History Series / TheFallOfTheHouseOfUsher2023

* ADeathInTheLimelight: Episodes 2-5 focus on a particular Usher, and the episode culminates in their death:

* PointOfNoReturn: All of the Usher children reach a certain moment where, if they had taken Verna's words/persona to heart and chosen differently, [[spoiler:they wouldn't have escaped dying ''but'' Verna would have given them far more peaceful and easy deaths. Perry could have decided to stop the rave/orgy from going ahead, abandoned his blackmail scheme and tried to prove himself in some other more beneficial manner; Camille could have let go of her hatred for Victorine and not tried to get the evidence to destroy her by going into the lab; Leo could have chosen not to deceive Julius and instead bring home one of the other cats from the shelter, admitting what he (thought he) had done to Pluto and that he needed help with his drug addiction; Victorine could have chosen not to lie to an apparently innocent and desperate woman in order to rope her in as a human test subject for a very risky and illegal procedure; Tamerlane could have talked to Bill and acknowledged her insecurities about her appearance and their sex life, instead of growing jealous of the latest sex worker they'd hired and pushing him away; and Frederick could have done literally '''''anything''''' other than what he did to Morella. Verna is so incensed by this last horrific act that she ''deliberately'' engineers an utterly horrendous death for Frederick.]]

** Frederick receives [[spoiler: the bag of cocaine he asked Napoleon for, and which caused his most vile tendencies to ramp up when he started using it. Fittingly, given Verna's admission of taking a more direct hand in his death, it's also very simply the method with which he was killed - that is, it also contains the nightshade powder Verna distracted him into filling it with that paralysed him before he was cut in two.]]

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: It's kept deliberately vague for most of the story if Roderick [[spoiler: is truly seeing ghosts or just hallucinations caused by CADASIL.]] Then, [[spoiler: Dupin appears to also see the ghost of Annabel Lee and child Frederick, seemingly confirming that they are real ghosts. Additionally, Roderick seems to know details he couldn't possibly know unless he spoke to the ghosts, though we only have his word for it, meaning most of the show could be told by an UnreliableNarrator.]] Then again, throwing a curve ball into all of this, [[spoiler: Verna says off-handedly that souls don't exist, which would seem to preclude the possibility of ghosts. It's possible that the ghosts are just visions caused by Verna as a way to impart information to the characters and/or give them a good scare. Then ''again'', Verna makes a comment to Madeline about having time to reflect on things after death, which would seem to imply that there is an "after" in which to reflect.]]

** Roderick himself becomes one. Not only is he willing to put his own children against each other when he suspects that there’s a (fake) informant in the family, but it’s revealed that he (along with his sister) sold out his entire bloodline to Verna, in exchange for wealth and power without suffering legal consequences.

* AdaptationAmalgamation: Aside from its namesake story, other Poe stories are incorporated into the plot as well, such as ''Literature/TheMasqueOfTheRedDeath'' (a mysterious woman in a skull mask and a red cape at a wild party) and ''Literature/TheRaven'' (Lenore's texts/the family patriarch repeating “Nevermore” over and over and [[spoiler:the Death figure, Verna, taking the guise of a raven and deriving her name from that word]]).

* BastardAngst: If Freddie and Tammy’s coldly calling them “bastards” (in the former’s case, right to Perry’s face) and Perry’s talk with Leo was any indication, then Roderick’s illegitimate children didn’t exactly have an easy time growing up. And as the [[BigScrewedUpFamily Usher family dynamics show]], not even the comforts of privilege and riches did anything to help mitigate whatever issues they could’ve gotten from this treatment.

** Four of the six Usher siblings are illegitimate and aren’t good people.

* BigSisterBully: Almost none of the siblings are particularly kind to each-other, but Tam and Frederick openly refer to the other four as “The Bastards”, looking down on them for their illegitimate status. Frederick also threatens Perry when he speaks out of turn while shadowing him.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: All of the Ushers die and while for most of them it’s their [[KarmaHoudiniWarranty chickens finally coming home to roost after decades of avoiding any sort of consequences]], innocent Lenore also dies as she is part of the Usher bloodline. The Fortunato company dissolves and its fortune goes to Juno and Morrie who recover from their addiction and burns respectively and use the money to make the world a better place. Pym is arrested and [[GracefulLoser takes his consequences without a fight]], and Dupin retires, finally getting closure in his decades-long feud with the Ushers.]]

