Characters / The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)

Characters from the 2023 series The Fall of the House of Usher.

Usher Family

Roderick, Madeline and Heirs

In General

• All for Nothing: In the end, all of the family's scheming, backstabbing and betrayal is for naught. They all die, the company is dissolved, and no one even mourns their passing.
• Asshole Victim: The Ushers are all horrible people, ranging from mere Jerkasses to outright monstrous. With the exception of Lenore and arguably Napoleon, all of them get what they deserve.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: In spades. Save one exception, the entirety of them are cruel, selfish, hedonistic narcissists that practically despise one another. When there is even a hint of a mole in the family, none of them hesitate to turn on one another. Even when they start dying off in horrible ways, most of them don't even care and continue to go about their business as if it was just a minor impediment.
• Color Motifs: Each one of Roderick's children is associated with a color, which constitutes the main lighting for their death scenes.
  • Prospero with red, for his hedonism and recklessness.
  • Camille with white (and secondarily black), for her job of keeping the family reputation pristine.
  • Napoleon with yellow, both for his overall friendly nature and his underlying cowardice.
  • Victorine with orange, for her drive and energy in the scientific research.
  • Tamerlane with green, for her envy and jealousy.
  • Frederick with blue, for his status as a quasi-noble heir, his creeping toxic masculinity, and the coldness he demonstrates in torturing his own wife.
• Died in Ignorance: Verna alludes to it in her conversations with them, but she never outright tells the Usher heirs that Roderick and Madeline agreed to shorten their descendants' lives in exchange for wealth and success. She says the most to Lenore, who may have figured it out in her final moments. Assuming Roderick really was haunted by their ghosts, they learned the truth after dying.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Most of the romantic partners or spouses of the Ushers are good people who sincerely love them, and end up being thoroughly disappointed and heartbroken when their true nature emerges. The exceptions are Morrie, who (while also a good person) does seem to be frustrated in her marriage to Frederick; Jenny and Faraj, who go along with Perry's schemes and wind up dead; and Toby and Beth, who are only in a relationship with Camille because it's part of their contract and eventually refuse to sleep with her any more (although they're still willing to work for her, until she fires them) and end up handing over the evidence that ensures Pym's downfall.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Although the current iteration of the family is short on love, a handful of the relationships in the family are genuinely loving. In the most notable case, Madeleine and Roderick truly do care for each other due to the sheer amount of stuff they've had to deal with over the course of their lives. In other examples, Roderick genuinely loved his first wife Annabel and still deeply cares for his granddaughter Lenore (a sweetness Madeline also seems to share), the two of which are the only ones Roderick consider to be the only good people in the family.
• Everybody's Dead, Dave: By the end of the series, they are all dead, leaving the Usher name and bloodline extinct.
• The Hedonist: All of Roderick's children use the family money mostly to live lives of easy comfort and pleasure. A good deal of the Ushers are also quite promiscuous in a rather twisted way: Roderick had six children born through five women, most of them illegitimate, and is attracted to Juno in part because she's absorbed so much Ligodone into her system that he can fantasise about having sex with the drug that made him rich; Tamerlane has a cuckquean fetish; Camille made her assistants Sex Slaves in all but name; Napoleon regularly cheats on his boyfriend with boys and girls; Prospero has constant drug fueled orgies.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Most of their deaths are a result of their own actions coming back to bite them in the ass.
• It's All About Me: Save for one exception (two at the very most) all of them only care about themselves, and only regard the tragedy unfolding around them as how much it inconveniences them.
• In the Blood: Fittingly for a story inspired by Gothic literature, which loved this trope, Ushers seem to share a propensity for ruthlessness and hedonism. Most of them are also socially maladjusted or outright crazy, though it's justified in a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane way, given a history of CADASIL in the family, as well as Roderick's cold parenting.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Aside from his two children by his first wife Annabel, Roderick has four illegitimate children, making for six Usher siblings in total.
• Pet the Dog: At least they keep Lenore shielded from their deep corruption and terrible lifestyles.
• Rags to Riches: The four younger children were all raised from relatively ordinary circumstances to extraordinary wealth and privilege, most at a very young age; Camille was twenty, Leo eighteen, and Perry sixteen. It did them no favours, especially in Perry's case.
• Sanity Slippage: As the family starts dying off, they all begin to become more paranoid and irrational. Including Roderick himself.
• Sibling Rivalry: Roderick outright encouraged this between his children, believing that it would make them stronger to some extent. In particular, Camille and Victorine are constantly at each other's throats, and Frederick and Prospero attempt to screw each other over in various ways.
• Smug Snake: Their wealth and privilege, combined with the expertise of Arthur Pym, means they've never had to suffer any consequences for their crimes: as a result, they've all grown rather arrogant and superior, believing themselves invulnerable. When Verna withdraws her supernatural protection as a result of the terms of her deal with Roderick and Madeline and begins coming for them one by one, this attitude begins to crack.
• Their Own Worst Enemy: Despite the toxic family dynamics that fucked each of them up, each of them is still treated as guilty of their own actions, and all play the key role of their own downfall. Frederick's inferiority complex, Tammy's self-loathing, Perry's hedonism and lack of foresight, and so on are the causes of their own deaths.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: It is hard to pinpoint exactly how much is the result of Verna's influence, but the Sanity Slippage the Usher half-siblings undergo from the mounting stress of getting picked off one by one messes something fierce with their grasp on reality (which arguably was already somewhat tenious in some cases). All of them start to hallucinate, while Tamerlane and Victorine end up experiencing straight up dissociative episodes.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: All of the Usher children are desperate for Roderick's approval, with each of their business ventures or hunts for the informant being explicitly attempts to prove themselves to him or curry his favor.

Roderick

Roderick Usher

"You know, nobody gets away with anything. Not really."

^{Click here to see him as a young man}

Played by: Bruce Greenwood (present), Zach Gilford (young adult), Graham Verchere (teen)

"You know my favorite holiday? New Year's Eve. You know why? Resolutions. People take that word for granted, they don't realize just how heavy a word it is. Resolution. Resolve. Means being unwavering, determined, a firm commitment to do something, or not to do something. And most people go their whole, wasted, stupid lives without one minute of true resolution. Not me though. Not me. And not Madeline."

The patriarch of the Ushers who, along with his sister Madeline, rose to the top of Fortunato Chemicals.

---

• Abusive Parents: Roderick started out as a loving father to Frederick and Tamerlane. This changed when he gave into greed and ambition. By his own admission, he pitted all his kids against each other and deprived them of love. And that's not even getting into his pact with Verna to take decades off their lives in exchange for success and wealth. He rationalized that they're better off with shortened lives in luxury than longer lives in financial struggle. How dysfunctional they all turned out makes it clear this was not the right choice.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the original short story, Roderick was a sensitive, isolated young man who, while coming from a corrupt family, didn't seem to have committed any crimes himself. Here, he's a ruthless Corrupt Corporate Executive responsible for the death of millions through his company Fortunato.
• Admiring the Abomination: What his relationship with Juno turns out to be. Not because of her handicap, but because she has somehow absorbed Ligodone—the drug his fortune is based on—into her system in a way that no other patient has before. In a cruel, messed up way, his relationship with Juno is the closest he'll get to making love to the drug that built his empire.
• Affably Evil: Roderick is quite friendly, avuncular, and in his old age he's quite dignified. He comes off as quite likable and it's not entirely an act, but he's done horrible things to build his empire and by the end, it's clear that his needs will always come before anyone else's.
• Affectionate Nickname: He's often called "Roddy" by those close to him such as Madeline and his two wives.
• Age Lift: While the original story does not specify an exact age, Madeline is described as dying "in the maturity of her youth", probably suggesting her mid-to-late 20s, and Roderick is her twin. Here, they are both in their early 70s.
• Agent Scully: Between him and Madeline, Roderick is the one more resistant to the idea that there's something supernatural going on with Verna, refusing to even consider the idea even after seeing photos of her from 1901 looking the same as she does in the present.
• Ambition Is Evil: By the end of the series, it's clear Roderick is entirely motivated by greed and his desire for power. He's willing to sacrifice anything and anyone so long for the sake of more, even long after he has more money than he can even spend.
• Back from the Dead: Verna revives Roderick after he attempts to break the deal by overdosing.
  Roderick (seeing Madeline for the first time after she pressured him into committing suicide): Well, this is awkward.
• Bastard Bastard: Roderick is the illegitimate son of Fortunato's founder who climbed the ranks of said company by conspiring with his sister to backstab Auguste Dupin and murder his boss. And that was just the start of his immoral and corrupt behavior. He is also responsible for siring a bunch of these himself.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: On two levels:
  • On a personal level, he went from a caring and loving family man to a callous and abusive father who messed up his children's lives.
  • On a professional level, he went from a basically honest man trying to support his family to a Corrupt Corporate Executive responsible for the deaths of millions of people.
• Being Evil Sucks: Roderick's life of villainy leads to him losing his entire family and he realizes his influence "choked out" his children's goodness, but in the end he decides it was all worth it since he was able to change the world.
• Believing Their Own Lies: Roderick seems to genuinely believe that Ligodone isn't addictive despite clear evidence to the contrary, even beyond simply lying to cover his own ass. It's eventually implied to be an attempt to rationalize and excuse his actions to himself.
• Blunt "No": Dupin asks Roderick if all his riches would have ever been enough, considering all the lives he ruined to obtain it. Roderick bluntly replies that no, it wouldn't have.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Zig-Zagged. Roderick is aware on some level that he's a terrible person, but just as often he'll try to spin himself as a Well-Intentioned Extremist at worst. In the finale, he finally admits it was all motivated by his greed and ambition—and he reveals he takes pride in having changed the world, even if for the worse.
• Composite Character: In addition to Roderick Usher from Poe's original short story, he's also the narrator in this series for Annabel Lee and "The Raven". Along with Madeline, he serves the same role as Montresor in "The Cask of Amontillado".
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Dupin has sent dozens of charges his way to try and take him down as CEO of Fortunato Chemicals, but he keeps managing to pay his way out of them.
• Didn't Think This Through: When it comes to, Lenore's death is concerned; he never once seems to consider or mention the fact that as his biological granddaughter, she is part of his bloodline and thus fated to die. Otherwise, the series plays coy on this until the last moment, when Roderick confesses that he knew deep down what the consequences would be and went through with all of it anyway.
• Disneyland Dad: Annabel got custody of Frederick and Tamerlane after the divorce, and Roderick's response was to bombard them with money and luxury whenever he'd see them. Eventually, they chose him over their mother. Near the end of his life, Roderick muses that this turned them into horrible, greedy people, and was likely a factor in Annabel's suicide.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Dupin asks him if Roderick's already extensive wealth and privilege would have ever been enough, given that he's ruined countless lives in his endless pursuit of even more money.
  Roderick: Don't be stupid. Of course it wouldn't.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • He might be a horrible person who sells an addictive poison to the world, but he will accept every and all of his children and is very adamant about protecting the clan. Subverted as the series goes through: he doesn't hesitate to put on a bounty when one of the children is suspected of being an informant, not caring about the infighting and without attempting some personal time with them, and during the series is shown getting close to his children only when he has something to get from them. And then it's eventually revealed that he actually sold them out decades before, in a deal to ensure power for himself at the price of having his whole bloodline end with him, despite having two children already and knowingly condemning them to a premature death. And for all the love he expresses toward his wife, he never tried to patch things between them once she discovered his true nature, and even took their children away from her.
  • Played straight with his granddaughter Lenore, who he describes as the best of the Ushers and practically dotes on in comparison to his own children. It makes it all the more tragic that he never considers that, as part of his bloodline, she is doomed to die shortly before he does.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Roderick may be a bad person, but his line in the sand is that, unlike his father, he will never abandon a child of his. However, how much he actually acts like a father can be debated. Subverted when it's revealed he sold their lives a long time ago in exchange for gaining and securing power per his deal with Verna.
  • He's also hardly the most moral person, but Roderick is horrified to the point of tears when he sees Dr. Ruiz's dead body and Vic's subsequent suicide.
  • He's also clearly devastated when Verna creates an illusion of bodies falling from the heavens and forming a grotesque pyramid to illustrate to him just how many people have died because of his his drug.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Well, grandkids. He prefers his granddaughter Lenore over his own corrupt children because she's got a good heart much like his first wife Annabel. When she says she wants to put a stop to Ligodone, he doesn't argue the point. He's also more visibly upset over her death than any of his actual kids. Of course, he does acknowledge that it's his own damn fault for said children turning out the way they did.
• Face Death with Dignity: The entire series is framed around Roderick's confession to Auguste Dupin recounting his various sins before he dies. Which is what it's supposed to look like. In reality, he is merely playing the role written for him by Verna, as his ritualistic mutilation of Madeline prior to Auguste arriving at the house due to his own Sanity Slippage is what seals both of the siblings' gruesome fates.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • He didn't bother to check that Madeline was in fact dead after he poisoned and mutilated her—especially stupid considering that their mother had also been Not Quite Dead when she was buried. Then again, if it was the death that Verna had "planned" for him, she might have had something to do with making sure he didn't double-check.
  • He also didn't seem to realize that his "bloodline" included not just his children, but their children; much to Verna's frustration, this means Lenore's life is forfeit despite her not being complicit in any of her family's crimes.
• Foreign Culture Fetish: He's very into Egyptian artifacts and spends a lot of money bribing officials so he can collect them.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • He tells Dupin that he insists on allowing all of his children to become part of the family and live massively wasteful lives off of its resources, even the illegitimate ones, because he and his sister (themselves illegitimate) were neglected by their own father.
  • Roderick and Madeline's time as orphans living in poverty and witnessing their mother murder a man is what set them on the path to becoming horrible people in the first place.
• Generation Xerox:
  • Like his own biological father, William Longfellow, Roderick ends up siring illegitimate children who only are acknowledged as such later in their lives.
  • He also dies in the same manner as Longfellow, being strangled to death by an Usher woman (in this case, his own sister).
• Grandparent Favoritism: It's blatantly clear from the first episode that Roderick is much more fond of his granddaughter Lenore than any of his direct children. It's because she's the most like his wife Annabel Lee, while his children, by Roderick's own admission, are amoral monsters.
• Greed: As Dupin points out, Roderick would have been rich even without having Fortunato sell Ligodone, something that ruined countless lives. Yet as Roderick himself admits, no amount of money would ever be enough for him; he always wanted more.
• Gruesome Grandparent: Zig-Zagged. He's quite loving towards Lenore and he admires that she's the White Sheep of his family, but he's still a deeply ruthless Corrupt Corporate Executive.
• Heel Realization: He goes back and forth between admitting his evil deeds and trying to justify or downplay them before eventually having to admit to all the terrible things he's done.
• Hypocrite: Confesses to Vic that he pitted her and her siblings against each-other because he thought it would make them stronger. However, the reason he and Madeline were as powerful as they were is because they worked so well as a unit. They rose from nothing by working together.
• I Reject Your Reality: Roderick firmly refuses to believe that Ligadone is addictive despite all evidence to the contrary, and despite acknowledging how extraordinarily painful it is to stop using the drug because of said addictive properties. In the finale, he admits it was all a rationalization to prevent himself from feeling guilt about it.
• Lack of Empathy: He's really not all that broken up about the deaths of his illegitimate children, apart from the shock and horror of seeing Vic stab herself right in front of him (and even that quickly dissipates); he doesn't even say a word to the grieving mothers of Perry, Camille and Leo at the joint funeral of their children. He's a bit more empathetic when Tamerlane, whom he had raised from infancy, dies. But by the time of Frederick's death, he's hit the in-universe version of Too Bleak, Stopped Caring and is distracted by his own imminent death. The only losses he visibly grieves over, in his entire lifetime, are his mother and his granddaughter Lenore.
• The Last Dance: His last moments are being strangled to death by Madeline, who he drugged and mutilated, cutting out her eyes and tongue and leaving her for dead.
• A Man Is Always Eager: Madeline has no children, while Roderick has four more illegitimate children (on top of the two he already has) even after he has made a deal with Verna.
• May–December Romance: He's married to a woman five decades his junior, a fact his kids make no secret of being put off by.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Roderick muses that while Lenore is so much like her grandmother, neither of Annabel Lee's children, Frederick and Tamerlane, are. He then admits that, by basically seducing them with money until they turned their backs on their mother, he "choked" whatever was good out of his own children.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: He repeatedly claims he mass-marketed Ligadone to help people and rejects any accusation that it's addictive. In the Grand Finale, he admits he knew it was dangerous from the beginning, and he didn't care; he just wanted more money.
• Outliving One's Offspring: He has to bury all six of his children in short succession, and it clearly takes a toll on him.
• The Patriarch: The incredibly wealthy patriarch of the Usher family, presiding over the indignity of his heirs.
• Rags to Riches: Goes from the son of the secretary to CEO of a billion-dollar pharmaceutical company.
• Really Gets Around: Has six children by five mothers. This is given a horrific new light when you realize that four of those children were born after the deal with Verna took effect. Madeline lampshades this in their final conversation, reminding him that he wouldn't keep his dick to himself even after learning that any children he had would predecease him.
• Sanity Slippage: Roderick seemed to have kept it together mentally through most of the series, even up to the final episode. However, a flashback in the last episode shows that Roderick lured Madeline to their own home under the auspices of Facing Death With Dignity, only to betray her by drugging her drink and ritualistically mutilating her, trying to send her to the afterlife like the "Queen" that she is.
• Selective Obliviousness: He's in a very active state of denial about the addictiveness of Ligodone. Best shown when Juno tells him she wants to get off it. He repeats that it's not addictive, and then lists all the side effects someone will suffer if they try to get off it. One of the last things he does before dying is finally admit that while he tried to lie to himself about it, deep down some part of him always knew it was a scam.
  • Also comes up when Madeline realizes that Verna is involved with what's been happening to the family; he outright refuses to talk about it or admit that it happened initially.
• Silver Fox: He's seventy years old and still a charming man. While his marriage with Juno includes a lifelong supply of Ligodone for her, she's geniunely attracted to him anyway.
• So Proud of You: This is his attitude towards his granddaughter Lenore. He specifically says this when Pym tells him that she profanely defied his attempts to push her to lie for the sake of the Usher family.
• Tough Love: He penitently admits to his daughter Vic that he turned her and her siblings against each other in hopes that it would toughen them up. It didn't work, and she's already too far gone for this to have the positive effect he'd hoped.
• Villainous Parental Instinct: Roderick is a bad person and doesn't act like much of a father. However, he does show that he genuinely loves his kids. While he doesn't otherwise break the cycle of bad parenting, he does make an effort to insist that his kids will be welcomed in regardless of their motherhood.
• When Life Gives You Lemons...: According to him, the key to wealth isn't making lemonade when life hands you lemons, it's to convince people that lemons are valuable and make them want to buy them.
  Roderick: When life hands you lemons...
  Auguste: Make lemonade?
  Roderick: No. First you roll out a multi-media campaign to convince people lemons are incredibly scarce, which only works if you stockpile lemons, control the supply, then a media blitz. Lemon is the only way to say "I love you," the must-have accessory for engagements or anniversaries. Roses are out, lemons are in. Billboards that say she won't have sex with you unless you got lemons. You cut De Beers in on it. Limited edition lemon bracelets, yellow diamonds called lemon drops. You get Apple to call their new operating system OS-Lemón. A little accent over the 'o'. You charge 40% more for organic lemons, 50% more for conflict-free lemons. You pack the Capitol with lemon lobbyists, you get a Kardashian to suck a lemon wedge in a leaked sex tape. Timothée Chalamet wears lemon shoes at Cannes. Get a hashtag campaign. Something isn't "cool" or "tight" or "awesome," no, it's "lemon." "Did you see that movie? Did you see that concert? It was effing lemon.' Billie Eilish, "OMG, hashtag... lemon." You get Dr. Oz to recommend four lemons a day and a lemon suppository supplement to get rid of toxins 'cause there's nothing scarier than toxins. Then you patent the seeds. You write a line of genetic code that makes the lemons look just a little more like tits... and you get a gene patent for the tit-lemon DNA sequence, you cross-pollinate... you get those seeds circulating in the wild, and then you sue the farmer for copyright infringement when that genetic code shows up on their land. Sit back, rake in the millions, and then, when you're done, and you've sold your lem-pire for a few billion dollars, then, and only then, you make some fucking lemonade.
• Wrong Line of Work: Roderick came up with his universe's versions of "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven". Verna finds it tragic that he didn't pursue a life as a poet. According to her, he would've been broke, but at least he would've been responsible for good things in the world, instead of millions of deaths. He probably would've had a happier life in the long run too.

