This October, a new gothic drama was released on Netflix called “The Fall Of The House Of Usher.” It is a TV show inspired by a short story about the works of Edgar Allen Poe called “The Fall Of The House Of Usher.” All eight episodes of the show included titles of Poe’s written work.
Its genre includes a TV Drama and a TV show based on books and is rated TV-MA.
The original plot from the poem itself starts with the unrevealed narrator receiving a letter from his estranged childhood friend, Roderick Usher. He needs his dear old childhood friend due to his sudden illness. Then, it leads to the narrator arriving at the house with full nostalgia. It then leads to the critical events of Roderick becoming mad after the expected death of his twin sister, Madeline. The two men then bury her in their family cemetery. But it’s revealed that Madeleine was not dead when Roderick said she was and was buried alive. Madeline decides to take revenge and resurrects to haunt and kill her brother for revenge, causing the house to fall entirely, ending the legacy of the Ushers.
My Predictions After Ep.1:
- The titles of each episode connect to the deaths
- The woman behind the bar is the reason for all the deaths, and a raven
Description Of The Show: Their family dynasty was fueled by greed, power, and wealth. Decades later, they are forced to face the consequences — and accept their faith.
The Trailer
After watching the Trailer before the first episode, I can see a lot of differences from the story. I feel like the overall plot of the poem itself will be the same but with twists to it. I noticed the addition of characters; the original only includes three, but the show has more than 8. There are some plots, like the deaths of some of the characters, which may be related to the Usher twins. It is along with context to the Usher family, which is a considerable mystery in the poem. The original poem is also quite dated, but this gives us a modernized version of the story.
Episode 1: A Midnight Dreary
From the start of episode 1, the show differs significantly from the poem. You can tell there will be a lot of foreshadowing, which is very interesting. The flashbacks from Roderick and Madeline’s life are fantastic, and now we get so much background to the whys from the present. While watching, I noticed a repetition of ravens appearing on screen, which is the biggest foreshadowing of something bad.
The addition of the clips of the siblings’ separate lives opinionating on how there is a mole is such a big giveaway to how they feel about their family. I noticed how they will show clips that give us later answers to something that will confuse the audience. An example of something left unknown is Roderick’s sudden shock after he is given a drink by someone at his bar at home, causing him to jump upright from his seat. I’m still a little confused on some parts. During the flashback to a bar, they mention the name Fortunateo with little context, and it’s revealed that it’s later the company name. Although my favorite clip is the last one, it connects significantly to the first one. It starts where it ended. I’m just waiting to see the significance of the woman on the pews and his dead children on there as well. And especially the significance of the clown and why he fell to the floor and got a bloody nose.
Episode 2: The Masque of the Red Death
With the first and second episodes having a lot of significance to this unknown man, I’m intrigued by why. And why is the clip from the past he’s so involved in the scandal with the Usher drug Ligadome, and how does it connect to the coffin in the beginning? It’s interesting to know why Prospero’s personality is the way he is and why he’s called a bastard, along with what the six siblings chose as their ideas for the company. You can see the sweet relationship between Prospero and Napoleon. But it’s sad we won’t get to see it for much longer due to Prospero being the first to die in such a tragic way, as seen by the hallucinations. We now get a connection to the poem about how Roderick has a form of dementia.
The flashback to when Roderick pitched his pill is interesting, showing Madeline and Roderick’s relationship growing and the introduction to the first wife. The one thing I’m questioning is why there is only one grandchild, considering how big their family is.
It’s bizarre how this family acts with each other, either if it’s with their partners or if it’s with a sibling with a spouse.
You could tell Prospero’s party is not going to turn out well from the very beginning, with little hints being shown. For example, I like the idea of the sprinklers and them not working, especially when the person in the skull mask arrives. And revealing her face to him but not her identity, saying it’s not too late to stop the party. About how consequences are due to decisions and somehow calling him a consequence relating it to his life. I can already tell that she is not a natural person and probably a hallucination. Then the consequence hits the sprinklers and is turned on, hoping for it to be water, but it is acid. It kills everyone on his part, including himself.