** Morella is a beloved wife and mother to Frederick and Lenore, who is often ridiculed by the other Usher family members, but not only is she invited to Perry’s pop-up orgy just so that Perry can attempt to blackmail Frederick to get back at him, she becomes hideously burned and deformed by the acidic sprinklers. When she shows signs of recovery, to Lenore’s joy, she's brought home by Frederick - but it's revealed that he didn't do this to get her better care. [[spoiler:It was to medically torture and abuse her with paralytic drugs to keep her unable to move and forcibly pull her teeth with pliers, because Frederick, deranged by cocaine, deeply believed that because of her mysterious phone and Morrie being at the party, Morella was cheating on him with his younger brother.]]

** Tamerlane’s husband, Bill, genuinely cares for and loves his wife - enough to partake in her cuckquean fantasies despite hating the experience - and wants her to take care of herself. All he receives is Tamerlane verbally abusing him, degrading him, and a separation. Even after her disastrous Goldbug conference, Bill still calls because he loves her and cares about her wellbeing but her response is to throw the phone across the room.
** Roderick’s first wife and the mother to Frederick and Tamerlane, Annabel Lee, is loving, caring, and extremely supportive to not only Roderick, but to Madeline and even Dupin, despite her fears for their family’s future due to her husband’s whistleblowing on Fortunato. [[spoiler:When it comes out that Madeline and Roderick planned to betray Dupin at the hearing to secure Roderick’s place at Fortunato, Annabel Lee is heartbroken at how truly horribly heartless her husband and especially her sister-in-law are. Despite having custody of the children, Annabel watched Frederick and Tamerlane slowly side with their father - having been bought off - and would eventually take her own life.]]

*** For Tamerlane, it’s green with bits of gold.

** Verna is often in [[Literature/TheRaven black]] [[spoiler:when she’s not taking on each of the others’ colors as she targets them]].

** [[spoiler:Leo hallucinated various versions of his boyfriend’s cat, Pluto, attacking him and jumped off the balcony of his high rise loft when trying to take a swing at her.]]

** [[spoiler:After going inside the dilapidated building where Prospero died before demolition began, Frederick takes a bump of coke and begins to pee on the spot where his brother’s body was found. He immediately finds himself paralyzed, as Verna had hypnotized him into putting some of the paralytic agent he used to medically abuse his wife into his cocaine stash after he ripped out her teeth. Verna then mimics his voice and tells the crew to begin demolition. Frederick is left to watch the building go down around him and a sharp pendulum-like piece of rubble slowly bisect him.]]

* DueToTheDead: [[spoiler:Subverted. At the end of the series, Dupin is seen leaving the recorder he used to tape Roderick’s confession on his grave, while mocking him for his fate and telling him that now he can finally move on with his family. Verna also leaves some “gifts” to each tomb of the Usher as a way to mock their deaths. However, it’s played straight with Lenore, as Verna leaves a black feather with a white orchid on her tomb, symbolizing her peaceful yet tragic death.]]

** [[spoiler: Verna tells Lenore before taking her that Morrie will eventually achieve this. After being chemically burned, tortured by her husband and OutLivingOnesOffspring, she fully recovers from her burns, inherits a large portion of the Usher fortune and uses it to fund domestic violence charities as well as found a non profit in Lenore’s name that saves countless lives.]]

** The FramingDevice of Roderick telling Dupin how the Ushers really died, makes their deaths in episodes 2–7 {{Foregone Conclusion}}s as well. The final episode shows this was also the case InUniverse. [[spoiler:Roderick and Madeline sealed all of their fates by making the deal with Verna.]]

* FreudianExcuse: Most everyone on the show has an excuse for their twisted, horrific actions and most of those excuses originated with wanting Roderick’s approval and love. [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse Not that Verna’s accepting it though]], [[spoiler:especially not from Frederick.]]

