The Fall of the House of Usher – The Tell-Tale Heart

By starrymag | October 24, 2023

By: Kelly Kearney

 

 

“And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense?” is a famous line from Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, which shares the same title as Mike Flanagan’s fifth installment of “The Fall of The House of Usher.” In this episode, madness wreaks havoc on Vic’s life as there are some similarities between her and the desperate quest for success leading her down a path of madness and the unnamed narrator who is anything but sane, in Poe’s most famous horror story. As Vic’s mind unravels, we also get a few more clues as to what happened at the bar on that fateful New Year’s Eve in 1979 when Arthur Pym uncovers a photo of Verma at Napoleon’s apartment before he died. This is a story about greed, losing grasp of one’s sanity, and a brutal reminder that you can never escape the consequences of your actions–even in death, the living pay the price.

 

A Queen Knows a Fellow Queen When She Sees One

 

We open the episode on New Year’s Eve 1979 when a young Roderick (Zach Gilford) and Madeline (Willa Fitzgerald) met Verna (Carla Gugino). Roderick spots a stuffed raven over the bar and tells the bartender his theories on birds he learned from his mother.  He says she thought of them as “minions of Satan” because Noah tossed them off of his Ark and they still survived the flood. Verna counters that theory with the idea that ravens have also been known to bring people good fortune, and then she reaches out to grab his hand and reads Roderick’s palm. She points out a broken lifeline–indicating a turn in his fate that will change the course of his life and it seems that detour is tonight. His sister, Madeline, interrupts to remind him to go hit the dance floor and make sure he is seen. They aren’t there to make friends with the bartender, they are there for an alibi. She tells him to fInd a woman and make sure she remembers him when the ball drops. There is no word on how his wife, Annabel, fits into this alibi strategy but from his lack of a wedding ring, we can assume his marital status has changed. Later, we do see him kissing a woman and we have no idea who she is but considering the brood of children who came after Freddy and Tammy, we can guess she might be one of the mothers of his one-night stand heirs. While Roderick is sealing his alibi with a kiss, Verna talks to Mads about her resolution for the following year, and just like her brother, she has her heart set on changing the world. When the two glance at Roderick dancing, Mads mentions how she is the one who keeps her twin in check. She is the woman behind the man; a Queen without a crown. As we hear the countdown to the new year, Verna leans in and asks if  Mads would rather be rich or famous and no shock here, she wants to be rich. Unlike her mother, she would never want a man to hold power over her. She also wants a way to live forever. This isn’t a woman with simple wants and needs. Verna leans in as the clock strikes midnight and kisses Madeline as if she has just granted her that wish. She calls her Cleopatra because she knows a queen when she sees one.

After we briefly cut to Dupin (Carl Lumbly) asking Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) about that kiss in 1979, we can tell he is judging the man’s morals knowing he was cheating on his sweet wife.  Cryptically, Roderick tells him he had no choice that night, “I had to.”

As we flashback to Perry’s (Sauriyan Sapkota), Camille’s (Kate Siegel), and Leo’s (Rahul Kohli) funeral, we see all of their mourning mothers in the church and Roderick doing his best to ignore them. They glare at their children’s cursed father as he exits the church, which prompts him to take one last look at the three caskets and that’s when he sees their bloodied spirits standing at the altar. These ghosts are haunting him, but why? Roderick also spots that same jester he saw in the limo earlier in the series, and it is watching the funeral from the church’s balcony. We also hear Arthur Pym (Mark Hamill) going over the family’s official statement on Leo’s death with Jules (Daniel Jun). That man is a jack of all trades, and without him, there is no telling where the Ushers would be, but we can assume that place would have more bars than mansion doors.

 

Sibling Rivalry Until The Very End

 

After the funeral, the remaining siblings meet at a bar that Vic (T’Nia Miller) bought out so they could talk privately–just them and their Pym-assigned bodyguards. The threat against their lives is stronger than ever so none of them are allowed to leave their guard’s sight.  Vic–who was always seen as an outsider to Roderick’s first two children he had with Annabel, wants the final three to pull together and support each other. Dividing themselves by who was born from wedlock and who was conceived in one of Roderick’s many one-night stands, seems frivolous now that there are only three of them left.The conversation they have reveals their true feelings about their dead siblings, and no surprise, Tammy (Samantha Sloyan) and Freddy (Henry Thomas) never felt close to them. In fact, they think their mother was the only true love of their father’s life, and after she was gone he just climbed onto whichever warm body was closest. He was making heirs like he wasn’t going to see tomorrow and that is why Tammy and Freddy are struggling to show a single emotion over these sudden deaths. Tammy jokes that for all they know there are three more of their father’s secret offspring out there and they could show up tomorrow and she wouldn’t even blink–it would be expected. The animosity she has for the “bastards” is heartless, and Vic knows hearts–she has seen them up close and personal. It’s why she gives up on the family bonding experience and storms out of the bar claiming out of the three of them, she is the only one who is on track to succeed.