Episode 3: Murder in the Rue Morgue
It’s horrible how the Ushers are using the death of their brother and son as a publicity stunt. His death is a help in their favor to get them out of the media.
You can tell the difference between the heartless and not heartless siblings based on their thoughts about who the mole is. Camile is one, with her investigating her own sister’s monkey trial to make sure she’s the mole. But that exactly might be her karma.
It’s funny how Camile, Prospero, and Napoleon are called the bastards compared to the other three siblings.
Compared to the original poem, the only similar thing is when Roderick is talking to the investigator at his house after the death of his children. To be fair, the poem could have been the after-effect of his life, and the show shows the context and before of his life before the show shows us how each and the order of the deaths. When we are shown the present-day investigation, you can already see how they died due to Roderick’s hallucinations.
I love love love how different Madeline and Roderick are. So far, she is my favorite character. She’s so independent and aggressive in a good way to get what she wants; she knows how to use her strengths, especially her brain.
The plot twist and suspense about Napoleon killing the cat are insane. He woke up with blood and made sure it wasn’t from his boyfriend but instead from his boyfriend’s cat.
The hints about the mysterious woman from the party are such that they never really saw her, and when she whispered to the staff to get out, none of them remembered. Even though Morelle was warned to get out, she didn’t and got acid-rained, but she is the only one out of the whole party to make it out alive.
The lady from the bar and the party seems to appear now but at Tamerlane’s house.
This show has so many plot twists which make you jump, but so far, this one has the most. Camile snoops around trying to find dirt on her sister, so she goes to her lab but gets stopped by the security guard. And by far, she is the most entitled sibling, which causes her to end. But back to Camile, once she gets in the lab with all the monkeys, she gets caught by the guard again. Suddenly, the guard jumps up on the nearby counter and starts getting closer until we see her face: the same lady. She starts ripping her shirt in pain and making monkey noises, revealing the same scar on her chest as the monkeys. Camile, previously taking pictures together, blackmailed one of these ladies, and a monkey was exposed.
Two workers at the lab open the door where the monkeys are held and see blood everywhere, with a monkey next to Camille.
Episode 4: The Black Cat
The lady yet again reoccurs, but with Napoleon when he goes to buy a new cat. This lady is the definition of foreshadowing; she’s everywhere, and everywhere she is, death follows. I guess the cat will not be a typical cat.
I love the characters that Madeline and Roderick are given. Roderick is very similar to his character in the poem, but I love the one they gave Madeline due to her specification in the first story. But you can tell the difference in the mourning between Camile and Prospero. It’s so sad how not many of them cared when Prospero died.
The absolute fear on Roderick’s face when he sees who the guard is, such a familiar face, and the recurrence of the raven along with it. At this point, The lady has met all siblings except Fredrick. And I was right. There’s something odd with that cat. And then we get to see how Napoleon died because of Roderick’s visions due to the cat. The flashbacks to the past are the best part because we get answers to future issues, especially when we get the relationship with Roderick and Auguste, which is way farther than you would think. And the process of Fortunato growing.
I’m also noticing the theme of them dying at the end of each episode.
The lady has reappeared in Tamerlane’s life, this time in a video from her exercise company. It’s also all getting worse. Like, I feel so bad for him. It’s all getting worse with him finding dead animals all over his place. He calls the lady, and yet again, it’s going to bring death. But this time, she mentions his father and turns into the cat, just like what happened with his sister. It’s interesting about how he was attacked.
The hallucinations started right before Napoleon’s death and saw the first Prospero. But before death, it’s hallucinations, and that is what Napoleon sees when his boyfriend enters their apartment. He first sees the cat in the balls he had previously destroyed and then catches it on the balcony. His need to kill it turns so bad that he goes running after it on the balcony, where he falls off to his death. After he dies, the dead animals and the cat just magically disappear.