* {{Greed}}: A driving force to most members of the Usher family and also their downfall. In fact, it was Roderick and Madeline’s greed which kickstarted the plot and led to their doom via a DealWithTheDevil in order to become rich and powerful, no matter how steep the price would be.
* HateSink: [[spoiler: While all of the siblings' deaths have some karmic justice to them [[note]]Perry used his pop up orgy as seeds for a mass extortion scheme and threatened his friends; Camille made a career of covering for her family in the public eye, plus forced her assistants to have sex with her as part of the job and fired them when they refused; Leo cheated on his boyfriend, then convinced himself he had killed his cat in a grief-fueled drug blackout and bought another cat to cover it up; Victorine forged her girlfriend’s signature and accidentally killed her when they broke up; and Tamerlane belittled her husband and stepmother[[/note]], one can argue that they didn’t deserve such gruesome painful deaths. That absolutely can't be said for Frederick however, who is racist and violent towards his youngest brother at best and downright sadistic and entitled at worst. When he suspects his already mutilated wife might have cheated on him with Perry, he denies her a recovery in the hospital despite being in critical condition, bringing her home under the guise of rehabilitating her himself. In actuality, he enacts a torturous revenge on her, drugging her to keep her paralyzed but awake and then using pliers to rip out her teeth, as well as filling the walls of the room with various iterations of their wedding picture due to his obsession with her assumed infidelity. When Lenore confronts him about her mother not receiving any medical care, Frederick gaslights her about the specialists, and threatens her if she keeps asking questions. Verna is so disgusted with his behavior that she decides to be more hands-on with her approach to his death--which she wasn’t with the others, who she actively tried to warn away from digging their own graves.]]

* KillTheCutie: [[spoiler:Lenore. Unlike her work with Lenore’s aunts and uncles, Verna takes zero pleasure in taking the life of someone innocent, who’s just watched everyone she loved go mad and die and who had just discovered her mother’s horrific abuse at the hands of her father. Not only does Verna make her death quite quick and painless, but assuages Lenore’s worries by telling her that her mother will get better and help millions of people in the future, and all in Lenore’s name.]]

** Verna’s last words in the final episode are from E.A. Poe’s “Spirits of the Dead” poem.

** Napoleon is given [[spoiler: the collar belonging to Pluto, the hated pet cat of the boyfriend he callously treated as a possession, which he eagerly sought to replace when he believed he’d killed it, with said replacement quickly tricking him into his own death.]]
** Victorine’s object is [[spoiler:the heart mesh device she was desperate to make work, which she lied, defrauded and performed cruel animal testing for, and the obsession with which eventually caused her to kill her girlfriend before driving her to suicidal madness.]]
** Tamerlane’s is [[spoiler: a golden scarab, the symbol of the Goldbug beauty company she drove herself mad – and her husband away – for; ironically enough, her obsession with a beauty-and-health company only shone a light on the flaws she always hated herself for.]]
** Frederick receives [[spoiler: the bag of cocaine he asked Napoleon for, and which caused his most vile tendencies to ramp up when he started using it. Fittingly, given Verna’s admission of taking a more direct hand in his death, it’s also very simply the method with which he was killed – that is, it also contains the nightshade powder Verna distracted him into filling it with that paralysed him before he was cut in two.]]

