THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (Netflix, 2023)

Man, this was staring me right in my face, but Usher's critique of people who sell their children's future for a more luxurious present isn't just like, the stuff of fairytales and bartering your first born to Rumplestiltskin.... it's literally what capitalists actually do.

Plenty of them *KNOW* what they're peddling is harmful, but their various poisons are slow acting enough that many of them figured THEY wouldn't have to reckon with the consequences in their lifetime ... no, leave that to burden the next generation with.

Other Flanagan shows: introspection on love and grief and life and death and the horrors of regret and the ghosts of the past lingering and—

FotHoU: Hey wanna see this hot goddess of death kill a douchebag billionaire every ep? Sure I'll sprinkle in all the usual flanaganisms but you're gonna be in it for the assholes who are given every chance to be redeemed die deaths befitting the stupid lives they led.

I love how death felt bad about killing everyone and tried to talk them out of violent deaths EXCEPT for frederick. he fucking FAILED the vibe check.

Okay, but the fact that Kate Siegel admitted that Camille from FotHoU is entirely based on Mirage from The Incredibles is so funny and relatable to me. She said Mirage was like Jessica Rabbit to her. I just wanna know what the conversation was like with Mike when she was convincing him of this. Can’t unsee it now. A true bi icon.

Fall of the House of Guilt

There's something to me about Fall of the House of Usher where, when I started watching it, my first impression was "This is taking a lot from Poe aesthetics but not really Poe themes." So much of Poe is about guilt when you get down to it--the guilt of the partygoers in Masque, the killers in Black Cat and Telltale Heart, even the guilt of the crime in Rue Morgue. All those stories are basically about how guilt fundamentally alters your psyche and makes the world an unfathomable and unlivable place, because the only way to live with your own brutalized mind is to separate from it. And Fall of the House of Usher is sort of about people (Roderick and Madeline mainly) who are fundamentally incapable of real guilt, or the empathy that would produce guilt, due to their eagerness for power, their trauma, and their sense of entitlement.

How do you make a billionaire feel guilty? How can you, in any way, communicate the human cost of their actions, the impact on the environment, the far-reaching ripples of their greed and translate that into real human empathy necessary for guilt?

But then I thought... Oh, that's the point.

Usher is a reverse Christmas Carol. No matter how much Verna talks, kills, shows the bodies, it will never be enough to penetrate through the narcissism and power and trauma of cruelty and wealth to revive the long-dead hearts beneath. No matter how far she goes, how many children she kills, at the end, it's still all about living forever, legacy, for these people.

It didn't have to be this way.

I sort of like this as a sideways-swing at Poe. The horror isn't the guilt. The horror is the utter lack of it.

If anyone's confused about how the real Pluto showed up at the end of FotHoU episode 4, it's simple: Leo never killed her. That was the first hallucination of many. He literally just left the window open.

I had that figured out from Episode 3 because, speaking from experience, there is no fucking way to clean up blood that fast. Blood is extremely hard to get out of most surfaces, especially a white carpet. Leo just started cleaning, and when he sobered up, the blood was gone.

the older version of madeline usher is for wlw what the mads mikkelsen version of hannibal lecter is for mlm. In this essay i will

I know I know she married into it, but thought it was worth mentioning her story arc was amazing to me. Whether you can jive with the happy wrap up of an ending or not, watching her get a backbone... priceless.

Long live Juno and her accent... let's be real here. I'll sit in that empty tomb of a house and talk to you 🙂

madeline usher having to listen to men talk is a mood

thinking about how mike flanagan's first netflix series ended with the crain family together, both in death and in life

and his last netflix series ended with the entire usher bloodline 6 feet under, buried side by side (with lenore in the same row as madeline and roderick instead of the row below with frederick and the others) but no more a family in death than they were in life

the haunting of hill house and the fall of the house of usher feel very much like two sides of the same coin - a home built with love will stand for centuries, but a house built without that foundation will crumble and leave no survivors

One of my favourite things is how Verna tricked the Ushers . Fact is that they didn’t really need her . They would have gotten away with it anyway and they would have achieve the same success if not vastly more and as we know corporate justice is a joke so they wouldn’t have suffered more then a slap on the wrist in legal consequences anyway

And my guess is that without Verna the Ushers would have caused far more destruction and death . Without the easy success they would have probably pushed the limit even more and used even scummier tactics to get even more people killed . And without snuffing their bloodline here the kids would have taken over and spread misery for decades if not centuries to come . Frederick got a little taste of power and basically started acting like a serial killer

It was probably just a matter of time before Camille took Perry under her wing and they built a blackmailing empire allowing the company to get away even more atrocities and Victorine seemed like a future Doctor Mengele. Can’t even imagine how many people she would murdered in the name of the “greater good”

And don’t get me started on any potential Madeline children . That woman was a monster through and through

But Verna ? She snuffed this horrifying potential future by just taking advantage of the panic these two monsters has at their first kill and she made sure that the damage they will cause is limited to one generation . She plays at this neutral godlike force but to me she is actually a kind being who wants the best and I think this is why she saved the wait staff and this is why she offered the Ushers the deal . She wants to minimise human suffering and since she sees the big picture she understands that to do this long term short term you have to make monsters think you are helping , nay giving them the deal of a lifetime

in honor of the fall of the house of usher I just wanna take a moment to remember the time in 10th grade when my teacher announced we were starting an edgar allan poe unit and I said 'I love him' and then the class clown tried making like. a necrophilia joke? but for some reason I truly didn't understand he was joking and I'm pretty sure I looked him in the eyes and asked 'have you never, like, heard of hyperbole?'

how is ed flynn (midnight mass) and froderick fucking usher (fall of the house of usher) played by the same person?

henry thomas has Range

like RANGE

he's the imperfect father, who wants to do better (ed) , he's the uncle, who'll raise the kids (henry), he's basically death himself (freedom jack) and then no-hinges-no-door insane, shit husband, more of a son than a father frederick usher

i admire henry thomas so much

Can I just appreciate the fact that while Mike Flanagan has the actors he loves working with and frequently appear in his shows/films he always adds new actors to his cast with each show?

Bonus because none of the actors in his cast are like mega-famous (i mean Julia Roberts or RDJ level) although they're super talented! I think more directors need to follow this example and work with new, talented actors rather than exhausting the entire budget just to hire an A-lister and then doom the rest of the production. I know that certain filmmakers think that hiring someone who is already very famous will bring in more of an audience but there are so many talented and wonderful actors around who are literally just waiting for their breakthrough in the industry and it's such a waste that some filmmakers decide to give even more spotlight and money to actors who are already millionaires and have absolutely no issue booking jobs.

Btw I'm not saying hire lesser known actors out of pity, I'm saying that talent doesnt always mean fame, and there are plenty of talented actors who aren't going to cost the entire budget of a production which means more money to spend on crew, costumes and set design.

I really liked how the One Piece live action did that too, none of the actors were very famous A-listers (correct me if I'm wrong though), and most of them had their first major role in the show. They were all super great and I doubt they will have trouble booking jobs in the future!