Madeline

Madeline Usher

"Don't say what you want. Say what makes him say what you want. That way he thinks it's his idea."

^{Click here to see her as a young woman}

Played by: Mary McDonnell (present), Willa Fitzgerald (young adult), Lulu Wilson (teen)

"The company is the family, and we expect you to defend it with your life. And if anyone, anyone comes after us, we will exhaust our arsenal until the threat is neutralized."

Roderick's genius twin sister and his chief operating officer.

---

• The Ace: She's the true brains behind Roderick's operation and he even calls her "a once in a lifetime genius" who has quit Mensa because she was bored.
• Adaptational Villainy: While almost nothing is known about the original Madeline Usher, her isolation and fragile health mean that she had little to no chance of acting her will while she was alive, and her killing Roderick is due to her madness after being buried alive. Here, Madeline not only shares her brother's moral and material corruption, but goes even further to the point she can be considered a full-blown psychopath.
• Affectionate Nickname: Notably averted. Madeline is only referred to as "Maddie" or "Mads" twice in the entire series; Roderick and other characters nearly always refer to her by her full name. Even Lenore calls her "Nana Madeline."
• Age Lift: While the original story does not specify an exact age, Madeline is described as dying "in the maturity of her youth", probably suggesting her mid-to-late 20s. Here, she is in her early 70s.
• Agent Mulder: Surprisingly, between her and Roderick, the steely, cynical Madeline is the one who accepts that there's something supernatural going on with Verna first, once it becomes clear that there is no other possible explanation.
• All for Nothing: Her major project, to "live forever" turns out to be a complete failure. The only test subject is her grand niece Lenore, and all the program is able to do is send the same message over and over again.
• Ambiguously Bi: By the end of the show, her sexuality is never confirmed. On the one hand, she shares a kiss with Verna on New Years and shows no interest in any man, seeming to outright despise them (despite having been married at least once). On the other hand, the fact that after making the deal with Verna she got an IUD as a precaution against ever having children implies she considered her having having sex with men a possibility for which precautions needed to be taken.
• Ambition Is Evil: Even more than her brother. Madeline will sacrifice anything/anyone to gain power for herself.
• Bastard Bastard: The illegitimate daughter of Fortunato's founder and a co-conspirator with her brother to backstab Auguste Dupin and murder Rufus Griswold. Her immoral and corrupt behavior only grew from there.
• Composite Character: She's Madeline Usher from Poe's original short story and, along with Roderick, she serves the same role as Montresor in "The Cask of Amontillado".
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: She's been right alongside Roderick's evil actions to take over Fortunato Pharmaceuticals all the while and her first scene has her openly plan to murder anyone who threatens the family.
• Defiant to the End: Well, she intended to be this after she and Roderick end up being the last of the Ushers, proudly declaring that she'll stand tall and proud while staring Verna straight in the eyes alongside her brother. Unfortunately, Roderick had different plans for her, leaving her reduced to a mutilated, shrieking psychotic hellbent on revenge in her final moments.
• Does Not Like Men: She constantly talks about her distaste for men and Roderick is the only male character she has affection for.
• The Dragon: Roderick's second-in-command and chief enforcer of the rules surrounding the family.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Madeline is raw, cynical, pure evil, but God help anyone who messes with the Ushers and especially her twin brother. That definitely changed after Roderick drugs her, cuts out her eyes and places stones in their place, cuts out her tongue, and leaves her for dead. She also seems quite fond of her grand-niece Lenore, who is one of the few characters she shares a happy, tension-free scene with in the series and affectionately calls her "love" (while Lenore, in turn, calls her "Nanna"). Then again, she might have used Lenore only as a test subject for her immortality plan.
• Even Evil Has Standards: She believed in Verna's deal enough to get an IUD afterwards, and unlike her brother, never has children that she knows deep down will die early due to her own actions. She was also surprisingly the more hesitant of the two, even momentarily looking disturbed at how eager Roderick was to throw his kids lives in exchange for easy money and power.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: She's honestly amazed to discover that Annabel isn't putting on some act of being a dutiful housewife to keep a roof over her head but truly thought Roderick was a good man trying to do the right thing. "I thought people like you only existed in the movies."
• Evil Genius: She combines a brilliant mind with an utter moral corruption. One of the trailers identifies her as "The Brain" of the family.
• Exact Words: Verna's deal with Madeline and Roderick are they "go out together." Madeline thinks she can break the deal via Loophole Abuse by having Roderick kill himself. Unfortunately for her, Verna has other plans and is capable of bringing Roderick back from the dead so that he can help bring about her untimely end.
• Eye Scream: Roderick removes her eyes and replaces them with sapphires.
• Face Death with Dignity: She tries in the finale, accepting her oncoming death and taking pride in her legacy. Roderick ruins it by mutilating her to send her off "like a queen". She spends her last moments strangling him in a rage as the house collapses around them.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Specifically pertaining to reproductive choices after making their deal with Verna. While Roderick keeps having affairs and fathering children, Madeline gets an IUD on the off chance that the deal was actually real and her potential children would be part of their delayed consequences.
• Freudian Excuse: Had the same crappy childhood as her brother, and then faced sexism and harassment working in male-dominated fields in the 70s/80s. Even Annabel Lee, who doesn't like her sister-in-law (the feeling's mutual), is horrified and concerned upon hearing of what Madeline's had to deal with. She seems to have become ruthless and cold at least partially as a survival tactic. Likewise, her ambition appears to have roots in an understandable desire for a better life.
• Hypocrite:
  • Has no problem convincing Roderick to take his own life if it means sparing her own, despite the fact that she fully agreed to Verna's deal of her own free will and was even the originator of a lot of the plots to increase her power. In the final episode, she's nothing short of furious when she realizes Roderick has poisoned her and intends to kill her before he dies, even though Madeline herself tried to goad her brother into suicide so that she and the rest of the family could live.
  • In the first episode, she is the most demonstrably furious at the idea that someone in the family would dare betray their own blood by selling out the rest of the family for their own personal benefit. She and Roderick already sold the rest out through their deal with Verna, which condemned everyone else in the family to early deaths in exchange for Madeline and Roderick attaining their wealth, privilege, and power.
  • She shares many destructive traits that she loathes in men, from being constantly demeaning to Annabel to exploiting Juno's addiction along with Roderick, to more or less directly condemning countless women all over the world to the side effects of Ligodone, of which she's very well aware.
• Immortality Seeker: She desperately wants to become immortal somehow, and has been trying to create some way to do so ever since the 70s. In the present day, she tries to do so by creating an artificial intelligence that can mimic human consciousness.
• Implacable Woman: Madeline never shows strong emotion and, unlike Roderick, she is deadly ambitious and will not let anything stop her regardless of what it is.
• Implied Death Threat: Subverted. Madeline at first says that they'll "expend [their] arsenal" to "neutralize" whoever betrayed the Ushers. Frederick nervously says that of course she means sue, right? Madeline, already not in a good mood, then barrels right past implication and says no, by the time she's done there won't be anything left to sue.
  Frederick: By neutralized, do you mean sued into oblivion, taken out of the Board, out of the will, on the streets...
  Madeline: Neutralized. Like dead.
• Iron Lady: She is a stern, steely, and scheming elderly pharmaceutical executive.
• It's All About Me: Talks a good game about trying to defy expectations placed on women, but at the end of the day she was merely looking out for herself. Even when she convinces her own brother to try and kill himself in order to void the deal with Verna and spare her own life, Madeline still uses it as a way to take control of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals in order to push the company fully into tech so she can continue her own immortality project.
• Karmic Death: Roderick drugs and rudely tried to embalm her alive, not differently from how they got rid of Griswold by walling him alive. Her obsession with immortality and Ancient Egypt is turned into a full mockery when Roderick cuts out her eyes and tongue, and destroys part of her brain, leaving her as a screaming husk of her previous self once she "comes back". And the sapphires that replace her eyes look a bit like Viagra pills.
• Lack of Empathy: Not only she pushed Roderick to ignore his moral qualms since they were young, but she was also insufferent to Annabel's niceness and conscience, believing it to be an act for a long time. When her family starts falling apart, she barely reacts to the deaths around her and Roderick's growing instability, focusing only on how to keep the business afloat and usurp her brother's position.
• Lady Macbeth: Brother–Sister Team version. In their younger years, Madeline was often the one counseling and pushing for Roderick to be smarter and more ruthless in trying to get ahead.
• Loophole Abuse: Tried and defied. Madeline first tries to create an immortality project in order to reap the benefits of her deal with Verna forever. Then when she has Roderick kill himself in order to destroy the deal, Verna simply resurrects Roderick so he can play out her plans the way she envisioned them.
• Maiden Aunt: She had a number of lovers and even a husband, but no children.
• Manipulative Bitch: She looks at every circumstance as a means of getting ahead, no matter who she needs to screw over. She praises Roderick's betrayal of Dupin as a smart move to ensure that the two of them get more wealth and power. She ultimately plays the role of the protagonist of "The Cask of Amontillado."
• Missing Time: The first sign something is very wrong with her is this. She sits down to rewrite the speech she would have to perform, but when she notices, the pages are suddenly full of notes and ramblings and it's dark outside.
• More Deadly Than the Male: While Roderick is by no means a good person, she is somehow worse. She essentially acts as the "devil" on Roderick's shoulder to Annabel's "angel", and while Roderick shows at least some awareness and regret for his actions in the end, she simply shifts all the blame on the consumers and basically says that she would do it all over again.
• My God, You Are Serious!: A variation. When Madeline details how she and Roderick were setting up Dupin at the trial so they could gain a higher spot in the company, she sees how shocked Annabel is and realizes Annabel isn't putting on some act of being a dutiful housewife who believes in doing the right thing, but truly believed in her husband.
  Madeline: This is you, isn't it? I thought people like you only existed in the movies.
• Not Quite Dead: She still has enough strength to strangle her brother to death after he poisons her, removes her tongue and replaces her eyes with ancient Egyptian sapphires, and leaves her for dead in the basement of their childhood home.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Madeline figures out that Verna is around each death site and that somehow she's involved in this. However, she assumes Verna is another of Roderick's illegitimate children killing the others to get a piece of the fortune, not some strange supernatural being who only sees the Ushers to their final fate. It takes seeing Verna looking exactly the same in photos dating back to 1901 for Madeline to accept she's something else.
• The Sociopath: She's implied to be a high-functioning psychopath, with a lack of empathy and remorse going back to her young age. Madeline sees everyone around her as a tool to further her schemes, has no qualms about suggesting the most drastic solutions and isn't fazed by the deaths happening in her close family. Even her bond with Roderick ultimately breaks when she leads him to commit suicide, thinking that this will break the deal with Verna and let her live.
• The Unfettered: As mentioned under Implacable Man, Madeline will sacrifice anything and anyone to gain more wealth and power for herself.

Frederick

Frederick "Freddie" Usher

"One of the first things he taught us. If you wanna test a bond, you don't really need to break it. You just crack it a little."

Played by: Henry Thomas

"You understand who we are in the world, don't you? We're part of a kingdom. We're like royalty. People fear that. They envy that. They want to tear it down. They want to tear us down."

Roderick's eldest son and heir. His story is themed around "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "Berenice".