** Madeline has placed [[spoiler:the sapphire eyes of Queen Twosret with which Roderick replaced her real ones, symbolising her malignant narcissism, her desire to live forever, and her and Roderick’s twin obsession with Ancient Egypt.]]
** Finally, Roderick has placed [[spoiler:the glass he spent the night drinking out of while talking to Dupin. This, in turn, ties it back to the bottle of cognac Roderick was drinking out of – the same bottle (and drink glasses!) over which he, Madeline and Verna sealed their pact, and which started the whole affair to begin with.]]
* SanitySlippage: As befitting of Poe’s stories, each of the Usher children go through various levels of sanity slippage as the story goes on. [[spoiler:Verna appears to if not outright cause them to lose their grip on reality, at least to help it along.]].
** [[spoiler:Leo murders his boyfriend’s cat (or so he believes) after a late-night binge on drugs, and begins to go crazy after he is attacked several times by the replacement cat, tearing up the walls with a hammer when he believes he hears it inside them.]]
** Victorine, under the pressure from Roderick and Madeline to begin human trials for her heart mesh, begins hearing a squishy, chirpy noise everywhere she goes and has to turn on loud music to drown it out. [[spoiler:It’s only after she remembers accidentally bludgeoning her girlfriend that she remembers the noise is the mesh she put on her dead girlfriend’s heart, who she thinks is still alive.]]
** Tamerlane, stressed and suffering insomnia from the impending launch of her new wellness company, desperate to make a name for herself outside of Roderick and Madeline’s pharmaceutical dominion and the various deaths of her siblings, begins experiencing situations where she seemingly falls asleep without realizing it, which is shown to the audience as a series of jarring jump cuts.
** After his wife, Morella, survives the acid bath orgy that killed Perry, Frederick receives a phone that his father and Pym believe was Morrie’s burner phone. Despite evidence that says otherwise, Frederick begins to have coke-induced suspicions that the phone was indeed hers and Morrie was having an affair with Perry, behind Frederick’s back. [[spoiler:These beliefs lead Frederick to decide to bring her home despite her needing intensive care, only to subject her to medical torture by periodically injecting her IV with a paralyzing agent every time she shows signs of recovery and pulling all of her teeth with pliers in a coke-fueled rage.]]

* StarvingArtist: [[spoiler:In a discussion about the life Madeline and her brother could've had,]] Verna says Roderick would have been a poet. While she acknowledges that he would always be broke as a result, millions of people wouldn’t have died because of Ligodone [[spoiler:and the Usher bloodline wouldn’t have been doomed.]] It's implied Roderick would ultimately have ended up happier in the long run.

* UndignifiedDeath: [[spoiler: Frederick dies in a puddle of his own piss as he’s [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe sliced in half]] and eventually crushed under a collapsing building.]]

* ADeathInTheLimelight: Most episodes focus on an Usher, and the episode culminates in their death:

* ResignationsNotAccepted: Said verbatim by Verna when [[spoiler: Madeline tries to get Roderick to kill himself swallowing pills in the hopes that will circumvent the deal with Verna. Instead, Verna brings Roderick back to life and tells him "I couldn't accept your resignation" and no loopholes can change it.]]

* PointOfNoReturn: All of the Usher children reach a certain moment where, if they had taken Verna's words/persona to heart and chosen differently, [[spoiler:they wouldn't have escaped dying ''but'' Verna would have given them far more peaceful and easy deaths. Perry could have decided to stop the rave/orgy from going ahead and abandoned his blackmail plans; Camille could have let go of her hatred for Victorine and not tried to get the evidence to destroy her by going into the lab; Leo could have chosen not to deceive Julius and instead bring home one of the other cats from the shelter, admitting what he (thought he) had done to Pluto and that he needed help with his drug addiction; Victorine could have chosen not to lie to an apparently innocent and desperate woman in order to rope her in as a human test subject for a very risky and illegal procedure; Tamerlane could have talked to Bill and acknowledged her insecurities about her appearance and their sex life, instead of growing jealous of the latest sex worker they'd hired and pushing him away; and Frederick could have done literally '''''anything''''' other than what he did to Morella. Verna is so incensed by this last horrific act that she ''deliberately'' engineers an utterly horrendous death for Frederick.]]

* PointOfNoReturn: All of the Usher children reach a certain moment where, if they had taken Verna's words/persona to heart and chosen differently, [[spoiler:they wouldn't have escaped dying ''but'' Verna would have given them far more peaceful and easy deaths. Perry could have decided to stop the rave/orgy from going ahead and abandoned his blackmail plans; Camille could have let go of her hatred for Victorine and not tried to get the evidence to destroy her by going into the lab; Leo could have chosen not to deceive Julius and instead bring home one of the other cats from the shelter, admitting what he (thought he) had done to Pluto and that he needed help with his drug addiction; Victorine could have chosen not to lie to an apparently innocent and desperate woman in order to rope her in as a human test subject for a very risky procedure; Tamerlane could have talked to Bill and acknowledged her insecurities about her appearance and their sex life, instead of growing jealous of the latest sex worker they'd hired and pushing him away; and Frederick could have done literally '''''anything''''' other than what he did to Morella. Verna is so incensed by this last horrific act that she ''deliberately'' engineers an utterly horrendous death for Frederick.]]

