Following Perry Usher’s (Sauriyan Sapkota) melting flesh party, the rest of the Ushers need to do some damage control. Camille (Kate Siegel), master of spin, turns Perry into another JFK Jr., while everyone does their best to keep Morella (Crystal Balint), who somehow survived the acid rain incident but is now fighting for her life, hidden away in that hospital. It might be rude to say it, but she’s gross — even her daughter, Lenore (Kyliegh Curran), thinks so. The most interesting development of the aftermath, however, is that lethal legal eagle Arthur Pym (Mark Hamill) gets an image of Verna (Carla Gugino) as the woman in the red cloak in footage from the party. Even though Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and Madeline (Mary McDonnell) don’t recognize Verna, they all suspect she has something to do with Perry’s death. They’ll need to connect the dots soon because in Episode 3 of The Fall of the House of Usher, “Murder at the Rue Morgue,” Verna has already moved on to her second Usher victim.

How does Camille L’Espanaye die?

Oh, Camille, we hardly knew ye! Although she admittedly seems great at her job — that off-the-cuff brainstorm about how to spin Perry’s death was honestly impressive! — she’s also a terrible, terrible person. One need not look any further than her reaction when her two assistants, Toby (Igby Rigney) and Tina née Beth (Aya Furukawa), inform her that they’re in love and are no longer going to have sex with her. She tells them off about how theirs is a “full-service position” and reminds them of the NDAs and consent forms they signed before calling them “adorable little morons” and firing them on the spot. Let’s be thankful Toby and Tina made it out of that situation alive. 

Spurred on by her anger, Camille continues the investigation into half-sister Victorine (T’Nia Miller) herself. She still believes Victorine is the Usher informant, and even if she isn’t, Camille’s sure Victorine is up to something with her mysterious heart mesh device trials. While Camille’s instincts to look into the chimp trials are good, her decision to go to the medical facility late at night to dig around is an all-time bad one. She immediately runs into Verna — never a good sign — who’s now posing as a security guard. 

Verna’s conversation with Camille is just as vague and creepy as the one with Perry. When she follows Camille into the lab with the chimps, she waxes on about how “deviously, pointlessly mean you lot can be,” referring to all human beings, and goes on about how Camille, “the clever one,” didn’t need to come to the lab — this all (meaning Camille’s imminent death) could’ve been much more peaceful and less messy. But, much like Perry, Camille dug her own grave, so to speak. By the time Verna is up on the table moving curiously like a chimp and opening her shirt to reveal she’s bleeding from her chest as if she, like the chimps, had a mesh heart device implanted, even Camille knows she’s a goner. She takes one final photo of Verna, although on the phone screen all we see is a chimp. The next morning, two unsuspecting lab techs arrive to find blood all over the floor (including handprints, as if someone had been dragged), Camille’s torn-up body, and the chimp sitting next to her.

Has Verna popped up anywhere else yet?

Yes. Aside from the security guard/chimp getup, Verna appears as a new sex worker joining Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan) and Bill’s (Matt Biedel) little after-hours psycho-sexual live theater game; she’s scarily good in the role. She also “bumps into” Victorine at Alessandra’s (Paola Núñez) clinic, this time as a timid woman with a heart defect. When Victorine gets a look at her file, she realizes she’s the perfect candidate to move the heart mesh device human trials along and lies to her about joining the program. It seems obvious — to us, at least — that the joke is very much on Vic. 

Wait, what did Leo do to the cat?

After a night spent grieving Perry’s loss in his own special way (drugs, lots of drugs), Napoleon “Leo” Usher (Rahul Kohli) wakes to find his hands and clothes covered in blood. Soon after, the gaming influencer discovers that, um, well, he stabbed his boyfriend Julius’ (Daniel Jun) cat Pluto to death. It’s pretty grim! He cleans his entire apartment, cooks Julius some eggs (like that’s going to make up for killing his cat), and then feeds him a lie about how, whoopsie, during the debauchery the night prior, they must have accidentally let Pluto out. He’ll be back in no time, Leo assures him. 

What are Roderick and Madeline up to in 1979?

Surprising absolutely no one except, apparently, Roderick (here played by Zach Gilford), Rufus Griswold (Michael Trucco) steals Roderick’s idea to bring Ligodone to Fortunato and cuts Roderick out of it. Sure, he gives Roddie a check for $500, a tiny promotion, and a reminder to be thankful for it all, but the only person that he remotely appeases is Annabel Lee (Katie Parker), who wants her husband to look at the silver lining here. It’s the opposite reaction Madeline (Willa Fitzgerald) has. Madeline tells her brother to be smart about this. He can use this position to gain Rufus’ trust and then stab him in the back… or chest — whichever option works best — when the time is right. It’s a very convincing argument.

Did that man really just say “lem-pire” and how did it actually sound so cool?

While continuing his late-night confession with Dupin (Carl Lumbly), Roderick — who’s now being haunted by the walking corpse that is Camille L’Espanaye — reveals just how depraved the Ushers are. He gives a lengthy monologue about how they’re able to spin and manipulate the media, economy, and general public on their way to unfathomable wealth and power — and he uses a lemon metaphor to do it. It’s both incredible and deeply troubling.