At the hospital, Lenore (Kyliegh Curran) is spending time with her mother, Morelle (Crystal Balint), and trying any way she can to communicate with her. She manages to get the woman to blink in response to yes/ no questions which means the woman is making slight improvements in her condition. She isn’t ready to go home anytime soon but Frederick pushes for her release anyway. His wealth and power make him more than capable of finding a staff to care for her from the comfort of their home but let’s not pat him on the back yet, he is hyperfocused on that burner phone and the possibility that she was unfaithful than he is on her recovery. Taking her out of the watchful eyes of the hospital staff gives Freddy a lot of power over the wife he is angry with.

 

Some Monsters Do What They Were Born To Do

 

Over at Vic’s house, Al (Paola Nunez)–her partner in life and work, is mad because she was left out of Pam’s scheduled surgery. She had no idea the clinical trials were approved and that is when she  realizes Vic is lying and her signature was forged. Irate over being linked to theseUsher crimes, she rants at Vic that she should have known not to trust her–all the Ushers are evil. Vic snaps back that she didn’t seem to have an issue with their evil money being pumped into her clinic. Vic’s lies and her vicious accusations are enough for Al to call it quits–on the relationship and the trial. She reminds Vic that the NDA she signed didn’t protect the family from crimes she is privy to, and this reeks of illegalities. Vic begs her not to say anything because the family will come after her and they always win. Al knows a threat when she hears one and gets in Vic’s face with, “I didn’t want to think it, but you are all f***ing monsters!” As she turns to walk out the door Vic is scared the angry woman will go to the police. So without thinking, she grabs a heavy bookend and throws it at her in the doorway hoping to stop her from leaving. The next day at the office Al doesn’t show up to work so Vic repeatedly calls, leaving messages begging for forgiveness and for the doctor to come home. At the same time, she is distracted by a sound–something that sounds like a cracking and creaking followed by a guttural groan that seems to be coming from behind the walls. She hears it constantly but when Mads stops by to light a fire under her niece about these heart device trials, her aunt doesn’t hear it.

Next, we see Arthur Pym and Auguste Dupin talking in Judge Neal’s (Nicholas Lea) chambers. Auguste asks him why he cleans up all the Usher’s messes, “I wouldn’t be where I am today without Roderick Usher,” he says and he leaves it at that because the judge walks in with bad news. He grants Pym’s delay–not based on the recent deaths but on what Dupin admitted in court– that there is a mole in the family feeding the feds information. Whoever that person is, they are responsible for this family dropping like flies. Unless Auguste wants to come clean and give them a name, the family is requesting time to figure it out and stay under guard. Dupin loudly rejects the request; why is it this family seems to slip through the cracks of consequence? In the present, Roderick asks him again who the rat is–not that the reveal will matter now; all of the possible suspects are dead. A nervous Dupin admits, “There was never an informant,” and Roderick can’t help but laugh. The Ushers finally knocked Auggie off of his white horse to get down in the mud with the rest of them. His downfall is delicious but the question is, why did he do it? Why would he risk his career and reputation for a lie that could be easily uncovered? He wanted to knock the family down from the inside. The idea of a rat was like a trojan horse he inserted right in the middle of that family’s toxic back-stabbing dynamics. He had hoped they would throw each other under the bus until one of them sought payback through his office. The conversation gets distracted by the sounds of a beating heart and Roderick notices a blood stain growing on Dupin’s white shirt. Instantly he morphs into a very dead and screaming Vic, so now we know her time is limited. As if the vision is guiding him, he relieves Dupin of his guilty burden. The man assumed his lie resulted in the kid’s deaths. Roderick  says, “No one died for your lie. So don’t carry that.” It is a kindness that shocks Auguste.

Next, we flashback to a young Madeline trying to pitch a computer infrastructure to Griswold (Michael Trucco) for Fortunatos. He acts as if he is interested but it is clear he is only interested in sleeping with her. He downplays her idea with a humiliating revelation about everyone in the company knowing her mother was sleeping with the CEO and that led to his death. As he verbally and visually undresses her, he questions the timing of her pitch. Her brother was just in his office ranting about those forged documents and now here she is, like his back-up, trying to get the illegitimate kids of Longfellow their very own piece of Fortunato’s pie. He might be interested in sleeping with her but he also warns her to never f**k with him, and says it in such a threatening way we can see Maddie’s face fall like she is secretly plotting his doom. Later, she tells Annabel (Katie Parker) about what happened with Griswold, and the woman is totally grossed out by Griswold’s misogyny. She asks her sister-in-law why she would put herself through that, but it is the price she was willing to pay to get an up-close view of the man they are dealing with. The young Dupin (Malcolm Goodwin) warns her to be careful with that man, he is smarter than he seems. Then he and the Usher twins plot a way to steal the forged documents before everything is computerized and the evidence of the company’s crimes are locked behind a firewall.  Annabel hates this whole idea, but Roderick and Mads are all in.

 

Verna the Time Traveler?