---

• Abusive Parents: Even his daughter isn't safe from his wrath as he gaslights and threatens her when she confronts him about how he's treating Morella.
• Beauty Inversion: Downplayed. Frederick isn't ugly, but Henry Thomas is made up to look plainer than he usually does, and his character's dweeby traits such as excessive sweating are repeatedly mentioned, to emphasize the Ugly Guy, Hot Wife aspect of his relationship with Morella.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: A very dark example. He mentions that he fell for Morella when they first met because, when he was used to fending off Gold Diggers and various hangers-on, she gave him a genuinely warm smile because she thought he seemed lonely. However, in the present day it is clear that any real love he once felt for his wife has been warped into a twisted sense of entitlement.
• Big Brother Bully: While none of the siblings are on great terms with each other, Frederick (the eldest son) is especially hateful towards Perry (the youngest son) because while Frederick's been brought up to succeed their father, Perry doesn't take the family name seriously. Beyond insulting Perry's mother and physically and verbally threatening him, Frederick goes so far as pissing in the building Perry died in just before he is killed.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He seems like a meek, weak-willed but fairly harmless guy who is just following his dad's lead. But he's by far the most reprehensible member of the family.
• Composite Character: Takes his name from the lead character from "Metzengerstein", pries out his wife's teeth like Egaeus in "Berenice", and his fate is inspired by the unnamed narrator of "The Pit and the Pendulum".
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Though not overt about it, Frederick brings out his sadistic side upon learning that his wife, Morrie, was on the brink of cheating on him, possibly with Prospero. Even though she has already been hideously burned, he emotionally tortures her by locking her into her own body and pulls out her teeth.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: He's paralyzed and left to be slowly sliced in half as a building collapses in on him. Verna even notes she could have given him a simple death but his reprehensible treatment of Morrie pushed her to go for something harsher.
• Death by Adaptation: The lead in "The Pit and the Pendulum" survived. Frederick doesn't.
• Dirty Coward: Known to be the toothless version of his father, he is extremely tame and meek, unless he has some kind of power over someone else. He shows his true colors early on, when he takes Prospero aside for an angry and racist rant against his young and less fortunate brother, and when he thinks he will be the next head of the Fortunato pharmaceutical (a chance that he takes without blinking even if it meant backstabbing his own father) he suddenly becomes aggressive and abrasive toward his now inferiors. And that's not to mention his treatment of his wife...
• Disproportionate Retribution: Being upset that your spouse went to an orgy and was at least considering an affair with your half-brother? 100% understandable. Keeping your horrifically scalded spouse away from a doctor, paralyzing them, and yanking out their teeth as revenge? Monstrous.
• Domestic Abuser: To extreme degrees. When Frederick finds out his wife was chemically burned because she was at Perry's pop up orgy, he takes her out of intensive care from the hospital to torture her with a paralytic agent and rips her teeth out with pliers. He even threatens to weld her wedding ring to her finger.
• Emasculated Cuckold: Frederick is rather weak-willed and deeply insecure about how people don't consider him as strong a man as his business powerhouse of a father, so when he has reason to suspect that his wife Morrie cheated on him (she was thinking about it but ultimately didn't), he takes it out on her by pumping her full of a paralytic that keeps her conscious so he can physically and psychologically torture her — after her skin is completely burned off.
• Embarrassing Nickname: "Froderick", his siblings' mocking way of calling him an inferior Roderick clone.
• Entitled to Have You: His speeches to Morrie while torturing her, pretty much reveal that he never saw her as anything more than his property, with the possibility of her having cheated being a blow to his massive but fragile ego. Even after he's mutilated her further than she already was, he states clear intention to keep her with him.
  "I've got another house to put into order. While I'm there, I'll look for your ring. Maybe it's still there. If not, I'll get you a new one. But if I do find it, I'll bring it home. And if you ever take it off again...I'll weld it to your fucking finger."
• Evil Is Petty: Aside from the horrific torture of his already chemically burned wife and threatening to weld her wedding ring to her finger, Frederick delays the demolition of an old pharmaceutical factory where Perry had his party, just to piss in the spot that he died in.
• Expy: As the oldest sibling of a very powerful family who was groomed to take over his father's company despite lacking many of his old man's cutthroat character traits, Frederick is essentially the Usher equivalent of Kendall Roy.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Verna outright says this of him as she leaves him to die in the demolition: while Roderick may have starved him of affection and contributed to his emotional instability, it doesn't make his sadistic torture of his wife in any way acceptable, and he's the only one of the Usher children to be treated with no sympathy by the other characters or the narrative.
  Verna: He did you wrong, Freddie. You only ever wanted to be loved by him. You only ever wanted his approval...and it's still no fucking excuse.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: He gets sliced in half by debris from the demolition.
• Hated by All: While the other funerals are well attended, Frederick's is only attended by his father who doesn't respect him and his daughter who now hates him for torturing her mother. Even when alive, all of his siblings hated him, calling him "Froderick" (or in Prospero's case, Dickwad).
• Hate Sink: While all his siblings, and even his own daughter, are treated with pity by the narrative he really stands out by being extra nasty as his meek demeanor hides a very reprehensible character.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He mistakenly snorts the paralytic drug he was torturing his wife with believing it to be his cocaine, which causes him to collapse helplessly in the middle of a demolition site where he's subjected to a horrific and agonizing death.
• Horrifying the Horror: Despite being a nebbish and inadequate loser, his treatment of Morrie was enough to piss off whatever malevolent Dark force Verna is. While Verna tried to steer the other immoral Ushers into less violent ends, she actively orchestrated the most painful death she could for Frederick.
• Hypocrite: Frederick berates and looks down upon Prospero because he believes him to be an incompetent manchild who is thoroughly incapable of running Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, and despises his hedonistic ways. With that said, Frederick isn't all that intelligent or business-savvy himself, and not only is his house full of entertaining things for himself such as a personal bowling alley and arcade machines, but he's quick to abuse drugs himself after the accident his wife ends up in.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Everyone comments that he is only a shadow of his father (to the point of mockingly calling him "Froderick"), but he gets to inherit Fortunato simply by being the eldest son.
• Insistent Terminology: Frederick keeps saying there's a "mole" in the family. Lenore and Perry independently remind him that the supposed Usher traitor is an informant, not a mole (as the latter implies a government agent who was inserted undercover into the family, rather than a member of the family who has turned traitor).
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: He is not a nice person, being abusive to Prospero who he openly sees as an accident Roderick should have dismissed and an interloper on his family fortune and unpleasant in general, but there are hints that he's not so bad underneath. He has some sweet moments with Lenore and Morrie and seems to sincerely idolize his dad. But this all goes out the window as the series goes along and we see just what a rotten bastard he truly is, as best exemplified by his torture of Morrie.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: He's always a Jerkass, but he doesn't seem outwardly malicious. And then he learns that Morrie was at least considering cheating on him. While his anger is justified, she is already badly burned, and then he goes all the way in on torturing her.
• Karmic Death: Frederick never got around to demolishing the building that Prospero and his partygoers would ultimately die in out of laziness until he's explicitly ordered by his father to do so after it happens. He ends up perishing in the same building during its demolition. Further, his decision to torture his wife while paralyzing her with nightshade paralytic and take time out of the demolition to go inside and literally piss on his brother's memory is what gets him paralyzed in the demolition zone as the building comes down on him.
• Kick the Dog: He takes his wife out of the hospital and viciously tortures her out of suspicion that she's been unfaithful, painfully pulling out her teeth with pliers in response.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: On both ends of this. Unlike Roderick, his father, he's not particularly bright or cunning and is more of a yes-man who just likes to butter him up. And unlike Lenore, his daughter, he's adamant in making sure their family still gets away with their numerous crimes so that they can keep their wealth and status.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Despite being the oldest Usher child and living in a fairly old-fashioned mansion, he has his home decked out like a frat boy's dream, with a bowling alley in the kitchen and a row of arcade machines in his living room. He's also rather intellectually dim, only being able to grasp the family's situation with a possible informant in terms of The Departed. And when he thinks his wife is cheating on him, he puts her through Cold-Blooded Torture.
• Room Full of Crazy: He turns Morrie's room into this after bringing her home from the hospital, wallpapering it with photos from their wedding day to guilt-trip her for her perceived unfaithfulness.
• Undignified Death: He collapses from a paralytic while urinating on the site of Prospero's death, leaving him lying in a puddle of his own piss with his fly still open when the swinging pendulum slices him in half.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Noticeably, Frederick is the only one of Roderick's children whose childhood is actually depicted in flashbacks (since Tamerlane is still a baby in the time period they cover). In all of them, he's just a typical four-year-old boy who adores his father, a sharp contrast to the self-serving Psychopathic Manchild he becomes in his adult years. To further emphasize this, he initially appears as a kid happily running into his father's arms (only to split into two) when it's his turn to haunt Roderick, unlike the other ghosts who appear as they were in death. As Verna notes, there's no excuse for adult Frederick torturing Morella. Still, he and Tamerlane certainly would've turned out better were it not for their father's corruption, which Annabel Lee's ghost chews Roderick out for. Roderick himself eventually admits that he essentially "choked" out whatever goodness the two had inherited from her by "bombarding them with money" until they turned their backs on their mother.
• Wrong Line of Work: According to Verna, in an alternate universe, he would've found something he's actually pretty good at: dentistry. Her seeing how the Frederick in this universe demonstrates his fascination with teeth does not end well for him.

Tamerlane

Tamerlane "Tammy" Usher

"That we're more than just Fortunato. We're not just pill pushers. We can be about health and about beauty."

Played by: Samantha Sloyan

"Dad needs to see his kids don't need half a billion dollars and an endless supply of test monkeys to be successful."

Roderick's eldest daughter, who is starting a lifestyle company. Her story is themed around "The Gold Bug" and "William Wilson".

---

• Agony of the Feet: Due to her hysterically smashing the mirrors in her home, Tamerlane spends the second half of her confrontation with Verna stepping on broken glass and cutting her feet accordingly. At one point she has to stop to viscerally and painfully pull a large shard out of her sole.
• Alas, Poor Villain: She spends her last night alive in a psychotic break, smashing mirrors through her house and getting wounded from the shards, until she's left as a sobbing mess that just wants to sleep. Meanwhile, she has enough lucidity to realize that her paranoia has pushed away her loving husband and ruined the launch of her company. After smashing the ceiling mirror, she snaps from her breakdown just in time to understand that she's going to die. For all her faults, it's really nasty way to go.
• All for Nothing: Tamerlane sacrifices her marriage, as well as her physical and mental well-being, for the sake of Goldbug. However, thanks to Verna's manipulations, she has a breakdown on stage and attacks Juno with a microphone stand, permanently ruining her reputation and Goldbug along with it.
  Tamerlane: I fucked it all up...I fucked it all up...
• Ambiguously Bi: Her cuckquean fetishes involve getting off from watching prostitutes who resemble her acting as her while playing the part of a Happily Married couple with her husband Bill, but it's unclear if she's only turned on by the scenario itself or if the prostitutes in question are what she also gets off to.
• Ambition Is Evil: Tam is ruthlessly ambitious, pinning everything she has on her company and tunnel-visioning her way to launching it and proving herself. And not only is she one of the Ushers, she's easily one of the casually cruelest of them, second only to Camille and Madeline.
• Bad Influencer: Tamerlane is an influencer (she is compared repeatedly to Gwyneth Paltrow), she's mean and bitter, and she is a sad, spoiled workaholic.
• Bloodless Carnage: Played with. The camera angle and lighting obscure the blood from her fatal impaling injuries. Though she bleeds from her earlier broken-glass injuries, it's not as much as would be expected from the deep gashes she sustained.
• Composite Character: Her name is taken from Edgar Allan Poe's poem, Tamerlane and her fate is inspired by the titular character in "William Wilson". She also experiences lapses in consciousness like Egaeus in "Berenice".
• Determinator: Neither rain, or shine, nor snow, nor the systematic murders of her siblings, will keep Tam from launching her damn company. Deconstructed as her intense ambition to get it up and running is not only motivated by insecurity and feelings of inadequacy, she ends up sacrificing her health (both physical and mental) and her marriage in pursuit of this goal. Worse, it ends up being All for Nothing, since Verna's manipulation and gaslighting of her causes her to break down and ruin Goldbug's launch.
• Evil Is Petty: When Camille dies and her obituary reads "dead at 35" she can't help but make a petty remark about her dead sister being older than that.
• Evil Redhead: A harsh, arrogant Villain Protagonist, and a redhead to boot. Ironically, flashbacks show she inherited it from her mother, who was a kind and sweet Nice Girl.
• Fetishes Are Weird: To show that she's a maladjusted person, nearly every scene in her house demonstrates that she has a cuckquean fetish. She hires prostitutes who resemble her to have sex with her husband. That said, rather than suggesting she's maladjusted because of her fetish, it seems to be more due to what her fetish says about her—namely, that she is so full of self-doubt and self-loathing that she finds the indirect intimacy of a cuckoldry scenario more comfortable to engage in than actual intimacy.
• Gender-Blender Name: Although she's more often referred to as Tammy, "Tamerlane" is a male name.
• Gender Flip: Both inspirations for her character were male in Poe's original works.
• Green-Eyed Monster: She grows progressively jealous of her husband, believing him to be cheating on her outside of their roleplay, and she's bitter towards her illegitimate brothers for "stealing" her father's wealth and affection. During her breakdown, her bedroom is cast in an unnatural green light to symbolize her envy and jealousy.
• Ignored Epiphany: Tamerlane comes close to having a Heel Realization a few times such as when Juno tells her about her own tragic backstory or when Bill leaves her but whenever she comes close to making a change, she's either interrupted or pushes her negative feelings down. By the time it finally sticks, she's already destroyed her public reputation and she dies immediately after.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Her death: after attacking the mirrors in her home in a desperate attempt to fight against Verna, she jumps up to shatter the one above her bed, and is impaled by multiple glass shards, including one in her back and a large one through her throat.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Tamerlane invokes real sympathy in Verna because, for all her bitchiness, privilege, and spite, she's a sad, lonely woman and, though she's horrible to Bill, she is one of the only Ushers who doesn't break the law. It becomes clear that she really did love Bill.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Tamerlane is extremely self-absorbed, ambitious, and rather vicious towards her illegitimate siblings while holding herself up as a trueborn daughter, but her fear that Bill is cheating on her with Verna shows that she's quite insecure, and "Goldbug" shows that her ambition is really just desperation to prove herself to the public and her father.
  Verna: Honey, no one can take being shot down, scorned, and attacked 24/7 like you do to yourself.
• Ironic Name: The historical Tamerlane was the conqueror of one of the widest empires on Earth. Tammy destroys her own company in the same night she tries to launch it.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Refers to Juno, her rather young stepmother who she dislikes, as "it" when she tries to chime into the family discussion.
• Kick the Morality Pet: "The Tell-Tale Heart" has her deliver a brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech to her husband Bill, informing him that she married him, not out of love, but because he fit her brand and was a good face for her company, and that he can be easily replaced. And why? He was trying to get her to delay the launch of her brand because he was concerned she was working too hard.
• Lady Macbeth: Tammy has corrupted her husband through Goldbug (her lifestyle brand) and convinced him to have sex with women who look like her.
• Pet the Dog: To Juno, surprisingly, though it is downplayed. Of all the siblings, Tam is particularly cruel to Juno, referring to her as "it" and generally insulting her at every given opportunity. When Juno confides in Tam about how disconnected and lonely she feels with Roderick, however, Tam assures her that he is like that even with his own kids, saying she's sorry he doesn't answer his phone. After Juno continues, saying she feels out of place, Tam simply tells her to let her know when Roderick returns home, and leaves, though it is clear Tam felt some kind of sympathy for her stepmother in that moment.
  • She's clearly ashamed when she throws a microphone stand at Verna and hits Juno in the head instead.
• Powerful People Are Subs: Downplayed, but there's a submissive element in Tam's kink for watching women who look like her having sex with her husband. She is also the brains behind a lifestyle brand and the eldest daughter of a big time CEO.
• Preferable Impersonator: Verna's manipulations of Tam take the form of this, combined with a healthy dose of Gaslighting: Initially showing up as a prostitute hired to assist with Tam's fetish for watching her husband have sex with other women, Verna starts showing up in her life and making Tam think that Verna is not only taking up residence in her life, but that people seem to prefer her over Tam. Combined with her husband and bodyguard claiming not to notice Verna and her own Sleep Deprivation, Tam begins to grow paranoid and unstable, lashes out brutally at her husband and pushes him out of her life, and ruins the launch of Goldbug after seeing Verna causes her to have a breakdown on stage.
• Shoddy Knockoff Product: Tamerlane's company, Goldbug, is pretty blatantly one to Goop, the lifestyle brand headed by Gwyneth Paltrow. Viciously lampshaded by Victorine after Tam takes a shot at her heart mesh.
  Victorine: Really, Tamerlane? How goes it with your homeo-hipster subscription boxes? Let me know when Gwyneth bends you over and takes one dry with her legal team. I, for one, can't wait to see how she feels about her generic-brand doppelganger.
• Sleep Deprivation: In an attempt to get Goldbug off the ground on time despite the many tragedies plaguing her family, Tamerlane more-or-less stops sleeping, to the point where Bill says he doesn't even remember the last time he saw her get a full night's rest. This finally starts catching up to her in "Goldbug", where her lack of sleep causes her to lose time, hallucinate, and makes her much more susceptible to Verna's manipulations, culminating in her death.
• The Unapologetic: On the few occasions that Tamerlane actually acknowledges that she was wrong, she just can't bring herself to actually apologize. The biggest example is with Bill: despite coming to regret pushing him away, she can't bring herself to apologize to his face, and when he calls her following her disastrous torpedoing of Goldbug, she physically throws the phone away. To twist the knife further, she sees a vision of Verna answering it and fervently apologizing to Bill for everything she put him through, making it just one more way for her to feel inferior to her doppelganger.
• Villainous Breakdown: "Goldbug" centers around her having a mental breakdown due to both Verna's manipulations and her own sleep deprivation. The climax of the episode has her break down weeping while smashing every mirror she can in a desperate attempt to fight back,
• Villainy-Free Villain: Tamerlane is one of the cruelest Ushers and is undeniably abusive towards Bill, but unlike her siblings, she doesn't do anything legally wrong. Goldbug never violates any laws and, while she's complicit in her family's crimes, she never actively partakes in them onscreen.
• Workaholic: She works herself to the bone trying to launch her brand (after burying several siblings!) that she's driven to sleep deprivation and makes her husband worried sick for her. She admits in her focus episode, "Goldbug", that it stems from a desperate desire to prove not only her own worth, but so that she can prove that her family is more than pill-pushers.

Victorine

Victorine "Vic" LaFourcade

"Come on, he throws us the food and watches us fight for it. You know that."

Played by: T'Nia Miller

"You can knock me down? Well, guess what? I don't need to break through. Because I'm going over the top."

One of Roderick's illegitimate daughters, a brilliant surgeon with a disregard for medical ethics. Her story is themed around "The Tell-Tale Heart".

---

• Accidental Murder: When Alessandra is about to leave her, Victorine throws a stone bookend at her in anger. She was aiming for the door, but she hits Alessandra in the head by mistake, killing her and causing Vic to block the incident from her memory out of horror.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Victorine LaFourcade was in a love-triangle with two men in The Premature Burial. Vic is married to a woman.
• Affably Evil: Despite being one of the evilest siblings, Vic is quite polite and refined unlike her mostly crude family.
• Amnesia Missed a Spot: Despite undergoing Trauma-Induced Amnesia over killing Alessandra, Victorine starts hearing a whirring and chirping sound that drives her into Sanity Slippage. It turns out to be the sound of her artificial heart mesh, implanted into Alessandra's body in a wild attempt to bring her back to life out of guilt: even outside of her home (where the body is being kept), she can still hear it as a subconscious reminder of what she's done.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Despite ostensibly being a well-intentioned doctor-scientist, she is willing to fudge the data and numbers related to her chimpanzee test subjects to hide her failures; while it's never confirmed, Camille hears the rumor that Vic had been chopping up the failed chimps and taking them out, replacing with new ones to which she gives the same scars, to keep it hidden that her subjects failed. Verna holds her unethical chimpanzee testing as a mark against the Ushers while killing Camille.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Despite having a sterling reputation as a doctor, ostensibly having benevolent goals in making a working version of her heart mesh, and having an outwardly-charming personality, Vic is ultimately as selfish, corrupt, and callous as the rest of the family, being perfectly willing to lie to who she thinks is an innocent and naive woman (really Verna in disguise) to get her to participate in her human trials and progress the heart mesh. Verna even notes that although Vic does try to save lives, ultimately, success and fame is much more important to her. Lampshaded by Alessandra during their argument, who, after learning this, sadly remarks that Victorine isn't the person she thought she was.
• Can't Spit It Out: During a desperate phone call to Alessandra, she starts to tell her that she loves her, only to cut herself off and instead offer her money.
• Composite Character: Her name is taken from a character in The Premature Burial. She becomes the main character in this series' version of "The Tell-Tale Heart".
• Death by Adaptation: Both inspirations for the character survived their original stories. Vic ends up Driven to Suicide.
• Demonic Possession: She seems to fall victim to this by Verna's hands. Her previously erratic behavior becomes eerily calm and dissonantly serene. Vic chastises Roderick for being unable to kill himself, which Victorine couldn't have known about, and once she "stabs herself", she seems to have awakened from a trance.
• Doublethink: Vic's Sanity Slippage causes her to engage in this: when she remembers that she accidentally killed Alessandra, she still deludes herself into thinking that Alessandra is still talking to her.
• Dying as Yourself: Vic's self-inflicted stab wound seems to cut through her Sanity Slippage and/or Demonic Possession, and her last words are calling out to Roderick, pained and confused.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Vic genuinely does love Alessandra and is heartbroken when she leaves her. Her Accidental Murder of her causes Vic to have a total mental breakdown.
  • It's implied Vic genuinely cares for Perry. During the meeting in which the siblings are informed of Perry's death, Vic appears composed, but once she's alone, she's shown beginning to cry.
• Evil Brit: She grew up in England and is an amoral scientist who experiments on animals, manipulates desperate people and falsifies data.
• Gender-Blender Name: Victorine is often called Vic.
• Like Father, Like Daughter: Vic and Roderick both form romantic relationships with idealistic women who believe them to be better than they are, and who heartbrokenly reject them when their true character is revealed. (Al and Annabel even use pretty similar language; Al says "You're not who I thought you were", and Annabel says "I don't know you".) Also, she even manages to get involved with a forged medical documents scandal, although on the other side.
• Mad Scientist: Even if most of the science behind the heart mesh comes from Alessandra, Vic is still a capable surgeon and scientific professional - and she's just as screwed-up in the head as other Ushers. She fully earns her status as this just before her death: fully immersed in delusions that her heart mesh works and saved Alessandra, she pulls out a knife, threatening her father (who she believes wants to cut the funding to her project), before trying to cut out her own heart, obsessed with the research she was working on.
  Victorine: (grinning madly) Because the work is everything. And if we are to succeed... We just need a better... heart. (stabs herself)
• Missing Mom: Leo, Prospero, and Camille's respective mothers show up to their joint funeral, but Victorine's mother is never seen and is only mentioned briefly when Vic relates her story to Frederick and Tamerlane.
• Nom de Mom: While acknowledged as a daughter of Roderick Usher, she noticeably didn't take his name, whereas her half-brothers Leo and Perry, who are illegitimate children like her, did.
• Psycho Lesbian: Downplayed. Vic is already not in a great mental position with her own workaholic tendencies and the curse on her family, but she loses her mind for real after she kills Alessandra by throwing an ornament after Alessandra breaks up with her and tells her that she's going to report her and then starts hallucinating that Alessandra is still alive and argues with her.
• Sanity Slippage: Victorine's stress over the failure of her heart mesh, combined with the deaths of her siblings and her Accidental Murder of Alessandra, causes her to have auditory hallucinations that drive her to distraction and, eventually, to delusion, then to suicide.
• Self-Disposing Villain: While all of the Ushers are somewhat responsible for their own downfall, Vic is notable in that she's responsible for all of it. While Verna helps, Vic's Villainous Breakdown is caused entirely by her Accidental Murder of Alessandra and her subsequent guilt over it, save for the apparent possession by Verna.
• Talking to the Dead: She eventually starts doing this to Alessandra's corpse in the midst of her Sanity Slippage, delusional and believing that Alessandra is still talking to her. It takes Roderick pointing out that Alessandra is dead for it to sink in what's happened.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Vic is so horrified when she kills Alessandra that she blocks the memory out entirely. However, that's not enough to protect her from Sanity Slippage.
• Villainous Breakdown: Her guilt over Alessandra's death and Verna's influence results in her suffering from hallucinations and gradually falling apart. She eventually kills herself in front of Roderick.
• Villain with Good Publicity: While none of the family are held in high regard, Vic is generally viewed more charitably as a genuinely well-meaning scientist whose work is helping people. In reality, she's just as cutthroat, amoral and callous as the rest of them, just better at hiding it.

