_{By: Amanda Guarragi}

Since 2018, Mike Flanagan has given Netflix some incredible gothic horror series. Some have been adapted from novels, and others from the mind of Flanagan. He has created layered, heart-wrenching stories with The Haunting of Hill House and Bly Manor, a religious and deeply unsettling cult narrative in Midnight Mass, and terminally ill teenage patients sharing spooky stories in The Midnight Club. Now, with his final limited series for Netflix, The Fall of the House of Usher is a near-perfect project to send him off from the streaming service. The Usher family is incredibly wealthy. It began with two siblings – Roderick and Madeline – who wanted to secure their future and build a family dynasty, but it came with a price. Their dynasty begins to crumble when their heirs mysteriously die, one by one. 

Flanagan uses the over-arching story of The Fall of the House of Usher for eight episodes. The first episode begins with “Another Brick in the Wall” by Pink Floyd playing and the first shot of a brick wall in the basement of a New Year’s Eve party. There are flashes of characters and animals that we will see in future episodes and news that the Usher family has been slowly dying. There is a board with the Usher children and an attorney trying to make connections to each death. Attorney Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly) is a long-time friend of Roderick, and he goes over to his house. The episodes are structured with Roderick telling his story from the beginning and the reason his children died one by one. Each episode has a different short story title from Edgar Allan Poe, and his poems are worked into the dialogue for the characters. 

The episodes highlight Roderick and Madeline’s (Mary McDonnell) journey as they climb the corporate ladder in the 70s. Roderick had many lovers, and each had a child. He would welcome into his home, but for a price. It wasn’t with open arms but with a business proposition to make the Usher legacy grow even more. Roderick and Madeline made their pharmaceutical company, Fortunato, grow immensely because of the creation of painkillers. They created something so addictive that people would overdose on their pills. Attorney Dupin had been trying to arrest Roderick for years. But the death of each child put a stop to the trial. Dupin had said there was an informant within the Usher family, and that caused the massive divide between them. So, even the suspect in each murder would be linked to wanting to find the informant. 

Each episode went in order of hierarchy within the Usher siblings. The youngest went first, and the episode explored their place in the family. Flanagan centred on a conversation being had by Dupin and Roderick. Roderick had confessed that he made questionable decisions with Madeline to live the life they wanted. He did remember one woman named Verna (Carla Gugino) who had been present on one New Year’s Eve that he and his sister never discussed. Verna was also seen throughout each episode as a different version of herself. She was a ghost among them with something to prove. The imagery from Edgar Allan Poe’s works is intertwined with Verna’s illusion in each episode. Flanagan also included Poe’s poems and prose, which made it feel more gothic. The dialogue is meaningful and rich with social commentary that is relevant today. Flanagan’s characters discuss the following: feminism, religion, politics, the corporate world and how consumers function, as well as the loss of humanity through greed and power. 

The Fall of the House of Usher is brilliant from beginning to end. To have Roderick narrate and confess his deepest secrets to Attorney Dupin while exploring the nature of his children made for an incredibly engaging series. Like any other Flanagan project, the make-up and the craft of how the murders happen are complex and gruesome. The faces and bodies of the Usher children are haunting. They appear to Roderick in the same way they died, which causes intrigue at the beginning of each episode. Every scene and every image are vital because of Roderick and Madeline’s connection to Verna. Carla Gugino stands out in the series because this character shows her incredible range as an actress. Bruce Greenwood is astounding as he expertly flows from Poe’s prose to modern-day dialogue within seconds. He is distinguished as businessman Roderick but is a broken shell of a man because of the destruction he has caused. This is one of the most well-thought-out limited series that Flanagan has produced. Each character is well-written, and the structure for each episode ties into the sins of the past.