The Fall of the House of Usher – The Masque of the Red Death

By: Kelly Kearney

Everybody wants to change the world– it’s how they go about it that divides us, and those actions are what separates Auguste Dupin from Roderick Usher–two men who view themselves as heroes working for a cause. Auguste–The Assistant U.S. Attorney, is trying to save humankind from billionaire criminal overlords while Roderick–the overlord, thinks ridding the world of pain is how we save ourselves. In The Masque of the Red Death– titled after another short story by Edgar Allan Poe, we explore these motivations and how they eventually lead to Prospero Usher’s untimely death. If you’ve read the short story before, then you can guess how the youngest Usher will die–and no it won’t be from the plague, but from the kiss of death.

Eat the Rich, and Other Recipes from Auguste Dupin

We begin in 1979 with a young Dupin (Malcolm Goodwin) investigating the scene of a grave robbing.This isn’t the first empty grave–there have been five to date, and each one was filled with a victim of Fortunato Pharmacuetical’s drug trials. Dupin is obsessed with this case–as we learn from his higher ups who are not pleased with him for pretending to be a police officer to get more evidence from the crime scene. He seems to think the Ushers are digging up the dead  to hide evidence of their botched drug trials.The layers to this family’s crimes go deeper than a 6ft hole in the ground, and Auguste Dupin is passionate about ripping out the rot of rich men taking advantage of the poor to boost their profits. He hopes if he can bring the Ushers down he will gain the respect he deserves at work. It also seems like the moral thing to do, and Dupin is definitely a guy who is led by what he thinks is right.

Cutting back to the present, we see Dupin (Carl Lumbly) still sitting across from Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) listening to the details about how his kids died and why. He wonders if Roderick feels any guilt or responsibility for the people whose lives he has ruined; Fortunato’s moneymaker, Ligodone, wasn’t the fix-all Roderick thought it was. Dupin sees himself as the last man who can stop people from dying for Usher’s accumulation of wealth, and he has been chasing that savior feeling for decades. As he questions Roderick’s morality, we see the crisped-corpse of Prospero (Sauriyan Sapkota) standing behind him, and still, Dupin doesn’t turn around to look. Was Perry the family informant and is that how he wound up dead? Did Roderick kill his son to protect the business, his freedom, and the family’s wealth? Roderick admits he feels responsible for his youngest son’s death after we learn Frederick told him Prospero was the mole. The story on how his youngest child and first to die, isn’t what it seems.

It’s storytime again and we see a thriving Prospero A.K.A. Perry, marinating himself in drugs, orgies, and knee-jerk violent tendencies. He literally wakes up from an orgy to hold a knife to his friend’s throat over a joke about eating the last egg in the refrigerator. He isn’t in the laughing mood, he is still reeling from his father withholding that 50 million dollar investment into his nightclub. Every Usher kid gets their nest egg but Roderick “grinds them all down until he can put you under his thumb” and turn your business into a moneymaker for himself. It’s a gift with iron strings, Proserpo explains to his friend, who is trying to catch their breath after he almost slit their throat over breakfast.

Family Rats and Animal Testing

And we can see why Roderick thinks Prospero is a loose cannon and not worth the fifty million dollars, when during a federal investigation into a group of abandoned manufacturing plants polluting the ground and poisoning the people around them, Prospero interrupts the meeting with investigators to make Frederick (Henry Thomas) look bad. He winds up blurting out those abandoned plants were their family’s just as his brother played coy about who actually owns them. Denial is the family’s way of dealing with all accusations and criminal investigations but Prospero cannot keep his mouth shut. Ownership admits guilt, but the youngest son is not business savvy enough to get that and it makes Frederick crazy. He winds up tossing “Gucci Caligula ” against the wall threatening Prospero to keep his mouth shut. Frederick also accuses him of being the family’s informant and we can assume this was the moment he ran to tell his father and why Roderick blames himself for his youngest son’s death. Whether he is or not, there is still severe animosity between Roderick’s oldest and youngest sons and it pushes the latter into making a deadly mistake.