Camille

Camille L'Espanaye

"I have specific needs. I have specific requirements for a particular and unique fucking lifestyle."

Played by: Kate Siegel

"We're going to find out who's talking to the Feds. Then I'll freeze their fucking head, and I'm going to give it to my father on a platinum plate. See if Cartier will make a platinum plate."

One of Roderick's illegitimate daughters, a sharp-tongued woman who heads Fortunato's PR division. Her story is themed around "The Murders in the Rue Morgue".

---

• Age Lift: The character she is named after and loosely based on was a young girl; she's a grown woman (the actress was 41 at the time of shooting). The family's proposed statement on her death claims she's 35.
• Animal Motifs: Snakes. The iconic outfit she's introduced in has a black blazer hiding a mesh body embroidered with snakes, whose heads clearly peek from the blazer's neckline. Fittingly, she barely conceals that she's a callous, venomous, amoral person who'll use just about anyone or anything to her advantage and bite the hand that feeds her on a whim.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: She dresses almost exclusively in black and white, and has part of her hair bleached to a silvery tone. Her job is all about whitewashing her family's image.
• At Least I Admit It: She goes on a long tirade about what horrible parasitic people the whole family is, herself included, and Verna points out that the main source of her hatred towards Victorine is the fact that she pretends to be a better person than she really is.
• Bad Boss: She's extremely rude to her employees and constantly belittles them, she forces her assistants to have sex with her, and she intentionally misnames Beth as Tina because she thinks its funny.
• Beneath the Mask: While she's callous about her little brother's death when faced with her assistants and other family members, she does later show a glimmer of remorse for how Perry turned out when talking to Leo. This is probably because she and Leo are the only two siblings who like each other so she's willing to let her guard down around him.
• Brutal Honesty: Ironically for someone working in PR, Camille seems to value honesty, and often drops blunt and harsh truths on people, such as her assertion to Leo that neither he, nor she, nor any of the Ushers actually make anything, instead stamping their name on other people's work. She also despises Victorine specifically because Vic hides her less-savory qualities from people while Camille is rather open about what she does and the effects it has.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She may be an asshole who demands sexual services from her assistants and carries intense grudges against most of her siblings (especially Victorine), but she's extremely good at what she does, which is manipulate the people involved in news and social media to create exactly the narrative she wants exactly when she wants it. Nothing proves this point more than her own death; the second she's down for the count, the headlines stop saying things like "tragic accident" and start saying things like "suspected murder-suicide". Lampshaded by Verna when she notes that Camille kept a file of Arthur's wrongdoings just in case she ever needed blackmail material on him.
  Verna: Camille L'Espanaye was very good at what she did.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: She's a spin doctor, and a good one, manipulating the press to control the narrative about her family. Except, because she does such a good job covering up her family's crimes, everyone in said family (and anyone else who knows what she does) is fully aware she's a Manipulative Bitch. Verna suggests this is why Camille hates Victorine so much. Vic is just as selfish and deceitful, but chose a career that gets her labeled a hero.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Being horribly mauled and having your face torn off by a rabid chimpanzee is not a nice way to go out.
• Deadpan Snarker: Aside from her outburst at Toby and Tina, she dishes the most savage of takes in a perfectly collected, if mildly sarcastic, tone.
• Death Glare: She gives a chilling one to Toby when he casually asks why Camille begrudges Victorine so much.
• Defiant to the End: While she's obviously terrified of Verna, her last words are to bluntly tell the Humanoid Abomination that she doesn't regret a thing, even her impending—and very brutal—death.
• Depraved Bisexual: She is an amoral executive who demands sex from her male and female employees.
• Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female and Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Played with. It's treated as wrong that the attractive Camille demands and exploits sex from her assistants, but it's still played for dark comedy.
• Entitled Bitch: After firing her assistants for asking to drop the demands for sex and giving them a degrading rant along with the termination, she has the gall to ask if they found condemning evidence against Vic. Unsurprisingly, they tell her to screw off and find out for herself.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She's a despicable asshole, who is frightfully efficient at whitewashing the innumerable crimes and human misery her family is responsible for, but of all her siblings she is genuinely close with Leo, who reciprocates the feelings. He is utterly devastated when she is killed.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: She appears utterly baffled when Toby and Tina offer her their condolences for Perry's death.
• Evil Is Petty: Well, pretty much everything she ever says is petty, but the way she arrogantly parks sideways across two spots, one of which is a disabled space (granted, it's way after-hours), says everything about how few damns she gives about anything. And she fires her two assistants, why? Because they were wondering if she could give up on mandating them to indulge her sexual fantasies all the while promising to still support her PR strategies. Considering the family that Camille came from, there was no reason why she couldn't hire actual sex workers in place of her assistants. It implies that the only reason she demanded her assistants to have sex with her is because of the power dynamics that it signifies. Which just makes her disgustingly petty.
• Face Death with Dignity: When Camille is confronted by Verna she realizes that she is about to die. While clearly afraid, in her final moments she regains her composure and says "Fuck it. I got mine."
• The Fashionista: And how.
• Foil: To Leo. They are the only siblings to show Prospero some love, even if it's either enabling or coming too late to be appreciated by him. Camille is impeccably dressed at any time and works immersed in cold white lights, while Leo is much more casual and favors warm, vibrant colors. They both channel their family fortune through technology, but Camille uses it to tighten the control of the Usher on the media, while Leo tries to distance himself from the rest of the Ushers through his videogame company. They both die because of an animal, but Camille is painfully mauled by a chimpanzee she has no way to fight off by herself, while Leo falls to his instant death trying to kill a cat that was never really trying to hurt him. Camille realizes she's about to die and regains one last moment of composure, while Leo is in a full mental breakdown and screams until the very end.
• Guilty Pleasure: She's seen watching and mimicking one of Bill's videos while alone, before quickly and surreptitiously turning it off when Toby and Tina arrive.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: She refuses to heed Verna's repeated warnings to leave Victorine's lab, and is so intent on getting proof of Victorine's alleged crimes that she angers captive chimpanzees by taking flash pictures in a dark room. And she wouldn't have been there in the first place if she hadn't just fired her assistants for refusing to continue their sexual relationship. She was going to die anyway, but it didn't have to be quite so violent or gruesome, and Verna makes sure to tell her so.
• Irrational Hatred: Although she doesn't seem to like most of her siblings (with the exception of Leo), Camille has a special loathing for Victorine, much to everyone's confusion since Vic didn't seem to have done anything to make Camille hate her. It's even said they're not that different from each other. "The Case of the Rue Morgue" has Verna reveal through her "The Reason You Suck" Speech that Camille is aware of their similarities, but resents that Vic hides her less-savory traits better while Camille wears them on her sleeve, and thus people see Vic as a respectable scientist while Camille has the reputation of a Manipulative Bitch.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • She has a whole speech about how none of the Ushers make anything, herself included. It's not particularly sensitive or tactful, and Camille herself is (as the other tropes assigned to her demonstrate) not a nice person, but she actually is right that the siblings' achievements are largely based on other peoples' work—Frederick wouldn't be an executive if he wasn't Roderick's son, Leo isn't a real game developer, he just pays them, etc.
  • She has particular venom for Victorine, who she resents for being just as cruel and callous as every other Usher but manipulates the public to believe she's good. This observation is very well founded.
  • It is a little convenient that Beth waited until her student loans were paid off to announce she and Toby were in love and wouldn't be having sex with Camille any more.
• Lady Swears-a-Lot: It kinda runs in the family, but she in particular tends to pepper her sentences with F-bombs, which spiral out of any control when she has her outburst at her assistants. Hell, even her Pre-Mortem One-Liner is a Precision F-Strike!
• Large Ham: She can be very theatrical when she gets going. Kate Siegel is clearly enjoying herself immensely in the role.
• Laughably Evil: She's a cutthroat, selfish womanchild whose whole career is covering for her family's many crimes and makes her assistants have sex with her, but she's also incredibly witty and sassy.
• Light Is Not Good: Her working and living spaces are immaculately white, and she herself is quite pale with platinum-blonde hair. She's just as ruthless and amoral as the rest of her family.
• Love Hungry: Mike Flanagan wrote on his Tumblr blog that Kate asked for there to be a human-sized dog cage, leashes, and collars on Camille's bedroom floor for this reason.
  It wasn't a random sex thing, either - for Kate, it explained a lot about Camille's particular personality. The sex wasn't about sex for her - it was about intense adoration. She's incapable of emotional intimacy with another person, and of considering the emotions of a potential partner - what she needed was the uncomplicated attention and pampering, and the way she interacted with her subordinates cemented that idea. The puppy play was an immediate and visual way to communicate that power dynamic.
• Makeup Is Evil: She has a penchant for prominent dark eyeliner and eyeshadow, which only add to her bitchy look.
• Manipulative Bitch: She's the family's PR representative and works to manipulate and spin anything that comes their way to make sure they get what they need, and she's definitely a bitch.
• Mean Boss: She will denigrate her two assistants at any opportunity. She also fires them when they refuse to continue providing sexual services to her but make it clear that they're still willing to do the other parts of their jobs.
• Nom de Mom: Like Vic, she doesn't take the Usher name, opting to still go by her mother's family name.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Played with. Her gruesomely mauled body is prominently shown after her death, as well as the blood-spattered room and bloody handprints suggesting that she spent quite some time trying to fight off the chimpanzee, but the actual attack itself is never shown. She is the only sibling whose death does not occur on camera. ^note This was probably a strategic decision owing to the difficulty involved in recreating a convincing chimp-vs-human battle in CGI.
• Pet the Dog: She does seem to genuinely like Julius, and tells Leo he should bring him to meet the family rather than hiding him away — although in fairness, that might be the edible talking.
• Post-Mortem Comeback: A variation which, interestingly, actually helps the hero against the final remaining villain. Camille has files with dirt on everyone, foes and allies alike. When the prosecution gets a hold of one of them after her death, it's enough to put Pym behind bars for life.
• Powerful People Are Subs: She flops forwards onto the bed, telling her assistants to make her "come at least twice", suggesting she expects them to take the lead.
• Power Hair: A high-powered businesswoman who wears her hair in a sharp, shoulder-length bob.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: She uses her power to force her assistants to have sex with her and she fires them the second they refuse to do so. She doesn't care if they consent and she expects her employees to know they're only valuable as long as she can use them for sex, something that stretches the limits of consent at the very least.
• Roguish Romani: If Kate Siegel is to be believed, then Camille picked up her affinity for manipulation from her Romani background. The actress stated Camille spent a lot of time lying and tricking people when she was living as a Romani.
• Too Important to Remember You: Played with—she knows her assistant Beth's name perfectly well, but insists on using the name Tina for her because she thinks it's funny to call her two assistants Toby and Tina.
• When She Smiles: "A Midnight Dreary" shows her smiling sincerely at Leo's quips during the family dinner, which contrasts a lot with her dour demeanour through the rest of the series.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Her hair is as perfectly silvery as her sense of morality is bankrupt.
• Womanchild: The way she behaves when firing Toby and Beth for not having sex with her anymore proves that she is quite stunted.
  Camille: I have specific needs. I have specific requirements for a particular and unique fucking lifestyle. I think it's really convenient that you two were excited when you signed your NDAs and consent forms and that you two fell in love, Tina, one month after I finish paying off your student debt, Tina?
  Beth: My name isn't Tina, you know that. My name is Beth.
  Camille: I don't give a shit, Beth! Damn it, Toby and fucking Tina makes me laugh, so at work you're FUCKING TINA! Why is that so— Ow. I have a fucking migraine. Fine, okay, oh, okay, you're in love. You're in love. Adorable little morons. You would think that spending this much time around Fortunato Industries would teach the two of you a little bit about brain chemistry, you dopamine-riddled little fuck puppets.
• Worth It: Her last words before being mauled by the chimpanzee are a simple "Fuck it. I got mine."

Napoleon

Napoleon "Leo" Usher

"Don't complain about the drugs."

Played by: Rahul Kohli

"I'm not part of the whole... Usher pharma bollocks. Like, I make video games, you know?"

One of Roderick's illegitimate sons, a video game publisher with a drug habit. His story is themed around "The Black Cat".