 

At R.U.E offices, Mr.Pym shows Mads and Roderick the photos he found of Verna at the scene of  Leo’s death. Mads reminds her brother of that fateful New Years Eve, but Roderick gets squirrely like–woh, we do not talk about that in front of the Jedi, girl. That bartender did not age, so Madeline wonders if this woman could be her daughter? Is she another one of Roderick’s children looking for payback to soothe her Daddy disappointments? Pym asks the boss for authorization to approach this person and handle it before they lose anyone else. He gets the okay, but Madeline adds her own little request: she wants the woman’s eyes as a receipt for Pym’s finished work. I guess they don’t call her Mads for nothing! That woman is brutal!

We check back in with Vic. who is being driven to madness by that groaning and creaking noise. Her entire meeting with Pam to discuss the trial and procedure is drowned out by that sound. Dr, Ruiz–Al, is Pam’s doctor and she had hoped to speak to the woman about the risks before she signed the paperwork for the trial. Vic hears her but cannot seem to concentrate. That’s when she lies to Pam and says her doctor will be there during the procedure, so there is nothing to worry about. Once Pam leaves her office, Vic starts tearing the room apart and pulling the vents out as she searches for whatever is making that noise. She also calls Al again, who still isn’t answering her phone and it is obvious Vic is losing it from the pressure she is under.

Over at Freddy’s house, he is also starting to crumble as his daughter cannot help but notice his bizarre and very jumpy behavior. She assumes there is more to these deaths and asks if that is why they need around-the-clock security. He explains how they are a powerful family–Kings without a monarchy, and as such, they are always under threat from the peasants. He is really starting to lose it, as he does very little to put his daughter’s mind at ease, but instead, he goes on about not trusting anyone in this world–even her liar of a mother.

Tammy isn’t doing any better than her other two siblings. She is overworked and underslept and how she is seeing things, too. When Bill (Matt Biedel) confronts her about it he says her sleeping habits are something out of a horror movie–he just knows something bad will happen to her if she doesn’t get some rest. She just won’t stop working, even to mourn her siblings. Her husband is worried–even if she doesn’t want it and shoves his fears back in his face. Tearing into him with insults, she breaks his heart when she tells him she doesn’t love him, “You were selected.You were chosen.You fit the brand.” He fires back that he is the face of Goldbug–their wellness company she is obsessively trying to get ready to launch. Without him, she wouldn’t have company to lose sleep over. That’s when she lashes out and accuses him of having an affair with the escort they hired, Candy. In four separate streams of his work-out class, she saw the woman in the background. Her bodyguard also said he saw him walking with her in the park. He is totally confused because he didn’t see Candy in class and the woman he took a walk with was her.  Their argument is volatile and Bill cannot take it anymore, s he leaves and she lets him go with only a very brief look of regret on her face.

 

How to Break a Curse

 

Lastly, we catch up with Roderick in the company’s basement talking to the heartbeat he hears behind the brick wall. He is starting to realize he has the power to fix the curse before anyone else dies. He can take his own life. We see him act out each idea-from taking a handful of Ligodone to committing hari kari with an ancient Egyptian sword, to finally jumping out the window and falling 70 floors down. If he takes control of his fate then Verna can’t come for him. The only problem with that plan is he is a coward and chooses life when the easy out would be death. These suicidal ideations scare him enough to stop by Vic’s house to urge her to get this trial underway. When he walks in he can’t help but notice the music is blasting and Vic refuses to turn it down. She is still trying to tune out those creaks and groans, and as he tells her how proud he is of her, she looks too panicked and distracted to hear him. He apologizes for how he raised her and the siblings–always in competition with each other on the hunt for whatever the kill was of the day. He compares them to a pride of lions. His guilt seems mixed with his need for her to get that device ready and save his life. Again, the music is interfering with his heartfelt speech but she still refuses to turn it down and then tells him why. She turns the volume down and asks him to listen, and shockingly he hears noise too. He follows it towards the woman’s bedroom and that is when we see Al walk by. Viic follows her and the scene cuts to earlier when the two women fought. Now we know Allesandra is dead and Vic killed her with that flying book end! She hit the woman in the back of the head and instead of calling 9-1-1 and facing a murder charge, she sits back and watches her girlfriend die. The sound she keeps hearing is the death growl followed by the creaking sound of that heart device they worked on together! When opens Vic’s bedroom door we finally see the culprit behind that sound. Propped up is a  dead Allesandra with a gaping hole in her chest and the noise we heard all episode long was the experimental device pumping her heart. Her  father is shocked but manages to spit out, “you are fully funded.” Because the device worked, her heart was pumping.  Al is patient number one in the trial and now Roderick wants Vic to leave with him and let Pym clean this mess up. To the beat of Al’s dead mechanical heart, Vic points a scalpel at her father, and then turns the blade on herself! Apparently, DIY testing on her dead girlfriend wasn’t enough, she needed a better heart to succeed so cuts out her own! That’s four Usher kids dead and the final two left to go. Our girl Verna has been busy.