The Fall of the House of Usher’s Most Harrowing Death Is Its Least Brutal

In Mike Flanagan's last Netflix series, it was never really about justice

By Anna Govert  |  October 20, 2023 | 10:15am
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The Fall of the House of Usher’s Most Harrowing Death Is Its Least Brutal
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“What do you want?” Rodrick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) asks C. Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly) in The Fall of the House of Usher’s final episode. “Justice,” is his short answer. “And what does that look like?” Rodrick volleys back, to which Dupin follows with an assertive: “I’ll know it when I see it.” 

In the aftermath of acid rain, animal attacks, falls from thousands of feet, stab wounds to the heart and various other vital organs through thousands of glass shards, and a bisection followed by a crushing blow from a massive, collapsing building, it’s difficult to imagine that we haven’t already seen that justice play out. After all, even if Rodrick Usher was still standing at the moment, his kids have all already passed in increasingly violent and brutal fashion, each paying off a tiny fraction of their father and aunt’s tab one at a time. But that was the deal, wasn’t it? The mysterious Verna (Carla Gugino), seemingly Death herself, made it perfectly clear: the Ushers would be untouchable in life, but would go together in death. 

The Fall of the House of Usher catalogs poetic justice, quite literally, through its adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe’s most famous tales, sending its titular Ushers through elaborate, Saw-like deaths in order to pay for their most egregious sins: simply being Ushers—oh, and all their own misdeeds as well. 

In the beginning, you could argue that Prospero (Sauriyan Sapkota) didn’t deserve it, not really—he was just a kid, too starved for affection but too gorged on money and access to have a caring bone in his body. Camille (Kate Siegel), while admittedly a terrible person and an even worse boss, was tame enough, driven by a profound hatred for her sister fostered by their father’s penchant for pitting his children against each other. Even Napoleon (Rahul Kohli), while a horrible person and partner, still wasn’t as bad as his older siblings. As we move further into the mutilation and atrocities committed by the eldest Ushers, it’s so easy to get lost in the revelry of the kills—there is joy in the bloodshed. They deserve this, you say over your popcorn as Victorine (T’Nia Miller) stabs herself in the heart after mutilating her girlfriend, as Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan) smashes all the mirrors in her home, as Fredrick (Henry Thomas) gets slashed in half then crushed by rubble. The delight that comes from those kills reveals as much about the seemingly eternal Verna as it does those watching it happen; it’s fun to watch people face their comeuppance. But, as the series comes to a close, Lenore’s (Kyliegh Curran) death is a sobering halt to that revelry, and acts as a stark reminder that good people will always get caught in the crossfire. And that, in the end, it wasn’t really about punishing any of these people for their misdeeds anyway; like most callus acts in this world, it was all just a transaction. 

Despite Verna telling Lenore that her death would be the most difficult to enact, she still did it; she still made her pay a toll that wasn’t hers to pay. Instead of having thousands upon thousands of deaths on her hands like her grandfather, Lenore’s actions caused a chain reaction that saved thousands and improved millions of lives. And yet, it still wasn’t enough to write her off, just this once. Though it did earn her something the other Ushers were offered but that each passed on: a quick, painless death. At the Rue Morgue, Verna repeatedly tells Camille to leave and that she shouldn’t be there, but driven by the sheer hatred she holds for her sister, Camille stays to collect that evidence. Verna tells her that her death could have been quiet and peaceful, she could have just died in her sleep; similarly, she tells Fredrick that his newfound cocaine habit would have made a heart attack so easy, but as soon as he pulled out a pair of pliers to harm his wife, she had to take more drastic measures. She gives them each every opportunity to do the right thing, but the only Usher granted that peaceful demise was Lenore. But still, no matter how good and kind Lenore was, unfortunately, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway—she was Rodrick Usher’s one true punishment. 

The Ushers died in order, youngest to oldest. In that way, Lenore should have been the first to fall as the youngest member of Rodrick’s bloodline. However, Lenore was the only Usher that Rodrick truly cared about, so Verna, in her efforts to prolong his suffering, saved her for last. (The last death carried out by her hand, that is, as Rodrick himself killed his sister Madeline [Mary McDonnell].) She let Rodrick squirm, knowing in the back of his mind that an end to his bloodline meant an end to everyone, including his beloved granddaughter, but never knowing when that final shoe was going to drop. More than any other Usher, Rodrick actually mourned Lenore. All six of his children were found dead across just as many days, and the only person who actually gets a tear out of the stoic and brutal Rodrick Usher is his sweet granddaughter. And even in death, Lenore haunts Rodrick via text, as a bastardized, AI version of her consciousness taunts him with messages of “Nevermore;” Verna’s corruption influencing Madeline’s tech, no doubt. 

Like most Mike Flanagan joints, The Fall of the House of Usher doles out hope, but not without a steep price. Like Jamie (Amelia Eve) losing Dani (Victoria Pedretti) in The Haunting of Bly Manor or Nell’s (Victoria Pedretti) death in The Haunting of Hill House, there is always a price to pay for the reprieve at the end of each of these horror miniseries. But unlike the deaths of Dani and Nell, Lenore’s feels senselessly cruel and sucks some of the hope out of an ultimately optimistic ending. Despite Juno (Ruth Codd) using the dissolution of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals to fund clinics to help end the opioid epidemic, Dupin getting to return home to his happy family and live a peaceful retirement, Arthur Pym (Mark Hamill) paying for his crimes, and Morelle (Crystal Balint) using her experiences to help others, Lenore’s premature death snuffed the flame out of a young girl who only wanted to do good in the world, and yet was collateral damage of an empire she wanted to bring crashing down. Through her demise, The Fall of the House of Usher posits that no good deed goes unpunished, and that good people will ultimately pay the price for others’ wrongdoings. While her death did play a small part in helping better the world, her death alone wasn’t instrumental to the demise of the Usher dynasty, let alone to Fortunato itself. While Dani’s death especially was a grand sacrifice that she shouldered alone to save a child that she truly adored, the fall of the house of Usher would have happened with or without Lenore’s blood on Verna’s hands. 

More than anything, Lenore’s death wasn’t justice, but Verna’s mission wasn’t truly about justice at all. Karma? Sure, but justice? No, Verna’s end goal, ironically, was a mitigation of suffering. Eliminating the house of Usher was like giving a handful of Ligodone to the world—just without the nasty side effects.

In the final episode, in a desperate plea to absolve himself of his guilt while facing down the mutilated ghosts of his children and grandchild, Rodrick says that he created a world without pain. In actuality, Rodrick Usher and his entire family (save for one member) did nothing but cause pain and suffering, a cosmic righting of the tides because a world without pain is impossible. Rodrick eases physical ache, but brings nothing but suffering through the addictive properties of his miracle drug alongside the actions of his heartless children. Verna herself said she is a creature of symmetry, and in implication, a creature of balance. In order to bring the world back to balance, in order to eliminate the pain caused by the Ushers, the world had to be freed from them. In her grand balancing act, Verna knows that suffering cannot just be removed from life, and there will always be a steep price to pay to ease it. The Usher family paid that price, and thus balance was restored to the world through the actions of those touched by the family. Lenore’s death was the ultimate equator, one innocent life in exchange for millions.

While there is a divinity to the peace and hope lingering as the final title card hits on The Fall of the House of Usher, there is also an unshakable pain in the aftermath of this series that can’t be cured by any medicine—but that’s life, in all its painful, horrible, beautiful glory. 

Anna Govert is the TV Editor of Paste Magazine. For any and all thoughts about TV, film, and her unshakable love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you can follow her @annagovert.

For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.

 
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