Lots of families have a skeleton or two in the closet if you go looking hard enough — but what about millions of skeletons? And what if they weren’t hidden away, but right there, out in the open? Dirty deeds, body counts, and a basic lack of any real morals that are all public knowledge, but because the family in question is so powerful, consequences don’t seem to apply — at least, until karma comes knocking (or, tapping at their chamber door).
Hey, meet the Ushers! They’re the infamous dynasty at the center of The Fall of the House of Usher, Mike Flanagan’s latest attempt to scare us all until we sufficiently feel like our nightmares have come to life. If you’ve taken even one week of any type of American Lit course, that title has probably alerted you to the fact that Flanagan — who has already done his thing with Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House) and Henry James (The Haunting of Bly Manor) — is now diving into the work of gothic horror icon Edgar Allan Poe. But you’ve never seen Poe like this before. Flanagan is mixing and matching Poe’s poetry, short stories, and novels, giving them a modern-day twist to tell a tale about power, hubris, family, and what happens when it all, quite literally, comes crashing down around you. But like any good story, we need to start at the beginning. Grab your most expensive glass of cognac and maybe flick the lights on for this one, it’s time to get into The Fall of the House of Usher.
Episode 1, “A Midnight Dreary,” introduces us to the sprawling Usher family, led by twins Roderick and Madeline Usher (Bruce Greenwood and Mary McDonnell), who put the big in Big Pharma thanks to their titan of a company Fortunato Pharmaceuticals and its wonder opiate, Ligodone. Roderick has six adult children: Frederick Usher (Henry Thomas), who works closely under his father but mostly wants to bowl in his living room; Tamerlane Usher (Samantha Sloyan), who’s looking to Goop with the best of them, thanks to her about-to-launch lifestyle brand, Goldbug; Victorine Lafourcade (T’Nia Miller), a scientist working on an artificial heart implant; Napoleon “Leo” Usher (Rahul Kohli), a gaming influencer who, like his siblings, seems to treat his significant others like garbage; Camille L’Espanaye (Kate Siegel), a PR maven with envy-inducing silver hair; and, finally, Prospero “Perry” Usher (Sauriyan Sapkota). He’s the youngest of the brood, and –– bless his heart –– decides that he wants to use the loan his father doles out to all of his children to build a chain of hedonistic nightclubs. Daddy is not pleased!
While we’ll learn a lot more about each of the Ushers as the series moves along, we do get one very important tidbit right at the start: When our tale of the Usher family begins, all six of Roderick’s children are dead — and it all happened within the past two weeks. So, that’s fun and not at all alarming.
The evening after the Usher patriarch buries his three remaining children, he summons assistant US attorney C. Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly) — whom Roderick affectionately calls Auggie, so you know there’s a history there — to what turns out to be Roderick’s childhood home. It’s a decaying mess, a temple to pain and horror and trauma, and Roderick has Dupin meet him there on that stormy night (because of course it is) to finally give Dupin what he’s always wanted: a confession, one that will prove him guilty of the 73 felony counts Dupin is currently bringing against Roderick, Madeline (who is apparently hanging out in the basement, by the way), and Fortunato Pharmaceuticals. And, he promises, it will also shed light on how each of Roderick’s children died. As Roderick tells it, these weren’t freak accidents — he is responsible for all of their deaths. Sounds like it’s going to be quite the lengthy confession.
Roderick begins his story with a quick visit to his harrowing childhood, telling Dupin that everything is connected. We meet Roderick and Madeline’s mother, Eliza (Annabeth Gish), a tough-to-love woman with strict principles. We also meet the twins’ biological father, William Longfellow (Robert Longstreet), who was the CEO of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals at the time, and Eliza’s boss. Oh, and he basically denies the twins’ existence and forbids them from ever stepping foot on his property. When Eliza falls ill, she refuses any type of medicine to stop the pain, believing God will save her. After she dies, Roderick and Madeline (played as teenagers by Graham Verchere and Lulu Wilson) know she’d never want to be embalmed, so they build a coffin and bury her in the backyard. But that evening — again, stormy — when Roderick peeks out the window, the grave is dug up, the coffin broken open, and there’s a trail of muddy footprints leading into the house. It couldn’t be, right?
Oh, but it is. Eliza is “alive” and although at first she almost chokes Roderick out, she seems to recognize her children before marching all the way over to Longfellow’s house and strangling the man to death on his front walkway. And then Eliza dies, for real this time (although you might spot her ghost — or Roderick’s hallucination — walking around as he talks to Dupin). Present day Roderick calls her “remarkable.”
Wouldn’t you like to know! No, but seriously — we all want to know which Usher has apparently flipped on their family and become an informant for Dupin and the prosecution. In court, Dupin notes that this informant will finally be the one to help bring real consequences for the Ushers. This, of course, sends the family into a tizzy. Roderick calls an emergency family dinner in which he and Madeline force all of the children and their spouses to sign a rigorous NDA created by the family’s truly terrifying lawyer, Arthur Pym (Mark Hamill), also known as the “Pym Reaper.”
But an NDA is not enough: As the family bickers and people begin to point fingers, Roderick announces that he’ll give 50 million dollars to whoever figures it out.
Another mystery we’ll have to wait to get answers to! But we know that date is important because as soon as Roderick mentions it, Dupin perks up. “The night everything changed at Fortunato,” he says, noting that there are rumors of what went down. All we know so far is that by the end of the night, young Roderick (Zach Gilford) and young Madeline (Willa Fitzgerald), in their best Gatsby cosplay, end up at a bar with a mysterious bartender named Verna (Carla Gugino) who talks a whole lot about how resolutions are “a deal you make with the future.” Meanwhile, the Usher twins make concerning comments like “I can’t believe we just did that” and allude to the importance of being seen by witnesses. And Verna clocks Roderick’s dirty hands — probably both literally and figuratively, if you catch our drift.
“A Midnight Dreary” ends back where it began — at a very empty funeral for three of Roderick’s children, where Roderick is hallucinating some pretty grisly things up in the choir loft. First, he sees a woman with a bird beak watching over him. When he looks back up later, he sees all six of his dead children, covered in blood. When his granddaughter Lenore (Kyliegh Curran) asks what’s wrong, his response is: “She’s here.” Could these hallucinations have anything to do with the mysterious visit from his doctor on the night of the family dinner? The guy certainly looked unmoored by whatever information he received behind closed doors.
But the fun isn’t over for Roderick: As he goes to get into his car after the funeral, he opens the door to see a clown sitting in his seat. Startled, he falls backward, landing face up on the sidewalk. Madeline rushes to her brother’s side, where he begins to repeat the words “It’s time,” over and over again. Lying there, blood coming from his nose, Roderick looks above him to see a raven staring down at him. Now, if you know Poe, you know ravens are never a good sign.