 After getting roughed up by his big brother, Prospero sets out to show them all he can be serious about this club. He plans to make his first million by using an abandoned piece of property mentioned in the meeting with the feds, and when he stops by we see the rundown plant is giving brutalist architecture meets celebrity rave vibes. The perfect spot for orgies, drugs and masquerades, Prospero thinks, but he could care less about the safety conditions of the building. This is all about proving his worth, and thanks to Frederick’s meltdown, he is more determined than ever to do it. As he talks to his friends about his plans to revive the crumbling structure he spies a lady in red glaring down at him from the roof. Is it the same woman Roderick saw before he collapsed outside of the church in episode one? We find out who she is and what her role is in this family when Prospero meets her later in the episode.

Next we check in with Victorine (T’Nia Miller) and her medical testing with the monkeys– which isn’t going well. During surgery, the unapproved drugs she used to sedate the primate killed it on the table. Later, she lies to her father about it when he pushes her to be ready for the human trials because he wants those drugs on the market in 6 months. If the monkey died so will the humans but he only wants to hear she can make it work. He seems desperate for her to figure this out and that faith he has in her is what pushes Victorine to ignore the risks and agree to move forward with the trials.

Victorine isn’t the only one ignoring the warning signs to prove themselves useful to their father. We catch up with Prospero asking his brother, Napoleon (Rahul Kohli), for help in finding a drug hook-up for his big event. Right away we start to see the dynamics between the two illegitimate children of Roderick Usher and the other four who seem to push them aside. At first Napoleon refuses to help Prospero, but once his younger brother appeals to his outsider feelings–Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan) refers to them as “The bastard twins,” he agrees to get him the drugs and a good supply of Viagra. Before he organizes this, Napoleon does tell his brother this idea is beneath him, but that is rich coming from a drug user who just lied to his boyfriend about the woman he was having oral sex with right before he shoved her onto the balcony and then snuck her out another door.

Later, we see Prospero actively ignoring safety precautions to rush out ticket sales to the who’s who of the partying elite. The price of entry into this dilapidated plant of orgiastic drugs and dreams is sure to make him millions in one night. We also check in with Camille (Kate Siegel) who has her two assistants digging up any dirt they can find on her siblings. The hard focus is on Victorine– who she seems determined to blame everything on. Camille wants that fifty million dollar bounty their father promised and if it happens to lead her to the sibling she hates most, it would feel like two pay days. Camille is the all-knowing eye of the family, so she knows everything about what her siblings are up to. It won’t be long before she figures out which of them is most vulnerable to threats from the feds.

Everything Starts With Gris

When we pop back in on Roderick talking to Dupin with a dead Prospero watching from behind, we start to get an understanding of why the billionaire is pushing Victorine into the human trials, and why he’s determined to find the informant before they can shut those trials down. The drug she is testing is a preventative treatment for dementia that seems to be near and dear to the man’s heart–or what’s left of it anyway. Whether this has to do with the bad news he got from his doctor before passing out after the funeral or it’s just based on his need to cure people of their pain, isn’t quite clear just yet but it does feel like he’s rushing these human trials because he can hear his mortality clock ticking. The conversation segues into another flashback where we meet Rufus Griswold (Michael Trucco)–the big pharma bro who a young Roderick (Zach Gilford) pitched his idea about the pain killer Ligodone to. Griswold was the CEO of Fortunato, and after Roderick’s inspiring pitch about his miracle drug, the man thinks it’s too big of a financial risk and turns him down. Later, we see a depressed Roderick discussing the situation with his optimistic wife, Annabel Lee (Katie Parker), and his pessimistic and overly controlling sister, Madeline (Willa Fitzgerald). From her attitude we can assume that whatever reason the twins needed Verna’s alibi in episode one,  is probably the same reason why Roderick wound up taking over Griswold’s job. Roderick and his sister were inspired by the torture they watched their mother go thgouh, and if they planned to use their miracle drug to prevent that from happening to others, the Ushers could changed the world. We also learn during this little family interaction that Annabel was very down to earth and the complete opposite to Madeline–who has issues relating to anyone that’s not her brother or other algorithm obsessed tech-nerds. Later, we see the older Madeline (Mary McDonnell) creating an A.I. for her grandniece, Lenore (Kyliegh Curran), and it seems like the younger Usher shares in her Aunt’s interest in tech. What she is not interested in is how her grandfather and his new young wife, Juno (Ruth Codd)  got together; it’s a story no granddaughter wants to hear. The parts that stand out the most are the fact that Juno Usher was in a terrible accident and she wound up hooked on Ligodone. She met Roderick in the hospital and was so in love with opiates–she is apparently on a dose that would knock down an elephant, that her love transferred to the drug’s maker. Basically, she is an addict obsessed with her dealer and the free perks she gets from marrying him–it’s a love story for the ages, or maybe it’s just Roderick doing his own drug trials at home.