---

• Adaptational Heroism: While not a hero, Leo differs from the protagonist of "The Black Cat" in that he doesn't even think about killing Julius, and is horrified at the thought of having killed Pluto in a drug-induced frenzy. He does however try to kill the cat, but only after being repeatedly attacked by her.
• Adaptational Sexuality: The lead character in "The Black Cat" was married to a woman (but may have been in the closet). Leo is in a relationship with a man and has affairs with people of different genders.
• Addled Addict: He consistently has drugs in his system. According to Julius he used to keep it under control and still get work done, but the spate of family tragedies and Verna's influences leave him unable to do anything except get high and suffer the consequences.
• Affably Evil: He's just as much of a selfish Upper-Class Twit as the other Ushers, but Leo is generally friendly and the most openly loving sibling. Though he's not afraid to exploit his privilege and bribe people, he's also the only Usher aside from Lenore who never resorts to threats to get what he wants.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Despite Leo having been distant at best and having cheated on him in secret, Julius is still devastated by his death.
• Animal Motifs: Despite not liking cats, Leo shows several traits associated with felines, starting with his nickname. He's sexually promiscuous, sleeps a lot and keeps Julius close (when he needs it) with physical displays of affection, just as a cat would nudge against their owner.
• Anti-Villain: Leo isn't a good guy and he's a bad boyfriend to Julius, but he's not really evil, just selfish and hedonistic. He's also one of the only Ushers to express genuine love for his family, and his downward spiral is played somewhat sympathetically.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Averted: despite "Murder In The Rue Morgue" making it seem as though he brutally killed Pluto, his boyfriend's cat in a drug-induced fugue, Word of God confirms that Leo never actually hurt Pluto, and that the corpse of the cat that he saw was a hallucination. He does go into a violent rage targeting the replacement Pluto, however the replacement Pluto isn't real either and is actually Verna.
• Bastard Angst: While Roderick's illegitimate children all generally don't have it easy, Perry's conversation with him implies that the two of them might've had it a bit worse compared to Victorine and Camille, both of whom have wormed themselves into jobs and positions within their family that lend them a bit more respect.
• Big Beautiful Man: A bit stout, but also tall, well-built and often shirtless.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • He's seemingly the only family member who expresses sympathy for the youngest sibling Perry. Not only does he support Perry's venture by helping supply drugs, he even encourages him to find who he is outside of partying.
  • While it's unclear if he is the older or younger sibling, he is also the only family member to be utterly devastated by Camille's death and to be shown to genuinely grieve for her.
• Composite Character: Leo is named after the main character from "The Spectacles". He takes on the role of the protagonist of "The Black Cat".
• Cool Big Bro: In contrast to most of the siblings hostility towards each-other, Leo is actually friendly and even encouraging towards Perry. He believes in him and clearly wants better for him than dealing drugs. He also has a close relationship with Camille, though it's not clear which one is older.
• Dare to Be Badass: Gives Prospero an impassioned speech about how much potential and talent he has when the younger man expresses his frustration with his lot in life. "You're better than all of this, the minute you figure that out bruv: You're gonna be unstoppable."
• Dead Pet Sketch: Played for horror. To the best of his knowledge (Word of God says that the murdered cat was a hallucination, and that the real Pluto is fine) he accidentally kills Julius' cat while high, and gets a replacement lookalike from Verna (who is out to kill him). The new cat torments him until he falls to his death trying to get to it.
• Death by Adaptation: Both characters he draws inspiration from survived, though the narrator from The Black Cat is telling his story from death row. Leo ends up falling off a balcony trying to attack the cat that Verna's been making him hallucinate throughout the episode.
• Disney Villain Death: He falls from the balcony while trying to kill Pluto.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While keeping your siblings fueled with drugs isn't a functional way to prove it, his affection for Perry and Camille is genuine. Their deaths take a huge toll on his sanity. He also loves Julius despite all the cheating, and goes out of the way to replace the cat he believes to have killed.
• Eye Scream: He gets his eye scratched and scarred by the replacement cat, or so he thinks.
• Fatal Flaw: Cowardice. Leo can do good in his life (see White Sheep below), is capable of genuine affection and knows that his family is corrupt to the bone, but he prefers to numb himself (and other people) through drugs, sex and various leisures rather than face any of these issues in a proper way.
• Gentle Giant: Even with his many faults, he's one of the nicest Ushers and easily towers over the rest of the cast.
• Hypocrite: Despite his distaste for the source of his family's wealth, he doesn't mind living off it and using it to propel his video game company while still dealing drugs to his siblings from time to time. On a side note, video games can also become highly addictive and ruin the lives of people who become obsessed with them.
• Ironic Name: His nickname, "Leo", stems from the Latin word for "lion": despite being named for a big cat, he doesn't like them, he's a bit of a coward and his main adversary in his focus episode is a cat. He also doesn't really land safely on his feet as a cat would. He's also the tallest member of their family, despite what his full name would suggest.
• Irony: He encourages Prospero with a speech about the latter being better than what the family thinks of him. The problem is, Leo himself doesn't really know his own good traits due to his constant detachment from the serious issues in life.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He can be as much of a selfish, hedonistic jerk as the rest of the family, but he has some redeeming traits. He sincerely cares for Perry and tries to be a good brother to him and steer him in a better direction and genuinely cared for Camille, and when the family try to do damage control after Camille's death he flatly says that he's not going to put business before the fact that his brother and sister are dead. He also has a soft spot for animals, trying to use his wealth and family name to help a shelter for stray cats.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Averted. He's arguably the nicest Usher after Lenore, but he doesn't seem to like his partner's cat at all. (Ironically, Pluto seems to have taken a liking to him; her first appearance is jumping onto his lap and she runs up to his corpse and meows, trying to get his attention.)
• Licked by the Cat: Despite him thinking otherwise, Pluto seems to like him. His hallucinations revolve around the cat tormenting and wounding him, but, immediately after his death, we see that Pluto never did such things, and is actually trying to get his attention by meowing at his corpse.
• Manchild: He shows some aspects of this, such as his distracting himself through videogames and other leisures, expecting that throwing money at problems will solve them and channeling his bad emotions through out-of-place outbursts that contrast with his typical laid-back image.
• Manly Facial Hair: He has a thick, neatly trimmed beard that suits well his well-built physique and very active sex life. It becomes ruffled and unkempt during his breakdown, mirroring his rising aggressiveness.
• Men Don't Cry: Averted when he reacts to Camille's death with tears in his eyes, contrasting Tammy's cold and snarking comment.
• Morality Pet: He's the only one who elicits any kindness from Camille.
• Sanity Slippage: He's second only to Tamerlane in suffering this. Courtesy of Camille's death, a reckless drug use and Verna's influence, he starts hallucinating that Pluto is attacking him, to which he reacts by smashing the walls of his apartment in a murderous frenzy.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: As one would expect by a character portrayed by Rahul Kohli. One of the trailers even calls him "The Playboy".
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He's the tallest of the family at 6'4, dark-haired and has a snarky remark for every occasion.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: It's shown after his death that all of his struggles involving Pluto's death and her replacement weren't real, implying much of what the audience sees of his story is this. In particular, the entire scene at the Animal Shelter, per the picture Leo took that Pym shows to Roderick in "The Tell-Tale Heart," appears to have actually taken place in a dark, ruined, and filthy room.
• Token Good Teammate: Downplayed: he cheats on his boyfriend, heavily abuses drugs, hates cats, and is generally a manipulative and dishonest person, but he has a friendly and chill personality (mostly), shows genuine care towards Camille and Perry (unlike his more callous siblings) and despite the aforementioned cheating he does also care a lot about Julius and goes to a good deal of effort to make him happy, such as trying desperately to find a replacement cat, rather then let him be worried sick about his missing pet and writing his concern off. By Usher standards, he's practically a saint. He also is a lot more laid back in his assholery while the rest of the siblings are outright malicious.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Frederick asks him for drugs to help him cope with the increasing catastrophes he and the family are dealing with. While Leo probably should've known better (though he too is an addict), it's hard to imagine how anyone could've foreseen the things the quickly-addicted Frederick would do.
• Villainous Breakdown: His frustrations at the new cat's hostility eventually boil over into violent rage, leading him to trash his apartment with a hammer when he thinks the cat is hiding inside the walls.
• Villainous Glutton: Par for the course when it comes to drugs, but Leo metaphorically engorges himself with sex and videogames as well.
• White Sheep: Zig-Zagged. Despite being the Token Good Teammate of the Ushers and attempting to put distance between himself and the family's less-than-savory activities, Camille points out that he wouldn't be able to support his lifestyle without the money he gets from Roderick (which he gets through those less-than-savory activities). In addition, his focus episode shows him to be ultimately as selfish, dishonest, and arrogant as the rest of the family when worst comes to worst, though it could be argued that quite a bit of his attitude and actions in that episode are a direct result of the horrific deaths of his two closest siblings in two days, a fuckton of unsafe designer drug use, the guilt and trauma of believing that he violently killed an animal (let alone his partner's beloved pet) and some frankly harrowing Verna-induced hallucinations so it's hard to tell how much of that is actually a legitimate insight into his normal day-to-day behavior. It's also rather telling that his only major "fuck you, I'm an Usher" moment in the series is expressed via a promise (which it's pretty heavily implied that he keeps) that he'll renovate the kill-shelter, find homes for all the other cats, and personally treat the staffer that helps him to some high-end clothing if she allows him to take home the cat that looks like Pluto to keep his boyfriend happy; unlike most of his siblings, whose usual response to not immediately getting something they want is to outright threaten the person standing in the way of it.

Prospero

Prospero "Perry" Usher

"Well, the night's young. We can have all the fun you want."

Played by: Sauriyan Sapkota

"Dad doesn't believe in me and the rest make fun of me, but I blow the roof off this thing and I print seven figures out of thin air, maybe I get a fraction of the respect that's supposed to come with this name?"

Roderick's youngest illegitimate son, a hedonistic partier. His story is themed around "The Masque of the Red Death".

---

• The Baby of the Bunch: Prospero is the youngest and most immature of Roderick's children.
• Bastard Angst: It's briefly hinted that he and Leo didn't have an easy time growing up and being one of the bastards.
• Beauty to Beast: In his last moments, he goes from a well-groomed Pretty Boy to a writhing mass of exposed muscle tissue.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He acts like a moron, but his nightclub scheme shows he does have some brains; he just prefers being an immature party boy.
• Cain and Abel: The Abel to Frederick's Caine. The two of them absolutely loathe each other due to their respective shortcomings, with Frederick berating Prospero for his hedonism and lack of respect to the Usher name, while Prospero refuses to take Frederick seriously, and later attempts to seduce his wife Morrie just to piss him off. To emphasize just how much contempt he has for his oldest brother, Prospero even calls Frederick "DICKWAD" in his phone contacts.
• The Corruptible: He was sixteen when he was first brought into the family proper, and Leo and Camille muse that such a colossal leap from Rags to Riches at such a young age really messed him up.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: He is showered in corrosive acid, melting his skin off and giving him a truly agonizing demise.
• Depraved Bisexual: He is in a polyamorous relationship with a man and a woman and enjoys orgies. He's also willing to pull a knife on one of them simply because he believes they ate his expensive eggs, and thinks it'll be fun to seduce his sister-in-law just to stick it to his older brother.
• Didn't Think This Through: When he uses the old factory for his party/orgy, he hooks up the water (which had been shut off) to the old tanks on the roof. Unfortunately, he apparently wasn't listening to the meeting that noted that the factory had been leaking toxins into the groundwater, and that the water tanks on the roof were so full of chemicals that they were basically acid: when they turn on the water during the party, it turns out to be corrosive, horrifically killing everyone in attendance except the wait staff (who slip out before the sprinklers turn on) and Morella (though she still ends up badly injured).
• Freudian Excuse: He's spent his life being treated as an outsider by all of his siblings other than Leo and given little affection by his father, and desperate to prove he's more than just a rich party boy.
• The Hedonist: Enjoys partying, orgies, and hard drugs. It's to the point that his proposed business venture is a chain of exclusive nightclubs, which deeply disappoints his father and aunt. Then again, the whole point of said nightclub chain would have been to gather blackmail material on other rich and influential people, so his pitch did at least have some thought put into it.
• Lack of Empathy: His only response to hearing about how the Ushers' abandoned factories caused pollution thanks to their toxic chemicals is to decide one would be a good place for his nightclub.
• Likes Older Women: He'll get it on with anyone he thinks is attractive, being shown flirting with Morella (who is his sister-in-law) and Verna (who is some kind of immortal supernatural being).
• Out with a Bang: He dies from an acid sprinkler while in the middle of an orgy.
• Pretty Boy: He's young, svelte, handsome, and well-groomed. Verna mournfully calls him a beautiful boy before killing him.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Threatens one of his lovers with a fork because he mocked him about a set of eggs he was looking for, and attempted to seduce his sister-in-law in order to torment his older brother.
• Rags to Riches: Prospero apparently didn't have much when he was living with his mother, but came to inherit millions after meeting his father when he was 16. Leo and Camille believe that the sudden and massive transition between economic classes at such a young age messed up his mental development.
• Really Gets Around: Prospero is notorious for his hedonistic lifestyle, where he frequently hosts massive orgies for the ultra-wealthy and sleeps with multiple men and women alike during the events. Even Roderick, who isn't exactly prudish when it comes to sex, admits that Prospero and his antics were nothing short of utterly crazy.
• Saying Too Much: The family quickly regrets having him at a deposition, as he marvels at the properties they owned with the federal prosecutors gleefully recording his confession the family does in fact own locations like illegal chemical dumping grounds, among others.
• Smarter Than You Look:
  • He's disregarded by the rest of the family as an unintelligent hedonist. In reality, the clubs he was trying to get off the ground were to blackmail wealthy and influential people by recording their illicit behavior without their knowledge.
  • The morning after Roderick and Madeline turn down his nightclub pitch, he actually lays out a very accurate description of the whole affair: namely, that Roderick's seemingly benevolent offer of start-up money to all of his children is really just a way for him to keep them under his thumb. He even muses that in light of how dysfunctional this has made all of his siblings, he might be better off without his father's involvement.
• Too Dumb to Live: The reason he dies is because he hooked his party's sprinkler system up to tanks on the roof of a building he knows is being demolished as an environmental hazard without even testing it. Surprise surprise, the tanks were holding extremely corrosive material. Roderick is practically incredulous at it, stating that if Prospero had bothered to pay any attention to the family business for a minute, he'd have known this.

Lenore

Lenore Usher

"I say this with love. Let it go. Let it all go."

Played by: Kyliegh Curran

"Are the charges true? Because if not, we've got nothing to worry about. But if someone really broke the law, shouldn't they be punished?"

The daughter of Frederick and Morella, and Roderick's beloved only grandchild.

---

• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: Her character in "The Raven" was the narrator's lost love; here, she's his granddaughter.
• Affectionate Nickname: Freddie occasionally calls her "Peanut" as a term of endearment.
• Agent Mulder: She completely believes Verna, a complete stranger to her, when Verna tells her what the future holds for her mother, never once seeming to question it or expressing confusion.
• All for Nothing: Defied. Unlike nearly everyone else in her family, Verna makes a specific point of informing Lenore that while her death is undeserved, it will not be for nothing, because her choice to save her mother's life allowed her mother to recover, inherit the remains of Fortunato, and eventually help save countless people.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Perry is the youngest of the siblings, but as the Usher's sole generational grandchild, Lenore is the youngest of all the Ushers.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: And Verna made sure it would be like this. Instead of killing Lenore violently, not that she wanted to at all, she does so with a simple touch to her forehead that leaves her body completely untouched. Her ghost reflects the lack of trauma in her death, where the only disturbing features are her Prophet Eyes and Undeathly Pallor, which all of the ghosts share (the ones that have skin, anyway).
• Big Good: The closest thing that comes to it. Though Lenore is prevented from doing much actual good—she dies when she's only in her mid- to late teens—Verna makes a point of telling Lenore that her contribution has been overwhelmingly positive to the world. Her mother, Morrie, starts a charity in her name and before she dies, Verna tells her that she will save thousands of lives.
• Big Sleep: While her entire family dies in excruciatingly violent and painful ways, Lenore just collapses on her bed like she was sleeping when Verna ends her life.
• Children Are Innocent: A young girl who so far seems immune from the toxicity of her extended family. Unfortunately, said innocence does not make her immune to the consequences of her family's crimes, nor from the consequences of Roderick and Madeline's deal with Verna.
• Clone Angst: If Madeline's "digital immortality" project worked as she promoted it, there's an immortal copy of Lenore's consciousness that thinks it's her, endlessly repeating "nevermore" .
• Dead All Along: Throughout his time expositing to Dupin, Roderick keeps receiving texts from Lenore whom Dupin tells him to answer. But it turns out that Lenore had been peacefully taken by Verna hours before and the texts he was receiving were made by an AI program made from Lenore's digital footprint by Madeline. A digital ghost.
• Death of a Child: She's the last of Roderick Usher's descendants to die. Her death impacts Auguste, Roderick himself, and noticeably Verna the most adversely, as all three express profound sorrow that she ends up dying.
• Ethereal White Dress: The last outfit Lenore is shown wearing in the finale after the funeral of the last three Usher children is a nightgown that is not pure white but still looks bright and white at a glance. And as with everyone else in her family, her ghost is shown adopting the appearance she had when she died. Her ghost is always seen in light colors after it's revealed that she's dead. Crosses with Good Wears White as she's the only morally upstanding bloodline Usher.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Averted with her own father, but very much played straight with the rest of her family, most notably with her grandfather. To the very end of the series and her life, she loves her grandfather without question. To the point where she even suggests that the two get to work trying to fix the damage left in the wake of Fortunato.
• Extremely Protective Child: Lenore is very protective of her mother, Morella, and goes against her father Frederick, breaking down a door in desperation to save her mother's life and take her to the hospital.
• Face Death with Dignity: While at first she's understandably wary of Verna, Verna takes extra care to comfort her. It's implied that Lenore realizes that she's about to die, but she never once breaks down, and instead smiles knowing that her mother will go on to save numerous lives.
• Foil: To her grandfather, Roderick. Both are descended from Fortunato executives and live in the lap of luxury and privilege, but while Roderick succumbs to greed and corruption with his only legacy being all the people he's killed over it, Lenore sticks to her principles and remains morally unimpeachable, and as Verna reveals, her legacy is the saving of uncountable lives through charities started by her mother, whose life Lenore saved.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Inverted. While the entire family is hostile to one another in a myriad of ways which is amplified by the reveal of an informant among them, nobody has anything bad to say about Lenore, nor does anyone even accuse her of being the informant. The latter part is definitely helped by her young age making her the unlikeliest culprit, but even in other contexts, no one ever says anything bad about her.
• Generation Xerox: Roderick himself says that she's similar to his wife, her grandmother, Annabel. Both of them are kind-hearted, unlike their relatives, and want those around them to do what's right. Notably, though, she's more assertive and perceptive than her grandmother and is willing to give a verbal beatdown to her father for what he's done. So, in her case, she's more of a Good Is Not Soft kind of person.
• Good Is Not Soft: Other than possibly Annabel, she's the most moral person on the show with a pure and ethical standing even Dupin can't claim to have. But where Annabel crumbles and cries in the presence of bad people, Lenore is not afraid to stand up to incredibly dangerous people like her father, who is a Domestic Abuser and Arthur Pym who is The Dreaded.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: She ends up being the inspiration for the last surviving Ushers to go in a much more benevolent direction. Specifically, her decision to save her mother and get her to a clinic for proper treatment and recovery (along with her own tragic passing at Verna's reluctant hands) leads to Morrie using her inheritance to save millions of lives years down the line.
• I'm Not Afraid of You: She's the only Usher unintimidated by Arthur Pym. She specifically defies his attempt to get her to fall in line with a lie to preserve her family's reputation and even dares him to try to get close to her mother over her dead body.
• Inspirational Martyr: Downplayed. While Lenore's death will likely be ruled as due to natural causes, Verna foresees that Morella will create the Lenore Foundation to honor the girl's memory, saving millions of lives in the following years.
• Karmic Jackpot: A very twisted case of this. The "reward" she gets for being the most moral and desiring to make the family better and more philanthropic amounts to a painless death compared to the rest of her family. Verna clearly doesn't want to kill Lenore, but has no choice.
• Last of Her Kind: Lenore is the only direct descendant of Roderick Usher in attendance at the funeral for the last three Usher children deaths, leaving her as the only one to carry the legacy. Until Verna comes for her as well, as the terms of the deal with her was not just for the next generation, but the whole bloodline to die with Roderick, meaning even Lenore has to die. Her death leaves the Usher bloodline functionally extinct, with Roderick and Madeline's deaths leaving it completely extinct.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Frederick is a yes-man to the Usher patriarch who's just as cruel as everyone else in the family and intent in sweeping their crimes under the rug. Lenore is a Nice Girl who, while also being raised in a comfortable lifestyle, wants to do the right thing and questions the effects that the Ushers' family business has had on numerous lives.
• The Lost Lenore: Averted. She may share the name "Lenore", but she doesn't fulfill this role to anyone. She still dies, but she's the protagonist's granddaughter instead of his lost love.
• Morality Pet:
  • Lenore elicits more love and warmth from Roderick than everyone else in his family combined. And he's the most broken up over her death out of all of them.
  • To an extent she's this for the whole Usher family. In a family where everyone seems to tolerate each other at best and openly despise each other at worst, no one has anything bad to say about Lenore. She brings out the few sincere, wholesome qualities in her Hate Sink father and even Iron Lady Madeline uncharacteristically calls her an affectionate pet name and smiles liberally in her presence.
  • Finally, she's this to the otherwise implicit demon/devil that is Verna. When Verna comes to take Lenore's life as part of Roderick's bloodline-ending bargain, Verna herself is subtly distraught that she has to kill Lenore. So she makes sure that the girl is comforted in her final moments, and reassures her that she will not be forgotten, and that her mother will live on to be a philanthropist who saves millions years down the line. She's also given the only painless and peaceful death among the Ushers.
• Must Make Amends: She may not have been involved in Fortunato, but she's aware of the damage that the company has had in helping push forth the opioid crisis and expresses a wish to start to fix things.
• Nice Girl: She's a kind, moral and caring person who has a good ethical compass and loves her family, even being the only one to make an effort to be nice to Juno and welcome her to the family.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: She's the only Usher who is unflinchingly and unequivocally good-hearted and yearns for nothing more than to do the right thing. She wishes to fix the damage done by her family, and saves her mother from the horrific abuse her father's putting her through. It still doesn't save her from the deal Roderick and Madeline made with Verna, a fact that greatly saddens Verna when it's time to kill Lenore.
• Peaceful in Death: She's the only Usher who dies in peace instead of pain. Verna takes extra care to make sure of that.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Lenore might be kind, gentle, and sweet-natured, but that does not make her a pushover: Roderick notes that she's as kind as Annabel, but has his spirit and determination. She not only saves her mother from Frederick, she stands up to Arthur when he tries to coerce her into staying quiet about Frederick's abuse for the sake of the family's image, and then immediately marches back over to the police to add to her statement.
  Lenore: I don't care what's good for the company. Or the family. This is about my mom. And if you think you're coming near her with another pair of pliers, over my dead body, you fucking ghoul.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Lenore is the ultimate culmination of what this trope does to innocent people. She's a sweet girl who wants to do nothing but the right thing, saves her mother from her abusive father, refuses to protect the family name in defiance of Arthur Pym, and encourages her grandfather to just let go of the whole business. However, the bargain made with Verna dooms her to death either way, and Verna herself is clearly not happy that she's forced to kill Lenore for something that happened long before she was even born.
• Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: Lenore hardly ever appears in the marketing despite being an Usher and also played by a well-known child actress most notably in the second teaser that introduces the whole bloodline and Arthur Pym. This mostly reflects how she's completely disconnected from her amoral backstabbing family.
• Spoiled Sweet: She's the beloved teenage granddaughter of a big pharma CEO and lives in a mansion, but she's got a sweet-natured personality and is always thinking of morally correct actions and the greater good.
• Superior Successor: To her grandparents and her great-aunt, as Roderick admits. She has her grandmother's moral compass and heart combined with his own determination and ambition (shared with Madeline). She never lives to get to put those traits of hers to use.
• Token Good Teammate: Among those who are members of the Usher family by blood, she's this, being the only one who wants to stop the cycle of corruption and exploitation that the family business has perpetuated.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: The only Usher who actually cares about doing what's right, endlessly optimistic and always thinking of others before herself. She is repeatedly told by her relatives that these qualities, while admirable, are unwise in a family like theirs and when it's time for her to die, Verna is the gentlest with her and almost implies she wishes she could make an exception for Lenore but sadly she must see the deal through.
• Wealthy Philanthropist: She wants to be this, as she says to her grandfather in the finale. In her own words, she wants to put all the money they have, which is more than either of them can ever spend, and put it to good use to at least help clean up some of what their family did. Unfortunately, Lenore dies later that night per the deal with Verna, but she dies knowing that her mother will fulfill her wish. Juno ends up being the other half of the wish, where she explicitly works to help addicts.
• White Sheep: Easily the kindest and most moral of the Ushers, and she ultimately rebels against their way of thinking and living by saving her mother from Frederick's abuse and refusing to toe the party line by keeping quiet about it. Roderick even lampshades it in his talk with August, calling Lenore "the best of us".