* PointOfNoReturn: All of the Usher children reach a certain moment when, if they had taken Verna's words/persona to heart and chosen differently, [[spoiler:they wouldn't have escaped dying ''but'' Verna would have given them far more peaceful and easy deaths. Perry could have decided not to let the rave go ahead and abandoned his blackmail plans; Camille could have let go of her hatred for Victorine and not gone into the lab; Leo could have chosen not to deceive Julius and instead bring home one of the other cats from the shelter, admitting what he (thought he) had done to Pluto and that he needed help with his drug addiction; Victorine could have chosen not to lie to an apparently innocent and desperate woman in order to rope her in as a human test subject for a very risky procedure; Tamerlane could have talked to Bill and acknowledged her insecurities about her appearance and their sex life, instead of growing jealous of the latest sex worker they'd hired and pushing him away; and Frederick could have done literally '''''anything''''' other than what he did to Morella. Verna is so incensed by this last horrific act that she ''deliberately'' engineers an utterly horrendous death for Frederick.]]

* PointOfNoReturn: All of the Usher children reach a certain moment when, if they had taken Verna's words/persona to heart and chosen differently, [[spoiler:they wouldn't have escaped dying ''but'' Verna would have given them far more peaceful and easy deaths. Perry could have decided not to let the rave go ahead and abandoned his blackmail plans; Camille could have let go of her hatred for Victorine and not gone into the lab; Leo could have chosen not to deceive Julius and instead bring home one of the other cats from the shelter, admitting what he (thought he) had done to Pluto and that he needed help with his drug addiction; Victorine could have chosen not to deceive an apparently innocent and desperate woman in order to rope her in as a human test subject for a very risky procedure; Tamerlane could have talked to Bill and acknowledged her insecurities about her appearance and their sex life, instead of growing jealous of the latest sex worker they'd hired and pushing him away; and Frederick could have done literally '''''anything''''' other than what he did to Morella. Verna is so incensed by this last horrific act that she ''deliberately'' engineers an utterly horrendous death for Frederick.]]

* PointOfNoReturn: All of the Usher children reach a certain moment when, if they had taken Verna's words/persona to heart and chosen differently, [[spoiler:they wouldn't have escaped dying ''but'' Verna would have given them far more peaceful and easy deaths. Perry could have decided not to let the rave go ahead and abandoned his blackmail plans; Camille could have let go of her hatred for Victorine and not gone into the lab; Leo could have chosen not to deceive Julius and instead bring home one of the other cats from the shelter, admitting what he (thought he) had done to Pluto; Victorine could have refused to lie to an apparently innocent and desperate woman in order to rope her in as a human test subject; Tamerlane could have talked to Bill and acknowledged her insecurities about her appearance and their sex life instead of pushing him away; and Frederick could have done literally '''''anything''''' other than what he did to Morella. Verna is so incensed by this last horrific act that she ''deliberately'' engineers an utterly horrendous death for Frederick.]]

* PointOfNoReturn: All of the Usher children reach a certain moment when, if they had taken Verna's words/persona to heart and chosen differently, [[spoiler:they wouldn't have escaped dying ''but'' Verna would have given them far more peaceful and easy deaths. Perry could have decided not to let the rave go ahead, abandoning his blackmail plans; Camille could have let go of her hatred for Victorine and not gone into the lab; Leo could have chosen not to deceive Julius and instead bring home one of the other cats from the shelter, thereby admitting what he (thought he) had done to Pluto; Victorine could have refused to lie to an apparently innocent woman in order to rope her in as a human test subject; Tamerlane could have talked to Bill and acknowledged her insecurities about her appearance and their sex life instead of pushing him away; and Frederick could have not imprisoned and tortured Morella. Verna is so incensed by this last horrific act that she ''deliberately'' engineers an utterly horrendous death for Frederick.]]

