Nevermore: Every episode of The Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix, reviewed

Episode 8 — “The Raven”

The final episode is kind of a journey. It starts off slowly, builds up tension, and completely bounces off the wall in the end. It closes out this weird chapter on a perfect note, with a very fitting tone. And the moral of the story stays with you. Even after watching it multiple times for this review, I still feel a hole in my heart after I finish the eighth episode, every time.

We see what happened with Annabel Lee, Freddy and Tammy’s mother and Roderick’s first wife. She brings something up that a lot of parents feel in a separation where kids are involved: one parent may have more to offer than the other when it comes to material things and it may make the kids partial to them. Or at least make the other parent feel less adequate. It’s sad, and it’s a different kind of horror that some have to deal with daily.

Roderick starts to finish his confession, and it really shows how gone his mind is. He confesses that he and Madeline both killed Rufus Griswold on New Years Eve, 1979, the same night they walked into Verna’s bar. Killing is an understatement: that must have been the most torturous death in the world. Being walled in alive and pumped full of cyanide must have been absolutely horrifying. They make a pact with Verna after unknowingly (and literally) flirting with Death all night: the Usher family would get anything they wanted; they’d be rich, they’d never have legal issues, they’d want for nothing. But as soon as Roderick and Madeline die, the entire bloodline dies out. Just a simple decision that won’t hurt anyone else, yes? Wrong. That’s how you get to where we are right now.

We go back to where Pym discovers Verna’s address and follows her home, killing her and wrapping her up before trying to dispose of her, only to be interrupted by… well, her. The thing about Verna is that she’s not evil. She indulges us humans with our desires, the ones we want the most without ever truly thinking about them or their consequences, and then leaves you alone to get what you want and to suffer those consequences. She isn’t malicious. She’s just… very morally grey, I suppose. A true devil’s advocate that is very much not forgiving.

We’re going to skip the part where we all cry as we notice that Lenore is also an Usher and, therefore, must also die. And so she does. Very gently. Because Verna is not evil. Just necessary.

Roderick manages to pull an uno-reverse with Madeline and poisons her. And then decides to give her a sendoff worthy of a goddess…and that’s where I started to shake my head. We all knew where this was going: Roderick is clearly deranged and totally failed to make sure Madeline was dead before he tried to mummify her in the basement. That was a truly terrifying scene; huge props to the makeup department. Thankfully, the house also hates how that looked so it decided to cut that screentime short by falling on top of Madeline and Roderick, ultimately ending the House of Usher.

Final thoughts

I absolutely loved what Mike Flanagan did with The Fall of the House of Usher. It’s a beautiful ode to Poe and his works, and the casting choices were all absolutely on point. The fact that Flanagan knows the actors he wants involved in his work and continues to use them is a big part of why his shows work so well. The actors are all very aware of what he’s looking. His last fling with Netflix, The Fall of the House of Usher is a glorious masterpiece and a truly solid way to say goodbye before moving on to Prime Video.

With Flanagan moving on, we can only hope he continues to make these amazing adaptations. They’re not entirely true to their source material, but the way he adapts them and turns them into something bigger just works so well. In no way does he erase the original work; he evolves it by adding some of his Flanagan magic to it.

The Fall of the House of Usher is probably my personal favorite show of the year. It was quick, to the point, and severely entertaining. I give it a 10/10. If you were a fan of Hill House and Bly Manor, you will adore this one.

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