You are Consequence, Perry

Finally, we catch back up with Prospero, who stops by Frederick’s house to flirtatiously invite his wife, Morella (Crystal Balint), to his sexy masquerade party. Not only does he sort of have a crush on her, but getting back at his older brother for roughing him up and calling him a rat is equally appealing. If he has to destroy Freddie’s marriage–so be it. At first Morella declines, but when he starts talking about how sexually tempting she is and how he can see her rebellious side–a side her husband apparently doesn’t appreciate, she winds up lying to Frederick about meeting with friends and heads to Perry’s party. The name Morella also comes from a short story from Edgar Allen Poe about a woman searching to understand her identity, so promising Freddie’s wife a judgemental-free night of debauchery is just a wink and nod to all the Poe Easter eggs in this show.

Speaking of sexual debauchery, we check in with Tamerlane Usher–who seems to have her own issues in the bedroom. We find out she gets off by hiring women to act out scenarios with her husband (Matt Biedel), and consent-wise everyone is very into it. This family seems to be fire in the sheets, but when it comes to warmth and human connection, those streets are ice cold. Even Camille pays her assistants to be both her spies and her sexual partners; the personal and the professional are all seemingly tied up in the Usher family’s agenda.

As the episode draws to a close we find out that Prospero lied to Morella to get her to the party. Sure, she is attractive, but his main reason was to compromise her to the point of destroying Frederick. While watching the rich and famous party the night away on the security cameras an idea comes to him–he could triple his profits by blackmailing the elite about their antics behind closed doors. People would pay big money to hide their drug abuse and group sex, and the price tag on that information might be worth more than that 50 million dollar nest egg his father is holding over his head. As he watches Morella dance on the camera footage he spots the same woman in red he saw earlier on the roof, but this time she is wearing a death mask. Intrigued, he heads out to the dance floor and weaves his way through the crowd following the woman in red until he spots her talking to Morella in the corner of the room. He ends up following her into one of the sex rooms where it is revealed the masked woman is Verna (Carla Gugino)–the bartender his siblings met in 1979. She tries to warn him about the consequences of throwing this party and whispers there is still time for him to stop what’s coming. Her breathy voice almost puts Perry in a trance and her revealing lingerie doesn’t help. He has sex and partying on his mind so he never takes her warnings seriously and that choice is his ultimate undoing. It isn’t long before Verna whispers in the ear of the security guard and Morella, and tells them both to leave the club quickly. The guard does but for some reason Morella doesn’t, and although we never see what happens to her, what becomes of Perry is nightmarish. Once the guard locks the doors behind him we see a dancing Perry immersed in the crowd of sweaty people. He motions for the sprinkler system to be turned on because it’s time to cool this heat down and get wet! Unfortunately, those safety precautions he skirted and the building’s toxic history rains down hazardous chemicals onto the crowd. It melts the screaming party-goers to the floor and to each other. The scene is gruesome, and right before Perry takes his last breath, Verna kisses him and says, “you are consequence, Perry.” Prospero dies and then Verna places her death mask over his charred face. RIP Prospero! You are one Usher kid down and five more to go! We have no idea who Verna is, but we can guess her calling card reads, “ I am become death.”The question still remains, how did the Ushers get buried by her curse and why? Maybe the answer lies in the next Usher family casket?