* BodyHorror: [[spoiler:What starts as the beginning of a sexy anonymous masked party filled with hunky men and beautiful women quickly turns into a horrific nightmare as acidic chemicals rain down on them from the ceiling, causing their skin, flesh and even ''bones'' to start burning, smoking and ''melting like candle wax'', all while they are screaming, crying and banging on the locked doors in a fruitless attempt to escape. It bares a disturbing resemblance to RealLife shootings and other horrific attacks on nightclubs and the innocent people whose lives were ended while they desperately tried to flee. Between this and the distressing sounds and visuals, one could argue this is the most dismaying and brutal death in the entire show, and can be triggering for anyone who has experienced an event turned violent. It's revealed in the aftermath of this tragedy that upwards of 78 people and counting had died this way, their flesh and internal organs melted into a bloody goo on the floor. The fact Verna took the time to evacuate all the wait staff, but none of the guests other than Morella, implies she considered them deserving of dying alongside Prospero, but without any exposition on this matter the audience is left to wonder [[DisproportionateRetribution what on Earth they could have possibly done to deserve such a scary and horrific death]].]]

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Quite a few commentators have observed that [[spoiler:Roderick and Madeline's DealWithTheDevil to shorten their heirs' lives in exchange for money and power has definite parallels to governments and [=CEOs=] wrecking the environment and leaving future generations to deal with climate change.]]

* PointOfNoReturn: All of the Usher children reach a certain moment where if they had chosen differently, [[spoiler:it wouldn't have saved their lives ''but'' Verna would have given them far more peaceful and easy deaths. Perry could have decided not to let the rave go ahead; Camille could have let go of her hatred for Victorine and not gone into the lab; Leo could have chosen not to deceive Julius and instead bring home one of the other cats from the shelter, admitting to what he (thought he) had done to Pluto; Victorine could have refused to lie to an innocent woman in order to rope her in as a human test subject; Tamerlane could have talked to Bill and acknowledged her insecurities instead of pushing him away; and Frederick could have not tortured Morella. Verna is so incensed by this last horrific act that she ''deliberately'' engineers an utterly horrendous death for Frederick.]]

''The Fall of the House of Usher'' is a 2023 GothicHorror crime drama miniseries developed by Creator/MikeFlanagan, based loosely off an array of major works by Creator/EdgarAllanPoe, including its [[Literature/TheFallOfTheHouseOfUsher namesake story]]. It stars Creator/CarlaGugino, Creator/BruceGreenwood, Creator/MaryMcDonnell, Creator/CarlLumbly, Creator/SamanthaSloyan, T'Nia Miller, Creator/RahulKohli, Creator/KateSiegel, Sauriyan Sapkota, Creator/ZachGilford, Creator/WillaFitzgerald, Katie Parker, Creator/MalcolmGoodwin, Creator/MichaelTrucco, Creator/HenryThomas, and Creator/MarkHamill. Though not premiering under ''The Haunting'' title, the series is a SpiritualSequel to Flanagan's previous ''Series/TheHauntingOfHillHouse2018'' and ''Series/TheHauntingOfBlyManor''.

''The Fall of the House of Usher'' is a 2023 GothicHorror crime drama miniseries developed by Creator/MikeFlanagan, based loosely off an array of major works by Creator/EdgarAllanPoe, including its [[Literature/TheFallOfTheHouseOfUsher namesake story]]. It stars Creator/CarlaGugino, Creator/BruceGreenwood, Creator/MaryMcDonnell, Creator/CarlLumbly, Creator/SamanthaSloyan, T'Nia Miller, Creator/RahulKohli, Creator/KateSiegel, Sauriyan Sapkota, Creator/ZachGilford, Creator/WillaFitzgerald, Katie Parker, Creator/MalcolmGoodwin, Creator/MichaelTrucco, Creator/HenryThomas, and Creator/MarkHamill. Though not premiering under ''The Haunting'' title, the series is a SpiritualSequel to Flanagan's previous ''Series/TheHauntingOfHillHouse'' and ''Series/TheHauntingOfBlyManor''.