Partners and Extended Family

Eliza

Eliza Usher

"Remember what Mother Teresa said: "Pain and suffering are like the kiss of Jesus."

Played by: Annabeth Gish

"Where is your faith? Your body is a temple of God. And you'd pollute it?!"

The mother of Roderick and Madeline.

---

• Abusive Parents: While it's clear she loved her children, her extreme religious beliefs certainly made their lives harder than they needed to be (especially when they were sick or injured). Near the tail end of her life, she would violently lash out at them. When she burrowed her way out of the makeshift grave she ended up in (because her children were too afraid to call the authorities), she initially attempts to strangle Roderick. It's worth noting that the adult Roderick attributes his and Madeline's status as villain protagonists to the way she raised them.
• The Fundamentalist: Extremely religious, perhaps in-part compensating for her affair with a married man, to the point that she feels the only way to heal is through faith and western medicine and hospitals are sacrilege.
• Not Quite Dead: While she appeared dead enough that her children actually buried her, Eliza was only very NEAR death and in fact lived long enough to climb out of her grave and kill her former boss/lover only to then finally really die.
• Sanity Slippage: While never the most stable parent, her sanity is completely gone by the time of her death, at which point she's prone to snapping and raving at her children.
• Taking You with Me: After being Buried Alive, she uses her last bit of strength to murder William Longfellow.

Annabel

Annabel Lee Usher

"You are so small."

Played by: Katie Parker

"The kids are healthy, and happy, we're together. Money isn't everything. We're okay."

Roderick's first wife and mother to Frederick and Tamerlane.

---

• Ate His Gun: Her ghost has a large gaping hole in the back of her head, indicating she likely committed suicide by firing a gun in her mouth.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Unlike her ruthlessly ambitious husband and sister-in-law, Annabel is good to the core, and only has the well-being of her family in mind. Decades after her death, Roderick glumly notes that whatever goodness their children may have inherited from her is long gone, but it's very present in Lenore.
• Disowned Parent: Annabel's ghost reveals that Frederick and Tamerlane eventually abandoned her in favor of securing their place within Roderick's pharmaceutical empire. It's worth noting that while Roderick still misses her and despairs over how he destroyed her influence in their children, Freddie and Tammy themselves never acknowledge or bring up their mother in the present day before their deaths.
• Driven to Suicide: It's eventually revealed that she killed herself after watching her family's increasing amorality over the years.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Roderick sees her ghost at their children's funeral. She is devastated at what happened to them and makes it clear she blames Roderick completely for corrupting them. As he recites the poem named after her, she walks to their caskets, breaking down over them.
• First Girl Wins: While Roderick has got around a lot, his first wife Annabel is the only woman that he's truly loved.
• I Have No Son!: Downplayed. While Annabel still saw Frederick and Tamerlane as her children, their gradual corruption by Roderick degraded them to the point where she saw them as nothing as Empty Shells. She even muses that her kids essentially "died" in their childhoods, long before Verna herself would kill them in their adult lives.
• The Incorruptible: Unlike her husband and sister-in-law, Annabel wasn't interested in making boatloads of money to succeed in the world, and becomes utterly devastated when they reveal their true nature to her later in their life. Worth noting that Frederick and Tamerlane eventually went on to abandon their mother in favor of their father's wealth, despairing her to the point of suicide.
• The Lost Lenore: Appropriately, given the subject matter. Roderick's first wife and mother to his only legitimate children, she was the only woman he ever truly loved. Her memory still haunts both him and the rest of his family.
• Loving a Shadow: When she leaves Roderick after he betrays Dupin, she outright states that he wasn't the man she married and that she might have made that man up. It gets some poetic justice in the way that her shadow literally haunts Roderick.
• Morality Pet: Played with. Auguste wonders how he trusted Roderick in the 70s, and realized that he trusted Annabel. Auguste figured if a person as good as Annabel could love and be married to Roderick, then Roderick probably wasn't all bad. Unfortunately, Annabel's influence couldn't stop Roderick from embracing the dark side, and she later killed herself after their children went to Roderick.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: She (or rather, her ghost) gives a quiet but hard-hitting one to Roderick following Frederick and Tamerlane's funeral.
  Annabel: "He's rich." When people ask how you took them, how you convinced them away from me, "he's rich", I'd say, "he's rich". And you don't understand what that word means. They were young. They only knew appetite, and "Here", you said, "come with me. Gorge yourselves." How could I compete with that? You didn't feed them, though, did you? You starved them. Less and less of them came back each time until they were empty, they were siphoned. You started filling them up with...what did you fill them up with, Roderick? What did you have to fill them with? Because you weren't rich, were you? I thought you were a rich man all this time, but I...I see you now. I look at you and I see... You. The poverty of you.
  Roderick: Annabel...
  Annabel: Maybe this was a kindness in disguise. Maybe they died in their childhoods.

Juno

Juno Usher

"Be really part of something, you know? Silly, aren't I?"

Played by: Ruth Codd

"All this madness. It's just weird to me. I guess all these terrible things and I thought, that's when people come together. But we've never been further apart."

Roderick's second wife, an amputee from Ireland, whom his children hate for being significantly younger and for being a former drug addict.

---

• Acquired Poison Immunity: An example pertaining to drugs instead of poison, but Juno's past as a heroin addict means that she's able to take a great deal of Ligodone and absorb the effects remarkably well. It's eventually made clear that this is what makes her valuable to Roderick, as he can point to Juno as an example of Ligodone being "safe" to use.
• Adoptive Peer Parent: All her stepchildren hate her in part because she's their peer in age or significantly younger.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: She is this in a way to the drug Ligodone, which the Fortunato company has based its empire on. Her system has absorbed the drug in a way no other patient has to the point where she would take years to safely wean herself off of it. At least, this is how her husband Roderick describes it, which causes his relationship with her to take on a far darker context.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Marrying an exorbitantly rich CEO is a dream come true for most people, especially someone who has had it as hard as Juno, but even though she is never physically abused, she quickly learns that the Usher family is a breeding ground for toxicity. Nearly all of her earnest attempts to be a good stepmother are met with disdain.
• The Dog Bites Back: After spending the whole series accepting whatever kind of mistreatment comes her way, she tells off Roderick in a "The Reason You Suck" Speech once it becomes clear just how toxic their marriage is.
• Fighting Irish: Inverted. She's from Ireland, as is Ruth Codd, but is very passive and non-confrontational. Eventually played straight however when it becomes clear her marriage to Roderick is toxic and he tries to to force her to stay on his highly addictive medication for no other reason than "optics". She tells him off and fights her way through three years of detox in order to live cleanly.
• Gold Digger: Subverted. Almost the entire cast sees her as this, but a conversation she has with Tamerlane reveals that the thing that excited her the most about marring into the Ushers was not the money; she was excited about marrying into a big family. We don't learn a lot about her past, but she doesn't have any close relatives. Despite knowing that her stepchildren don't like her, she tries to be there for them and attends Tamerlane's Goldbug launch. In the end, she gets a huge inheritance once the Usher bloodline is wiped out, but she dedicates it to helping other addicts.
• Ironic Name: Named after the goddess of marriage, fertility, and sovereignty, but has a terrible marriage, no children and no role in the Usher family except Trophy Wife, and is disrespected and ignored—even, it turns out, by the husband who supposedly loves her.
• May–December Romance: Roderick is old enough to be Juno's grandfather, which is remarked upon (and disparaged) by multiple characters.
• Nice Girl: She's very sweet-natured and cares deeply about her adopted family, even with all the abuse they level at her.
• No-Sell: Her survival after getting KOed in the forehead by a rather heavy mic stand thrown across the room by an unraveling Tamerlane comes as something of a shock—most viewers would assume that she had been killed outright, like so many of the Ushers' other disposable associates. As it turns out, her addiction to Ligodone meant she barely felt it.
• Parent with New Paramour: She's Roderick's current wife and is implied to have just been recently married to him, a fact that all his children really dislike, with the huge age gap being a big part of the reason why.
• Recovered Addict: She not only beats her addiction to the "medication" that her husband had essentially forced on her, but uses her inheritance to help other people whose lives have been damaged by the Usher family's terrible product.
• Trophy Wife: Fits the bill of a young, attractive wife to a much older, rich man. In a more psychologically messed up definition of "trophy," it's clear Roderick is mainly interested in her to use as an example of Ligodone being safe. He is furious when she tells him of her plan to get off it, and by the end of the scene, it's clear the marriage will soon be over.
• Wicked Stepmother: Inverted. She genuinely tries to get along with her stepchildren and is met with coldness and hostility at every turn, mainly due to being considerably younger than them.

Bill

William "Bill-T" Wilson

"You could always push back the launch."

Played by: Matt Biedel

"Let's set our shit aside for just a minute and take stock of what has happened."

Tamerlane's husband, a fitness influencer.

---

• Decomposite Character: He has the name of "William Wilson". His wife is the one with a doppelganger.
• Love Martyr: He tries so very, very hard to support Tamerlane despite her remoteness and harsh attitude. Later, he only gets angry with her out of Anger Born of Worry since she's become a workaholic who not only barely sleeps, but are even showing overt signs of very serious mental illness (having dissociative episodes and blaming him for things she did herself, and not in a gaslighting sense, but geniunely believing that he was the one who did them), and only walks out after a truly vicious "The Reason You Suck" Speech from Tam. And even then, he still comes to her with one last appeal, which doesn't work.
• Nice Guy: He is supportive of his wife and even indulges her fetishes even though he doesn't care for them.
• Punny Name: His online nickname, "Bill-T" is a pun on "built"
• Spared by the Adaptation: Since Tamerlane is dealing with a doppelganger here, Bill-T is still alive at the end.
• Unwitting Pawn: He was one to Tamerlane, as she married him largely to further her brand and put a charismatic face on her company, and he was completely unaware of this. When she hurls the truth at him during an argument, he's devastated.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Unlike the other surviving Usher spouses, we never learn what happened to him after Tamerlane died.

Alessandra

Alessandra "Ali" Ruiz

"We're supposed to be partners in this."

Played by: Paola Núñez

"It doesn't matter because we're not ready, Victorine!"

Victorine's girlfriend and the chief surgeon on her cardiac trial.

---

• Accidental Murder: And from her own girlfriend, no less.
• Age Lift: The murder victim in "The Tell-Tale Heart" was an old man. Paola Núñez was forty-four at the time of filming.
• Beat Still, My Heart: Played With in a very gruesome manner. After it's revealed that not only was the sound Victorine hearing real, but that it came from the heart mesh, it's shown to be wrapped around her heart as part of Vic's futile attempt to bring her back to life after accidentally killing her. Of course, this doesn't do anything since her life-ending injury was directed to her head.
• Composite Character: Her first name is taken from the Edgar Allan Poe play, Politian. In this series, she serves the same role as the old man in "The Tell-Tale Heart".
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Not nearly as bad as most of the other characters. But one still can only hope she was properly dead before Victorine performed impromptu anesthetic-free open heart surgery (complete with chest spreader) on her on the living room floor. And even if she was, that means she died bleeding out after a serious traumatic head injury, after watching Victorine choose not to call 911 or summon the security guards who are right outside the door.
• Gender Flip: The victim in the original "The Tell-Tale Heart" was male.
• Loving a Shadow: She clearly thinks of Victorine as one of the "good" Ushers, and is heartbroken to find out about Victorine forging her signature and booking her for surgery behind her back. One of the last things she says to Victorine is "You're not who I thought you were."
• Never My Fault: Averted. During their argument, Victorine makes the fair point that Alessandra had no problems with turning a blind eye to things when Vic was funding her clinic and projects, and has no business getting mad about the falsified reports now. Rather than get defensive or double down, she immediately agrees with Vic and admits that she let things go too far...which unfortunately for Vic, motivates Alessandra to dump her and whistleblow on the whole thing. Or at least intends to, before Vic kills her.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Despite being a gentle Nice Girl, Alessandra is one of the only people in the inner circle who in any way defies the rules they live by, including almost refusing to sign an NDA without having her own lawyer look it over (and only giving in due to pressure from the family) and being furious with Victorine for falsifying data with her name on it so she can proceed to human trials for the heart mesh, even threatening to leave Vic and break the NDA regardless of the consequences. Sadly, the only thing her integrity and nerve gets her is accidentally murdered by her girlfriend.
• What You Are in the Dark: Despite signing an NDA and knowing the Ushers would rain hell on her, she refuses to keep quiet about the unethical things Victorine has done.

Morella

Morella "Morrie" Usher

"Lenore, that is a brave and thoughtful thing to say."

Played by: Crystal Balint

"Well, I want your dad to love it. And this always just delights him when he's in such a mood."

Frederick's wife, a former actress.

---

• Beauty to Beast: She's a very attractive woman but the acid burns horribly mutilate her. To say nothing of Frederick's actions. Though Verna assures Morella that she'll later make a full recovery.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': She has one moment of weakness brought on by the stress of marrying into the Ushers. And she gets punished with a full body acid chemical bath and being drugged and tortured by her vengeful husband.
• Composite Character: Takes her name from the title characters of "Morella" and suffers the fate of the title character of "Berenice".
• Earn Your Happy Ending: As happy as it can really be called in a bleak series. She suffers horribly when she's burned at Prospero's party, subsequently tortured by her cowardly husband, and ends up outliving her innocent daughter. However, Verna reveals that she will persevere through her trauma and recover, and goes on to save millions of lives through the foundation she will name for her late daughter.
• Facial Horror: She survives getting acid rained on her, but her skin is burned off.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Sadly she outlives her daughter Lenore, who dies as part of Roderick's deal with Verna, but she goes on to name her charity outreach program in Lenore's memory.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Both Morellas died in the story which inspired her name. Morrie goes through hell, but just barely manages to survive.
• The Tooth Hurts: Frederik tortures poor Morrie by brutally yanking out her teeth with pliers while she is utterly powerless to fight back.
• Wealthy Philanthropist: Verna assures Lenore that Morella will inherit a huge amount of money after Fortunato collapses and all the direct heirs die, and will use most of it for charity and philanthropic causes.