Episode 5: The Tell-Tale Heart
The kiss between Madeline and the bartender is shocking and would explain why she never married or had kids.
Even in the church, Roderick sees Prospero again at his funeral with his other two siblings. But the deaths are bringing madness to everyone, especially the siblings that are left.
The second is that Auguste reveals that there was no informant all along. That detail is what caused so many of the deaths of their family. Just like Victorine, hers gets displayed with the hallucinations, and each gets scarier.
I still love how we get to see the process of how Rodrick gains control of the company and his relationship with Auguste. And I love seeing them putting the puzzle pieces together with the deaths. And just like patterns in the deaths, Victorine follows and starts to get hallucinations. Okay, I found it quite funny when Roderick took his drug, and he’s high. But when the siblings get paranoid, they seem like they are high, and the only one who doesn’t go insane is Prospero.
Victorine killing her girlfriend out of anger was shocking. I expect her new mania to get her to do that. And her body was in her house with a box around her heart, being able to hear her heartbeat. My question is, is this part of the hallucinations because Roderick and Victorine see it? She is now the only one who has killed herself without the help of that lady but out of mania.
Episode 6: Goldbug
You can already tell that Tamerlane’s hallucinations are going to be connected to her being sleep-deprived. Her driving everyone away will risk her life. Her hallucination is one of the scariest due to her being in and out of a state of reality. Especially since everything she is doing is either disappearing or is not what she is doing, like writing all over her speech and feeling her symptoms more and more, just like her siblings. Roderick’s hallucinations have been getting worse and worse, with him seeing his four dead children standing while he’s talking to them. And while talking to his granddaughter, they appear, but now 5.
I feel so bad for Juno because she gets treated so horribly by everyone, even her husband. And she knows she gets mistreated, and so does everyone else.
Arthur, who takes care of all of their legal matters, went to Victoria’s house to get anything that could help them figure out who the lady was. It’s even crazier and made my jaw drop when he found Victorine’s patient, who is that lady, and after seeing and going to the address, it’s back to the original Usher house.
The introduction to Tamerlanes quite literally made me jump back. I am currently wondering how the title will connect with her death and the glass shattering. Something I’m currently wondering is what happened to Roderick’s first wife. She is in basically any flashback to the last scene, but no mention of her in the present, especially since she is the mother of the only full siblings, Tamerlanes and Frederick.
The little trio of Madeline, Roderick, and Arthur have been having little meetings talking about this mysterious woman, but this episode has the most shocking results. It was revealed with a bunch of pictures of her spread throughout history dating back to the 1800s century.
Frederick is quite literally insane, just himself; he’s so bent on getting revenge on his wife for “cheating” on him with his brother that he drugs her.
As Tamerlanes begins her new product launch, her exhaustion, or should I call hallucinations, is becoming worse. She goes nuts, including seeing the lady in the stands and then that lady appearing in her presentation slide and a private video of her being only visible to her, along with trying to hurt the woman by throwing her mic but accidentally hitting Juno and destroying the TV. But Madeline sees her later, too. Once she gets back, she starts to get haunted by her, but Tamerlanes begins to eliminate all of the class, only hurting herself. She then jumps from her bed, breaking the glass on her roof, but falls back on the glass to her death. Her death is so far one of the worst, with both mental and physical attacks.
Episode 7: The Pit and the Pendulum
It’s so funny seeing the past clips because, at this point, Auguste and Roderick are close, but in the future, they are going against each other. And I love that Auguste brought up how lucky Roderick was in the past and how he was in the present.
Even though Madeline reveals that once she grabbed the lady and disappeared, no one said anything like it’s crazy.
Fredrick is still going completely mad, especially with the drugs he’s taking, and now he has put the same picture from their wedding all over the room, all in different forms. And yet again, sedates Morelle. She is yet again obsessing over her ring when she first got burned. This guy goes so crazy that he pulls out all her teeth because he likes her smile. And after Lenore tries to help out her mother, he snaps at her.
Finally, it’s revealed how Frederick dies, but this is very different. It’s crazy because his mother appears with little Frederick looking up, getting his body split in half.
