a cycle and divine order, an unnatural entity knocking 10 times signals that the natural cycle of death has been corrupted or forcibly restarted.

The feeling of grief eats you alive from the inside until the rot force you to remember all trauma

If I had a nickel for every analog horror series that had a grief and memory allegory involving a house, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice

(...you are the only house in the ocean.)

I'm surprised no one else has brought this up - I viewed Abby's death as a baby as symbolic rather than literal. A child who died too soon, who lingers in the closet as her bereaved, religious father imagines her as something else entirely.

I like that it’s a personal story and not  would ending catastrophic events

‘Folly’ reminds me of a treatment for PTSD known as EMDR, its the process of moving one memory, one traumatic event to another side of the mind to get past it, living through the memories and processing them and packing them away, folly is one side of the brain and the pale house is the other

I don't think the knocks were in Morse code. I think the knocks were based on spiritual numbers.10 as a spiritual number can represent completion, wholeness, and the transition into a new cycle.

Something I kept thinking as David wanders through the house and all its winding corridors is how the path forward is not always obvious, or linear. Grief can make a person feel lost, even in a familiar place. At some point I'm pretty sure he says "I have to keep going" and that is absolutely the mentality you have to have in those moments. You may back track, you may feel like you're going in circles, but you have to keep going.

Haven't seen anyone point out yet that the second to last video's title "The Man in the Tower" can be a reference to the short story "The Outsider" by H.P. Lovecraft. In the story, a man trapped for years in a lonely, dark, terrifying labyrinth consisting of a dark castle and forest surrounding it. He climbs out by scaling a tall, narrow tower, only to discover that the place above all this is a graveyard. He climbs out of the crypt, travels to a house full of people who react to his appearance, terrified. As they all scatter away, he is met with a mirror, where he slowly realizes that the horrific and rotting, decaying creature in front of him is in fact himself.

This provides what i think to be the father's perspective as his memory or spirit or whatever resides within the creature we know as "friend". In the video, the creature doesn't even seem to be aware how terrifying it is in the way that it moves, slowly and always in a pondering fashion like it's more fascinated by David's presence than anything. It doesn't know why he's running, because it's most likely never seen itself in the mirror.

Obelisk and its message is such a good interpretation of grief. I’ve been grieving over someone precious I lost, and I’ve been grieving over people I continue to lose that’s out of my control. It’s truly love with nowhere to go, and it spills out of you uncontrollably like a shaken bottle of soda.

0:23 please bro dont put your back to the hallway your gonna dieeeeeeee