Julius

Julius

Played by: Daniel Jun

"Did he mean it or is it just the edibles and the pot and the speed and the wine and the coke and the pills talking?"

Leo's boyfriend.

---

• Adaptational Sexuality: Inspired by the wife in "The Black Cat", but is still in a relationship with a man.
• Composite Character: Takes his name from The Journal of Julius Rodman and serves the role of the unnamed wife in "The Black Cat".
• Decomposite Character: He owns the first cat like the wife in "The Black Cat", but he's not the body found in the walls.
• Gender Flip: Julius serves the role of the wife in "The Black Cat", being the partner of that story's protagonist and owning Pluto.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: He is only ever seen either attempting to support Leo throughout his personal and familial travails, or concerned about his beloved cat Pluto.
• Morality Pet: Subverted. He did his best to be one to Leo but the man continuously did drugs against his wishes, lashed out at him, and acted like his boyfriend was a piece of furniture.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Unlike the wife in "The Black Cat", his life is never in danger.

Jenny & Faraj

Jenny and Faraj

Played by: Molly Quinn (Jenny) & Jay R Tinaco (Faraj)

Perry's two main sex partners

---

• Canon Foreigner: They have no counterparts in the Poe stories.
• I Want My Mommy!: As she lies in a pile of acid and her own soupy remains, Jenny moans out an agony-filled "Daddy..." as she slowly dies.
• Massage of Love: Jenny tenderly massages Faraj's feet as they rest in her lap while they have breakfast, perhaps to soothe her because Prospero just held a fork to her throat.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: They suffer the same Cruel and Unusual Death as Perry in the episode they are introduced in.

Usher Associates

Arthur

Arthur Pym

Played by: Mark Hamill

"I won't be leveraged. No man or woman has leveraged me in 70 years of life."

The family lawyer and fixer.

---

• The Ace: A superb lawman who has easily demolished every attempt to mount a case against the Usher family, as well as a master hitman.
• Actor Allusion: Verna offers Arthur a deal of his own, which would not be the first time Mark Hamill has been tempted by a figure of evil.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Arthur is treated as The Dreaded by people who know what he's capable of, and he's clearly a ruthless and cold-blooded man willing to go to extremes, but he's completely over his head when it comes to Verna. Luckily, she's impressed enough with him that she doesn't hold his attempt to kill her against him.
• Amoral Attorney: He unscrupulously protects the corrupt Usher family from all sorts of charges.
• Badass Bookworm: Arthur is both an hyper competent lawyer who's defended the Usher family successfully for decades and a master assassin.
• Corporate Samurai: Although we don't see him do much outside of his usual work as an Amoral Attorney, the way he handles his attempted murder of Verna under Madeline's command and Roderick's comment that Auguste is "thinking too small" when he comments that he considers Pym the kind of man you would send to clean up after someone in the family accidentally murders a prostitute, hints at a lifestyle eerily similar to this.
• Consummate Professional: Arthur Pym does everything for Roderick Usher without question or complaint, whether it be representing them in court, disposing of dead bodies, or anything in between. Verna even lampshades this, noting that his service to the Ushers appears to be the only thing he has left in his life.
• Divine Intervention: There are implications that Verna sent Arthur to the Ushers, aware of his intelligence and abilities from their meeting at the Transglobe Expedition, as her fulfillment of her end of the deal protecting the Usher family from legal ramifications.
• The Dreaded: Everyone, from the Ushers to their opponents, is terrified of Arthur Pym. Hence, his nickname of the Pym Reaper.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Played with. There are signs he's fond of the Usher children, some of whom he's known since they were very young. He even playfully flicks Tam in the forehead while handing out the nondisclosure agreements during family dinner in the first episode, but by the end of the series, they're all dead, and therefore Verna has few options to take as collateral when she offers him a deal later on, but the fact that she even offers to strike a deal with him would imply that this trope applies.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Though Arthur may be a stone cold killer and Amoral Attorney willing to cover up or dispose of anything that may serve as a threat to his employers, he doesn't seem to do anything evil for personal gratification. Most notably, while he does witness a horrific rape while trending the Transglobe Expedition, Arthur himself refuses to participate in it.
  • When Verna tells him that one of her "clients" was told he could, quote, "shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not be arrested," Arthur asks her when his debt is coming due because even he is getting sick of him.
  • As his quote above shows, under no circumstances will Arthur Pym ever allow himself to be leveraged by someone else. Though he's appreciative of Verna's offer towards him, Arthur politely turns it down, knowing that it would debilitate him down the road, even when the alternative option is being sentenced to life in prison.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He has a deep, raspy voice and he is a corrupt lawyer and assassin.
• Forgotten First Meeting: His conversation with Verna reveals that he saw her during the Transglobe Expedition, at the North Pole. Given his shock when she brings this up, it's possible he simply explained it away as seeing things.
• Freudian Excuse: It is strongly implied the things he witnessed during the Transglobe Expedition, which he was part of, took a heavy toll on his mind, possibly going some way to explain his disregard for human life.
• Hero of Another Story: It's heavily implied that he's the in-universe version of the protagonist from The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.
• Hidden Depths: Unlike the Ushers, he's willing to accept the consequences of his actions and refuses to take the easy way out, which means he'll spend the rest of his life in prison.
• Honor Before Reason: Arthur refuses to indulge in Verna's offer for him, as it would involve him being under the leverage of someone else. And that's something he refuses to willingly do under any circumstances.
• Genre Savvy: He figures out that Verna is behind the deaths of the Usher children and that she is very dangerous before anyone else. He also wisely decides that prison and presumably a peaceful death are a better choice than striking a deal with her and getting some more freedom in exchange for a definite violent death for both himself and any remaining loved ones he has.
• High-Class Gloves: Wears these often, especially when dealing with some of the rather gory aftermaths of some of the Usher's deaths. It seems like merely a glimpse into an exceedingly-formal and rather closed-off nature, but proves rather relevant during his reveal as a hitman for the Usher clan and his attempt to kill Verna.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: To the immoral Usher family but in particular to Roderick and Madeline, Madeline more than Roderick. In fact it's implied he answers directly to her. He's their lawyer, their "cleaner", their hitman and is even willing to take on what they genuinely believe is an otherworldly, possibly demonic, entity on their behalf.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Played with. Arthur says (in Ep. 6) to an associate that "I'm having Richard Parker for dinner," which seems innocent enough in context. However, Richard Parker happens to be the name of a sailor in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, who is shipwrecked with the Arthur of that story and, after drawing straws, cannibalized by the starving crew. And in a bizarre coincidence, there was also a real life Richard Parker, a cabin boy who died under similar circumstances as the character of Poe's story (written 45 years earlier), whose death became the subject of the famous murder trial R v Dudley and Stephens (1884).
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Though he does seem to make additions to the outfit when necessary, like a mask and heavy-duty rainboots in the aftermath of Perry's party, or gloves, he still wears the classy, clearly expensive coat and suit combination he utilizes as the Ushers' attorney during his attempt to kill Verna under Madeline's command.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Has the sense to decline a deal offer from Verna and takes his arrest rather gracefully.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: There are implications that Verna specifically sent Arthur the Ushers' way as her method of fulfilling the deal's element of legal protection, having observed him for long enough to know that he would manage well, as opposed to having to directly intervene in influencing the outcomes of various legal issues herself.
• Mysterious Past: All that is known about what he was doing before becoming the main enforcer of the Usher family is that he was once part of the 'Transglobe Expedition'. While he would tell the Usher children in their youth about his part in the expedition, for some unknown reason he would always stop upon reaching the North Pole. Some details are given in his conversation with Verna, but they're sparse and not elaborated on. The most we can infer is that he witnessed the gang rape and possible murder of an Indigenous woman during his time there and turned away in horror, but did not intervene.
• Neat Freak: The gloves, the hats, the coats, and his extremely close-cropped hair and beard are all points of note. Word of God is that he's somewhat obsessive about staying as groomed and covered as possible because he's well aware of the importance of forensic evidence.
• Noble Demon: While he has done many unsavory things including murder while on the Ushers' payroll, he chooses to take responsibility for his actions rather than attempt to weasel out of it through a contract with Verna.
• Only Sane Man: Refuses to take a deal from the magical woman that escaped from his trap, opting to "play his hand" to the end rather than let anyone have a hold over him and whatever he'd consider collateral.
• Out of Character Is Serious Business: His reaction to finding a barely-alive Morella in the remnants of Perry's party is one of the few things that manages to get a proper reaction out of him besides further stoicism.
• Professional Killer: When the law can't be twisted to his advantage, Pym is not afraid of taking matters into his own hands with a more... personal touch.
• Put on a Prison Bus: True to what Verna told him, Arthur is last being seen taken in by the authorities after Camille's file on him leaks to the public. Because he's the only living person associated with the Usher family, he's given a life sentence for the crimes he performed or was involved in on their behalf.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Implied to believe this. He witnessed some of his associates commit one during the Transglobe Expedition and did nothing to stop it (though given that Verna hints at more than one murder committed by the others throughout, it may have been that he was rightly concerned that intervening would end in him getting killed for the attempt) but he did not actively participate in the crime.
• Red Baron: For his spooky legal expertise, Arthur Pym is not-so-affectionately referred to as the Pym Reaper by even the people whose side he's ostensibly on. It later turns out that the nickname has an additional layer to it.
• Renaissance Man: An indomitable defense lawyer, a former world explorer, and a master assassin.
• Shrouded in Myth:
  • Very little about his past is known. The only person who seems to know everything about him is Verna, which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for what he's done.
  • When Auguste says his assumption of him is someone the Ushers call in if they need to dispose of a dead hooker, Roderick chides him for thinking too small.
• The Stoic: Arthur rarely has a facial expression on his face that isn't a dour scowl.
• Worthy Opponent: Verna sees him this way, being quite impressed with his attempt to kill her (even if it was never going to amount to anything) and treating him as a respected adversary, especially after he declines her offer of a deal. There are also implications that despite Auguste's hatred of everything to do with the Usher family and their cruelty, that he respects Arthur's abilities as a lawyer and his odd loyalty to the family as a whole.

Toby and Beth

Toby and Beth

Played by: Igby Rigney and Aya Furukawa

Camille's two assistants.

---

• Coordinated Clothes: They always wear gendered variations of identical outfits when they work for Camille.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • After Camille viciously berates them while firing them, she still has the nerve to ask Toby and Beth for the information about Victorine she had them gather—which they have. Toby defiantly tells her to deal with it herself before leaving with Beth. It might seem a minor act of rebellion on his part, but it prompts Camille to actually go and investigate the lab herself, which results in her death.
  • A major (though off-screen) one is them leaking the incriminating files Camille had gathered to the authorities, one of which leads to Pym's arrest, conviction and sentencing to life in prison.
• Girl Friday: They organize Camille's life and carry out her various demands.
• Malicious Misnaming: Their bitchy boss Camille calls Beth "Tina" at work solely because she likes the ring of "Toby and Tina".
• Office Romance: They genuinely fall in love over the course of working together, which is the main reason they try to put a stop to the Sex for Services part of their job.
• Phrase Catcher: "Dammit, Toby" for, of course, Toby.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Beth at least is only working for Camille so that she can pay off her student loan debt, and while both of them are willing to keep working for her while no longer being in a relationship, they're not too broken up when she fires them.
• Sex for Services: Having sex with Camille is part of their job description. Neither seems particularly happy about it, but they did sign a consent waiver. When they try to call this part of the job off, Camille fires them.
• Those Two Guys: Possibly enforced by Camille, considering how controlling she is of their lives in general: they always show up together, they always wear identical clothes (though gendered); they're always addressed in tandem by Camille.

Rufus

Rufus Wilmot Griswold

Played by: Michael Trucco

Former head of Fortunato.

---

• Adaptational Villainy: In "The Cask of Amontillado" the fate of the character Rufus is based on is said to be Disproportionate Retribution based on minor insults; while Rufus' murder is still presented as going too far his character is far more sinister as a Corrupt Corporate Executive who intended to frame Roderick for his crimes.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: He panics and offers Roderick and Madeline large sums of money and any position they desire in exchange for his life as they entomb him. Eventually, however, he is driven to either despairing or defiant silence as the last bricks go into place.
• Decomposite Character: In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" his character's name was Fortunato. Here Fortunato is the name of his company instead and in fact the company proves to be a more important "character" to the overall series than Rufus himself after he dies the same way Fortunato did in the story.
• Dies Differently In The Adaptation: In the Poe story, the character trapped in the wall is left to die of hunger and thirst. In this show, Madeline mentions poisoning Rufus with cyanide, ensuring he'll die by morning.
• Laser-Guided Karma: It's hard to blame Roderick and Madeline for killing him given that he's responsible for a lot of preventable deaths and was planning on framing Roderick for it. He was also a sexist who implies he's used his position to extort sexual favors from the women who work with him and tried to pull that on Madeline. It's important to note that his death wasn't part of the deal, it's just what got Verna's attention, and she never implies that they were going to get caught—just that there was a possibility. Nothing supernatural spurred them into killing him. It was just revenge for the way he exploited them.
• Monster Clown: The man dressed as a creepy jester that spooks Roderick at inopportune moments is later revealed to be a vision of Rufus, who was wearing the costume when Roderick and Madeline Amontillado'd him.
• Never Found the Body: When Auguste is wrapping up everything that happens after Roderick and Madeline die, he doesn't say anything about Rufus and he doesn't do anything with Roderick's confession. Presumably, this means Rufus's body is still behind the wall - which fits, considering the character he was based on is never found either.
• Predecessor Villain: On the business side of things, as head of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals in the 1970s he had the company engage in all the same sorts of illegal and nefarious business practices that would be further expanded upon by the Ushers in decades to come. Roderick and Madeline learned all there was to learn about being a Corrupt Corporate Executive from him.
• Smug Snake: He clearly believes himself to be at the top of the food chain, and gives condescending lectures to both Roderick and Madeline, believing them both to ultimately be harmless to him. Needless to say, they prove him wrong.

Other Characters

Auguste

C. Auguste Dupin

"Was it ever going to be enough?"

^{Click here to see him as a young man}

Played by: Carl Lumbly, Malcolm Goodwin (Young)

"The Usher family under CEO Roderick Usher and COO Madeline Usher spent four decades growing Fortunato into one of the most profitable, powerful companies on the planet Earth. They've achieved this by doing awful, awful things. Flagrantly violating regulations, statutes, and the most fundamental ethics. And at the cost of people's lives."

The Assistant United States Attorney prosecuting the Ushers' trial.

---

• Adaptational Job Change: Auguste Dupin was an Amateur Sleuth in Poe's stories, whereas here he works as a lawyer, later becoming the Assistant United States Attorney.
• Adaptational Nationality: In Poe's short stories, Dupin was a French man, whereas in this series he's an American.
• Age Lift: The literary Dupin isn't given an exact age but he appears to be at best middle-aged. This Dupin is in his 70's.
• Badass Bookworm: Much like Arthur, Dupin is a valiant and no-nonsense lawyer who doggedly pursues justice for those wronged by the Usher family.
• Berserk Button: He remains mostly polite with Roderick for most of the Framing Device, but when Roderick seemingly yells at him Dupin loses it and berates him for disrespecting him.
• Composite Character: He's both C. Auguste Dupin and the unnamed narrator of the original story.
• Crusading Lawyer: He's an Assistant US Attorney who is determined to bring Roderick Usher to justice for his many crimes. He's apparently been one since his days investigating Medicare fraud decades earlier.
• Foil:
  • To Roderick Usher. Both are men who have dedicated their lives to create a "better world." However, Roderick has betrayed any sense of integrity that he had to climb to the top, whereas Auguste stuck by his morals for most of his life. The similarities extend to their personal lives as well, as it was revealed in the finale that August has children and grandchildren of his own. However, whereas Roderick emotionally abused and manipulated his progeny, save for Lenore, August truly loves and appreciates all of his offspring and how they have enriched his life; when he visits the graves of the Usher family to make his final farewell to Roderick, his parting shot is a reflection that "I'm the richest man in the world, you know that?"
  • He's also one to Arthur Pym. Both of them are lawyers that are incredibly good at their jobs, but while Dupin is a Crusading Lawyer who wants to bring the Ushers to justice, Pym is an Amoral Attorney who is Roderick's right-hand man. We get to see Dupin's backstory due to his story intersecting with Roderick and Madeline's in their youth, while Pym has a Mysterious Past that the audience learns little about. And finally, both of them intrigue Verna to some degree, but while Pym gets to directly confront Verna, Dupin only gets to see her from a distance without any interaction.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Downplayed. He's able to effectively understand how the Ushers operate and how easy it is to turn them on each other, but he's unable to understand how Roderick can be so ruthless and greedy when he's already wealthier than most people can even dream of being.
• Hero Antagonist: He's the thorn on the side of the Villain Protagonist Usher family and one of the most moral characters in the entire narrative.
• Hypocrite: Roderick points out that Dupin doesn't really have a right to judge him for his subpar parenting when he's neglected his own family in favor of his crusade to bring the Ushers to justice. That said, Dupin's criticisms are dead-on, and he says to Roderick's grave that he's going to spend some more time with his family now that he and his family are gone.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Of the positive variety. After Roderick ruins his case against Fortunato, he's fired but his career ultimately recovers and he becomes a big time prosecutor. He may not command the vast monetary wealth that Roderick has, he does eventually get a position that pays enough for him and his family to live comfortably. And that's the other part of his ultimate victory over Roderick: He finds a husband and starts a family, and all signs point to them having a loving relationship. In the end, Auguste has the last laugh, as he outlives Roderick and refuses to grant his Dying Wish of revealing his story to the public. His parting words to Roderick are said over his and the other Ushers' graves: He's the richest man in the world, and he's going to go home and spend time with his family. It's telling that he has several close encounters with Verna, but she never shows a hint of interest in giving him a deal. He would never accept one. Auguste's character can be read as an illustration of how the best revenge is a life well-lived.
• Nice Guy: Dupin is polite with everyone, even Roderick, a man he absolutely despises. He's also deeply compassionate and even feels sorry for Roderick once his children die, feeling that not even he deserves that.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: A Hero Antagonist version. In the present day, Dupin refuses to tolerate the Ushers' chicanery and Roderick's manipulations, having long since cottoned on to them. He's also immune to bribery, and Dupin is totally dedicated to seeing justice done.
• Race Lift: Dupin is often illustrated as being a white French man in popular media. Here, he's played by African-Americans Malcolm Goodwin in his youth, and Carl Lumbly in the present day.
• Sherlock Scan: When first meeting Annabel and Roderick in the 70s, he deduces that they live hand-to-mouth and Frederick was up all night with a sickness from the toys, honey, and coffee mugs in the sink. This is fitting, given he's an adaptation of the character who put Sherlock Scan on the map.
• Straight Gay: Aside from him being confirmed to have a husband, there aren't any indicators to suggest that he's gay.
• Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: He's a lawyer on the side of the US Government who is completely correct about the evils of the villain protagonists' company, but his prosecution of them is repeatedly dogged by their wealth and influence (in addition to the deal Roderick and Madeline made with Verna).
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Subverted. While Dupin believes and regrets that lying about an informant within the family set in motion the deaths of Roderick's children, those events were written in stone when Roderick and Madeline made their deal with Verna 43 years prior. Roderick was dying of an illness regardless and all of their fates were tied to his.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He assumes he's in a mundane corporate drama akin to Succession and that Roderick's claims of ghosts and the supernatural are all an elaborate mind game to throw Dupin off his game.