Returning to a flashback of what Roderick and Auguste had planned to go against his big boss, he turns on Auguste. And Roderick gets arrested.
Then, in the present, I’m surprised and scared because Madeline is back at her old house. And then the woman appears, and they begin talking like they’ve been good friends for a long time. Madeline attempts to make a deal, which is not a very good idea but a good attempt.
My heart broke when Lenore broke in to see what her mother looked like after what her father did. And I grew intrigued with the poem that the woman, or should I call Verna, recited. Of all the siblings, Frederick is by far my least favorite, and his death is his karma. He caused his paralyzation with a bit of help from Verna. This death is the only one that I feel entirely no sympathy for. He chose to destroy the building his brother died in, and now he’s being killed with it. I also love how Verna hates him just as much, with her saying that she wouldn’t have made his death so brutal if it wasn’t for what he did to his wife.
Now, it’s just two left, like in the poem that Madeline says. But it’s weird because why did she purposely make her brother overdose on their pill? And then Verna appears to bring him back to life.
Episode 8: The Raven
I feel like when the murderers first started, it wasn’t clear why Verna was doing it, but it is getting clearer and more transparent. And she’s getting at all of them except Madeline. Now, she’s started to target Roderick.
The fact that everyone in that family is trying to gaslight Lenore. It’s interesting how Rodrick is comparing himself to a new child by personality and mentioning how good Lenor is. And the sweet way Lenore is talked about by her grandfather is the cutest; you can see the general love he has for her. Like Lenore, he talks about Anabelle the same way, never a bad word, even in her death. The poem he’s reciting about Anabell is so sweet and generally made me go “aww.”
Roderick said, “It’s time,” after being on the floor looking at a raven, it has to symbolize something. Oh my god. Madeline takes care of Roderick’s boss by drugging him. And now we see the significance of the clown with him in the costume. The siblings build a wall of bricks over his body and lock him in. Making sure to leave him in the ball with his mask on his head and arms locked to the walls. Now, finding out the connection these siblings have with Verna is insane. Finding out why his children all died left my jaw dropped, like the fact that they made a deal for the problem to be the next generation’s problem, and when Roderick dies, so does Madeline. I think this deal is probably why Madeline never had kids.
WHEN THE ENTIRE BAR DISAPPEARED AFTER THEY MAKE THE DEAL!!!!WHAT! I thought Verna was a ghost, but then she was drugged and caught by Arthur, and then she appeared. This lady is smart; she knew all along of his plan while Arthur had his mouth open. This lady has a connection with everyone, even Arthur now. He made the best decision when offered by Verna.
You can tell Verna does not want to kill Lenore with her tone when speaking to her and the way she chooses to kill her. Letting her die, I’m guessing, suddenly by touch was the least brutal way. Her death also affected her grandfather because it revealed that Lenore was not texting Roderick the entire time, but it was the robot that Lenore and her aunt Madeline had made up.
Nevermore is repeated a lot throughout the show. Still, the text is revealed to be a repetition of the word “nevermore,” which is scary, and Roderick recites the poem to the audience, along with the multitude of appearances from the crow.
It’s so scary when those who have died appear, for example, when Roderick is in his office, and they are all sitting at the meeting tables. It’s all due to Verna, who I hated at first, but she’s putting him in his place. Especially by showing him how many people he has killed by making it rain bodies. She has a whole plan for these last two Ushers,
The plot twist of Roderick drugging Madeline and stabbing her to entomb her. It’s all following the plot of the original story: her body escapes, going after him and killing him as the house collapses on itself. The last alive person to see the house is Auguste, who considers some lady standing on the house to turn into a crow.
My Overall Review
This is an excellent show with gloomy, dark moods throughout, although funny at points. It was executed in such a fantastic way that it hit all of the key points from the original and more. I generally enjoyed watching this show, especially since I read the poem before, which I also enjoyed. I overall give it a 10/10 and recommend people to watch it.