* PointOfNoReturn: All of the Usher children reach a certain point where, if they had chosen ''not'' to do something, [[spoiler:it wouldn't have saved their lives ''but'' Verna would have had given them much more peaceful and easy deaths. Perry could have decided not to let the rave go ahead; Camille could have let go of her hatred for Victorine and not gone into the lab; Leo could have chosen not to deceive his boyfriend and instead bring home one of the other cats from the shelter, admitting to what he (thought he) had done to Pluto; Victorine could have refused to lie to an innocent woman to get her to participate in her human trials; Tamerlane could have talked to Bill instead of pushing him away; and Frederick could have not tortured Morella. Verna is so incensed by this last horrific act that she ''deliberately'' engineers an utterly horrendous death for Frederick.]]

* PointOfNoReturn: All of the Usher children reach a certain point where, if they had chosen ''not'' to do something, [[spoiler:they wouldn't have saved their lives ''but'' Verna would have had given them much more peaceful and easy deaths. Perry could have decided not to let the rave go ahead; Camille could have let go of her hatred for Victorine and not visited the lab; Leo could have taken home one of the other cats from the shelter, thereby admitting to Julius what he (thought he) had done to Pluto; Victorine could have not lied to an innocent woman to get her to participate in her human trials; Tamerlane could have talked to Bill instead of pushing him away; and Frederick could have not tortured Morella. Verna is so incensed by this last horrific act that she ''deliberately'' engineers an utterly horrendous death for Frederick.]]

* ChekhovsGunman: The informant. [[spoiler: Subverted when it turns out they never existed in the first place.]]

* PracticallyDifferentGenerations: Many of the children have considerable gaps in age due to being from different mothers. For example, Frederick and Prospero, the oldest and youngest respectively, are played by actors about thirty years apart in age, and in-universe Prospero is barely older than Fredrick's daughter Lenore.

* PointOfNoReturn: All of the Usher children reach a certain point where, if they had chosen ''not'' to do something, [[spoiler:they wouldn't have saved their lives ''but'' Verna would have had given them much more peaceful and easy deaths. Perry could have decided not to let the rave go ahead; Camille could have let go of her hatred for Victorine and not visited the lab; Leo could have taken home one of the other cats from the shelter, thereby admitting to Julius what he (thought he had) done to Pluto; Victorine could have not lied to an innocent woman to get her to participate in her human trials; Tamerlane could have talked to Bill instead of pushing him away; and Frederick could have not tortured Morella. Verna is so incensed by this last horrific act that she ''deliberately'' engineers an utterly horrendous death for Frederick.]]

* KillTheCutie: [[spoiler:Lenore. Unlike her work with Lenore’s aunts and uncles, Verna takes zero pleasure in taking the life of someone innocent, who’s just watched everyone she loved go mad and die and who had just discovered her mother’s abuse at the hands of her father. Not only does Verna make her death quite quick and painless, but assuages Lenore’s worries by telling her that her mother will get better and help millions of people in the future, and all in Lenore’s name.]]

* PracticallyDifferentGenerations: Many of the children have considerable gaps in age due to being from different mothers. For example, Frederick and Prospero, the oldest and youngest respectively, are played by actors about thirty years apart in age.

** [[spoiler:Leo murders his boyfriend’s cat after a late-night binge on drugs, and begins to go crazy after he is attacked several times by the replacement cat, tearing up the walls with a hammer when he believes he hears it inside them.]]

* HateSink: [[spoiler: While all of the siblings' deaths have some karmic justice to them [[note]]Perry used his pop up orgy as seeds for a mass extortion scheme and threatened his friends; Camille made a career of covering for her family in the public eye, plus forced her assistants to have sex with her as part of the job and fired them when they refused; Leo cheated on his boyfriend, then convinced himself he had killed his cat in a grief-fueled drug blackout and bought another cat to cover it up; Victorine forged her girlfriend’s signature and accidentally killed her when they broke up; and Tamerlane belittled her husband and stepmother[[/note]], one can argue that they didn’t deserve such gruesome painful deaths. That absolutely can't be said for Frederick however, who is racist and violent towards his youngest brother at best and downright sadistic and entitled at worst. When he suspects his already mutilated wife might have cheated on him with Perry, he denies her a recovery in the hospital despite being in critical condition and brings her home under the guise of rehabilitating her himself. In actuality he decides to enact a torturous revenge on her, drugging her to keep her paralyzed but awake and then using pliers to rip out her teeth as well as filling the walls of the room she's in with pictures of her together with Perry. When his daughter confronts him about it, he gaslights and threatens her. Verna is so disgusted she decides to be more hands-on with her approach to his death--which she wasn’t with the others, who she actively tried to warn away from digging their own graves.]]