Verna — WARNING: Unmarked Spoilers Ahead

Verna

"The ink is dry."

Played by: Carla Gugino

"There are always consequences."

A mysterious woman who seems to be picking off Roderick's heirs.

---

• Affectionate Nickname: "Affectionate" might be a strong word, but Verna considers Madeline to be one of her "favorites" from the Usher family and is clearly attracted to her. So, Verna gives her the nickname "Cleopatra", due to seeing Madeline as a "queen without a crown".
• Ambiguously Evil: The deal she made with the Ushers not only wiped out the Usher clan (mostly Asshole Victims, but also the completely innocent Lenore), but also cost countless human lives by making them untouchable until the bell tolled. At the same time, she calls out the Ushers for their various atrocities, grants Lenore a peaceful death contrasting the horrific Karmic Deaths the other Ushers suffered, and overall does not seem actively malicious. What she actually wants will remain forever unclear, but assuming it isn't mere entertainment, it's probably nothing mortals can grasp.
• Ambiguously Human: It's never made clear what exactly she is. She's an ageless supernatural being who's been operating in human high society since at least 1901, making deals and dealing comeuppances to the rich and powerful.
• Animal Motif: When she's not in her human form, she prefers to shapeshift into a raven (which makes sense, since her name is the anagram for the titular bird). Ravens are often associated with death but also with good luck, something that Verna herself gives to those who made a deal with her.
• Apologetic Attacker: There are moments in which she seems to regret causing a death and tries to steer the characters away from their most painful ends, but to no avail. When Lenore's time comes, Verna makes it clear that this time she hates what she has to do, but also that she has no way to break the deal.
• The Bad Guy Wins: How evil Verna is is up for debate but she's definitely the antagonist of the series and succeeds in all her goals and gets away with everything and it's clear no one ever had a chance of stopping her to begin with.
• Been There, Shaped History: Roderick and Madeline see photos from Pym of Verna with rich people they know and think she's just a stalker. Then Pym starts showing photos of Verna with the Bushes, the Gettys, Randolph Hearst, the Rockefellers and more dating back to 1901 (and likely back to "ancient times," as she off-handedly mentions) with Verna looking exactly the same.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Verna's moral compass is interesting to say the least. She seems intrigued by what humanity is capable of accomplishing, but is as equally as impressed by the horrors humanity is capable of as much as she is about the beneficial things they could accomplish. The deaths she manufactures are horrific ends that torture her targets, but she seems to loathe abject cruelty such as Frederick's torture of his wife. Verna is equally impressed by actions that cost millions of lives as well as those that save millions. Ultimately, Verna is intrigued by what humanity can do, and the consequences that arise from that, whether they are for ill or for good.
• Composite Character: She's the Raven from The Raven, but also takes the roles of the Red Death, Adolphe Le Bon and the orangutan in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, the black cat (and the body found in the walls), the clouded eye and the interrogating police in The Tell-Tale Heart^*Not in a literal sense, but the human trial patient Verna takes the form of fulfills the same function as both in the original tale, being the one who ultimately drives a wedge between Vic and Dr. Ruiz, and later persistently asks Vic about Dr. Ruiz after her murder, the doppelganger in William Wilson, and the Spanish Inquisition in The Pit and the Pendulum. Her talk with Pym also reveals she's this show's version of the shrouded figure that appears in the abrupt conclusion of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Some people analyzing the story also believe that she is based off of the "ill angels" who live out of time mentioned in Dream-Land. Verna, the immortal who can see both the future and how things would have played out under different circumstances, who clearly detests cruelty but enables huge abuses of power when laying traps for greedy and wicked souls, fits the bill of an angel who is also twisted and wrong.
• Consummate Professional: While (by her own admission) there are a lot of things about her job that Verna likes, she doesn't take overt pleasure in killing the Ushers, simply seeing it as her collecting on her deal with Roderick and Madeline and treating the deaths as simply the cost of doing business, even being merciful enough to warn them away from their Cruel and Unusual Death. This is subverted when it comes to the death of Frederick, as his behavior appalled her, leading her to ensure a slow and painful death for him and giving him a richly-deserved "The Reason You Suck" Speech as she does so.
• Deal with the Devil: Verna may or not actually be the Devil, but her deal with Roderick and Madeline has shades of it: earthly riches, free from any legal consequences, in exchange for the lives of their children, once Roderick is about to pass away. It's implied that she's done this before with other rich and famous figures throughout history.
• Depraved Bisexual: Of sorts. Verna says that she goes both ways, and she is the killer of all the Ushers. She doesn't seem actively malicious.
• Don't Fear the Reaper: She prefers not to take her targets in painful actions and even tries to warn them away from a Cruel and Unusual Death. She does have her limits though as Frederick found out the hard way.
  No need to panic. No need to worry what's lurking around the corner. You've been scared your whole life. And now you get to put that down. It's here, Frederick. I'm finally, finally here. (wrecking ball starts smashing the building)
• Due to the Dead: In the epilogue, she places an item on each one of the Ushers' gravestones. She's dispassionate in most of the cases, making only an exception for Frederick (a small bag of cocaine tossed without care) and Lenore (a raven feather interwoven with white flowers that she solemnly lays in place).
• Even Evil Has Standards: She may be an Affably Evil being who kills each of the Ushers and seems to feel no real remorse over it, but even she finds Frederick's Cold-Blooded Torture of Morella appalling, and takes vindictive pleasure in making sure that his death is as painful and mentally torturous as possible. She is also incensed that Roderick's stupidity is forcing her to kill a soul as kind as Lenore and tries to be as gentle as possible in the process.
  I don't normally like to get my hands this dirty, but honey, you earned it.
• Exact Words: Played with. Verna tells Roderick and Madeline that "the next generation" will pay the bill for their crimes. Roderick clearly thinks this means one next generation, and that Lenore, his beloved grandchild, is not part of his consequences because she's two generations behind him. Unfortunately, Verna also said that Roderick's "bloodline" would die with him, and Lenore is genetically related to Roderick. So she counts.
• Gender Flip: Being a shape-shifting immortal being, Verna technically doesn't have a definite gender. But most of the character's disguises are female and Carla Gugino plays the role. Many of the character's counterparts in Edgar Allan Poe's stories were male.
• The Grim Reaper: If she's not The Devil, she's probably this, being strongly associated with ravens, often making an appearance when a death is about to occur, and seemingly being very well-informed on matters pertaining to death, such as the exact number of people killed by Ligodone over the years (then again, she seems very well-informed on all sorts of things, including many that have yet to happen).
• Hero Antagonist: Downplayed with Verna, some kind of powerful spirit who may be the devil or death. She's the one killing the Usher family, but she's only collecting on a debt after holding up her end of the bargain, and she's shown to be compassionate when it comes time to kill Lenore.
• Hypocrite: For all her talk about morality and her judgements on the unethical behaviour of the Ushers, it's ultimately her idea to make the untimely deaths of Roderick's entire bloodline the payment for their deal. The show also heavily implies that she is behind the rise to power of many controversial and in some cases explicitly dangerous figures in business and politics whose decisions have hurt a lot of people.^note The figures shown to associate with Verna are all highly conservative ones, such as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the Koch Brothers. Anyone familiar with the themes of Mike Flannigan's work can tell that this was likely meant as a Take That!, but a conservative viewer will probably see her as a force for good.
• Identical Grandson: Invoked but subverted. Seeing a photo of Verna, who looks just like the bartender she and Roderick met on New Year's Eve 1980, Madeline goes to the logical conclusion that Roderick slept with that woman and Verna is her daughter out to gain the family fortune. Of course, Madeline can't imagine it is in fact the same woman who's more than human.
• Intrigued by Humanity:
  • She admits to Arthur (and, more opaquely, to Camille) that her main reason for "going topside" and involving herself in humanity's affairs is that she finds them interesting in their ambitions and reckless cruelty. That, and they're so profoundly entertaining.
  • Though she never directly speaks to him, Verna appears to have some sort of interest in Auguste Dupin and his incorruptible status. She allows him to catch a glimpse of her human form after Roderick's family home collapses before she transforms into a raven and flies off, and she later caws at him as a raven when he leaves the Ushers' graves.
• Invincible Villain: Well, antagonist (since the Ushers are Villain Protagonists), but Verna is so powerful and intelligent that she's able to play the Ushers like fiddles, and by the end of the series all the Ushers are dead, and their debt to her is paid. The one person who even manages to mildly inconvenience her is Arthur, and while that's enough to make him a Worthy Opponent in her eyes, he still doesn't even come close to actually stopping her.
• It Amused Me: Verna says she finds the affairs of humanity "entertaining." Her actions aren't motivated by malice, or for that matter by a sense of righteousness. It's all just fun for her.
• It's Personal: Claims to take no pleasure in fulfilling her end of the deal and dealing out the appropriate consequences, but what Frederick did to Morella really pissed her off, enough to take a personal hand in it.
• Master of Disguise: A rather realistic and downplayed version: while Verna takes on a number of appearances and accents to manipulate the Ushers, Arthur's investigations and various forms of security footage are able to place her at each scene since her face is always the same (though, depending on what she actually is, even that may be by choice).
• Master of Illusion: She's able to create hallucinations to manipulate and gaslight her victims, and uses it to great effect against Leo, Victorine, and Tamerlane.
• Misdirected Outburst: Her rant about the evils of animal testing before Camille's death seems a bit out of place, considering that Camille had nothing to do with Vic's work and had come to the lab in the first place looking for evidence that Vic was covering up animal deaths and falsifying her research. (It's possible this has something to do with Camille being in charge of the family's charity wing, as the animal testing in question is only possible because of a huge donation, but it's not made terribly clear.)
• Nice to the Waiter: She purposefully spares the waitstaff and security guards from the disaster at Perry's party. This appears to be a part of her MO given how it's later shown she specifically targets wealthy affluential people for her "deals"; the staff were serving the whims of the rich and just doing their jobs.
• Non-Malicious Monster: "Monster" may be an extreme term, but Verna isn't killing the family due to hate or anger (save for the example with Frederick.) She is merely following the terms of the deal that Roderick and Madeline agreed to. Her interaction with Lenore showed that she is capable of taking the family quietly and without pain. But due to their own horrendous behavior, she decided to make their ends as painful as possible.
• Older Than They Look: Verna has been making deals with the rich and powerful since at least 1901, but she is likely FAR older, given her references to making deals in "ancient times" and sealing them with blood or papyri. But appearance-wise, she hasn't aged a day.
• Outside-Context Problem: For the entire Usher clan. They have no clue for the most part that it is due to the manipulations of a powerful immortal with godlike powers. When Madeline tries to kill Roderick in order to break the deal in order for her to survive, she had no idea that Verna was simply capable of resurrecting Roderick so he could die on her schedule.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: She's typically very dispassionate and hands-off when it comes to doing her job, but even she greatly enjoys condemning Frederick to a horrifyingly slow and gruesome death, all the while enjoying every second of it. Since he put in great efforts into brutally torturing his own wife while she was struggling just to to stay alive from severe acid burns, it's only fair she gave him a personal touch.
• Pet the Dog:
  • To Lenore. When it is time to collect Lenore for the debt, Verna expresses genuine sadness for it. Before giving Lenore a peaceful end, she provides her with clarity, telling her that because she saved her mother, Morella will undergo treatments until recovered and start up charities from the money of the collapsed Fortunato, and they will result in millions of lives being saved.
  • Downplayed with Prospero. While she lets him die horribly, along with many other people, she has a rather deep conversation with him before and, just before he dies, she calls him beautiful and covers his disfigured face with the skull mask. This is probably due to Prospero being the latest to be involved with the Ushers' fortune.
  • She has a soft spot for animals, as evidenced by her disgust at Vic's experiments on chimpanzees and her unwillingness to let Pluto be harmed (Word of God confirms that she merely created an illusion to play with Leo's mind).
• Pyrrhic Victory: She succeeds in her goal of eradicating the Usher bloodline, although this means that she has to kill Lenore as well, much to Verna's grief. In the closing scene, she honors the Ushers' gravestones in a way that is either dispassionate or solemn, suggesting that it's much less of a triumph and more of a dark duty to her.
• Rage Breaking Point: The usually professional Verna takes a more active role than usual in orchestrating Frederick's death after what he does to Morella. Because of her Blue-and-Orange Morality, it's indicated that it wasn't strictly because it was an act of domestic abuse. While she's clearly upset by how they treat their partners, no other case of the Ushers harming someone they're in a relationship with invokes such a visceral response (for example, Verna possibly participates the least in Victorine's death, even though Vic let her girlfriend bleed to death). And considering Verna's certainly done worse to far more people (and even played in a hand in Morella getting scalded and put into this situation, even if she did try to prevent it), it likely wasn't because it was an act of torture either. What apparently got to her was that Frederick specifically ripped out Morella's teeth with pliers. Verna can see the lives the Ushers could've had had they remained uncorrupted and Frederick apparently would've been "a pretty good dentist." This Frederick perverting the memory of his good counterpart upset Verna so much she decided to break her personal rules.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: At a couple points most notably when she appears on the fallen Usher house her eyes can be seen glowing red.
• Satanic Archetype: If she's not literally the capital-D Devil, then she's at least an extremely close relative. In her case, though, she's very much the 'Satan-as-prosecutor' version of this archetype, a supernatural force who exists to test people's susceptibility to evil through traps and temptations (and exact terrible punishment if they fail those tests). She's not so much malicious as she is responsible for dealing with human malice, and can actually be quite pleased when people prove themselves better than she expects.
• Secret Test of Character: Much of Verna's interactions with the Usher children are effectively her presenting them with this, as her words to Frederick imply she generally likes to have those she reaps "tee up" their own deaths. Typically, she meets the Usher of the episode by donning a disguise and presenting them with an opportunity to either act on negative motivations like spite or selfishness, or on positive motivations like compassion, honesty, or self-care. Inevitably Roderick's children choose to act according to the worst motivations and their deaths stem from the consequences of these choices.
  • Verna presents Perry with the opportunity to reconsider his choice to hold his sex party or to continue in his pursuit of hedonism, blackmail, and revenge.
  • Verna presents Camille with the choice to leave RUE or consciously choose to continue her spiteful attempts to get dirt to bring down Victorine.
  • Verna presents Leo with the choice to adopt any cat in the shelter except the one who looks like Pluto, who she says is already spoken for, or to double-down on covering for his lies and worsening drug abuse by using his privilege to acquire the Pluto-lookalike anyways.
  • Verna presents Victorine with the choice to be honest about the real risks and failures of her medical project, or to throw herself further down the path of medical malpractice and unethical human trials.
  • Verna presents Tamerlane with the choice to take care of herself and her personal life better or to continue putting her drive for success before everything and self-destruct.
  • There are two exceptions that prove the pattern:
    • Verna presents Frederick with no choice. Frederick already made the choice to torture Morella, and so angers Verna by doing so that she goes out of her way to force the circumstances of his death to be as horrifying, humiliating, and ironic as possible.
    • Verna also presents Lenore with no choice. Lenore already made the choice to save Morella at the expense of her family's public image, and so Verna tells Lenore of the positive things her choice will bring and lets her die as peacefully as possible.
• Significant Anagram: Verna is an anagram for Raven, fitting for the show's gothic Poe motif.
• Voice Changeling: She perfectly imitates Frederick's voice over a radio, tricking his demolition crew to start knocking down a building while he is still inside.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Pym, though 'opponent' might be a stretch by the end. She says she admires his ruthlessness and tenacity (both in the present and in unspecified work in the past), and after their confrontation admits that his reputation is entirely warranted. She also seems genuinely happy that he doesn't take her deal, despite him knowing full well that the alternative is dying in prison and disgrace.
  • The epilogue suggests that she considers Dupin this, since she doesn't shift from her raven form until he's left the graveyard. Judging by his speech to Roderick's grave about being "the richest man in the world", there's not much she could do to tempt him.

---