* TheReveal: [[spoiler:Verna isn't on a crusade of vengeance or justice; Madeline and Roderick struck a deal with her that guaranteed their success and immunity from legal consequences, in exchange for their entire bloodline ending when it came time for them to die. The bill became due when Roderick was diagnosed with a terminal illness implicitly in its late stage, leaving him not long to live. While Verna might try to influence the manner of death depending on how she feels, she's not the one who chose for the family to die now; she's simply following the terms Madeline and Roderick agreed to. This also explains why he was so keen on Victorine's research reaching human testing immediately: so he could eke just a bit more life out of his situation.]]

** Victorine’s object is [[spoiler:the medical device she was desperate to make work, which she lied, defrauded and performed cruel animal testing for, and the obsession with which eventually caused her to kill her girlfriend before driving her to suicidal madness.]]

** [[spoiler:Leo murders his boyfriend’s cat after a late-night binge on drugs, and begins to go crazy after he is attacked several times by the replacement cat and believes he hears it within the walls.]]

** Tamerlane, stressed and suffering insomnia from the impending launch of her new wellness company, desperate to make a name for herself outside of Roderick and Madeline’s pharmaceutical dominion and the various deaths of her siblings, begins experiencing situations where she seemingly falls asleep without realizing it, which is shown to the audience as a series of jarring jumpcuts.

** Roderick, since being diagnosed with advanced CADASIL, begins experiencing hallucinations of ghosts of his dead mother, his dead children, [[spoiler:and the rattling chains that held down his boss after Roderick and Madeline drugged him and buried him alive inside of a brick wall in the basement of Fortunato.]]

* SiblingRivalry: Again, very few of the siblings actually like each-other, but Camille and Vic seem to have the most personal contempt for each-other.

** Lenore is a straighter example for the whole Usher clan, by virtue of being an innocent young girl that truly loves her family and tries her best to do good by them. She's the only one who seems to care if the family really ''did'' do what they're accused of, or who thinks that if they're guilty they should actually be punished. [[spoiler:It doesn't save her but Verna at least does make her death painless and comforts her as it happens, reassuring her that it will help save millions, and making clear that she takes no pleasure in it in sharp contrast to her borderline glee with the others.]]

** In the first version of the argument that ended Victorine and Alessandra's relationship, the fight ends with Vic angrily throwing a marble figurine at Al as she storms out of the house. The second time, [[spoiler: the figurine hits Al in the head and kills her, and Vic scrambles to revive her using the heart mesh implant--to no avail, obviously, because the implant doesn't work and Al's fatal injury was to her head anyway. Vic is so desperate to get that implant working and to undo her mistake that she blocked out the fact that Al had died on her living room floor.]]

* LovecraftianTropes: Usher gives a secondhand summary of Pym's backstory that seems close to the plot of ''The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket'', but drifts closer to ''AtTheMountainsofMadness'', the follow-up story by Lovecraft. In particular, Usher references "the realm of beings who lived...beneath us, out of time. And out of space", an element present in Lovecraft's work but not necessarily Poe's.

** Tamerlane's husband, William "Billy-T" Wilson, references the titular character of the ShortStory ''Literature/WilliamWilson''.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: It's kept deliberately vague for most of the story if Roderick [[spoiler: is truly seeing ghosts or just hallucinations caused by CADASIL.]] Then, [[spoiler: Dupin appears to also see the ghost of Annabel Lee and child Frederick, seemingly confirming that they are real ghosts. Additionally, Roderick seems to know details he couldn't possibly know unless he spoke to the ghosts, though we only have his word for it, meaning most of the show could be told by an UnreliableNarrator.]] However, throwing a curve ball into all of this, [[spoiler: Verna says off-handedly that souls don't exist, which would seem to preclude the possibility of ghosts. It's possible that the ghosts are just visions caused by Verna as a way to impart information to the characters and/or give them a good scare.]]