Episode 4:
The Tell-Tale Heart
Directed by: Michael Fimognari
Written by: Dani Parker
TRUE!—NERVOUS—VERY, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?
- The opening sentence in the The Tell-Tale Heart
Victorine inches closer to testing her heart technology on a patient until tensions erupt between her and Alissandra. Dupin makes a chilling confession.
This episode incorporates elements from The Tell-Tale Heart.
Tropes that are present in this episode:
- Anything That Moves: Namedropped by Madeline in reference to Roderick's propensity for fathering illegitimate children.
- Death Glare: Camille's mother is giving Roderick one as he leaves the funeral.
- Demonic Possession: Verna briefly seems to do this. Moments before Vic stabs herself, her erratic mood suddenly becomes deathly calm and she chides Roderick for not being willing to jump out the window (something Vic couldn't know about) and taunting him about her impending death. After she does the deed, she seems to snap out of a trance.
- Adding a potential
Alternative Character Interpretation to Vic's reaction to her own impending death: did she lose consciousness while being possessed and think that Roderick stabbed her instead of having done it herself?
- Adding a potential
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Tammy makes this assessment of Leo, Perry, and Camille, saying they were each trying to fill a hole in their lives.
- Dirty Coward: Roderick privately calls himself this for being unwilling to kill himself and save his remaining children from their fates.
- Driven to Suicide: Roderick contemplates this, but is ultimately unable to go through with it.
- Hell Is That Noise: Present Roderick sees Victorine sitting in Dupin's place. She lets out a screech before he snaps back to reality.
- The chirping of the heart mesh is this to Vic, as is fitting for a retelling of The Tell-Tale Heart.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: The surviving kids gather in a bar Tammy bought out after the funeral.
- In Vino Veritas: A lot of dirty laundry and personal feelings are aired after the surviving kids gather to drink.
- I Want My Mommy!: Vic's last words after stabbing herself is a confused "Daddy?".
- Memorial Photo: These feature in front of Perry, Camille, and Leo's graves - notably, they seem to be publicity stills. Roderick sees their corpses standing in front of them at the funeral.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Tammy accuses Bill of doing this. He staunchly denies it and the audience can clearly tell Tammy's perceptions are being messed with.
- Once More, with Clarity: In the first version of the argument that ended Victorine and Alessandra's relationship, the fight ends with Vic angrily throwing a marble figurine at Al as the scene cuts to black, and then moves on to Vic calling Ali for forgiveness. The second time, the figurine hits Al in the head and kills her, and Vic scrambles to revive her using the heart mesh implant—to no avail, obviously, because the implant doesn't work, and Al's fatal injury was to her head anyway. Vic is so desperate to get that implant working and to undo her mistake that she blocked out the fact that Al had died on her living room floor.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The stone-cold, amoral Roderick is utterly, tearfully aghast at Vic propping up Ali's corpse and killing herself soon after.
- Sanity Slippage: After an argument with Alessandra, Victorine begins hearing a squishy, chirpy noise everywhere she goes and has to turn on loud music to drown it out. It's only after she remembers accidentally killing Alessandra that she remembers the noise is the mesh she put on her dead girlfriend's heart, whom she thinks is still alive. When confronted with reality, she believes that the heart mesh simply requires a new heart to work... and stabs herself.
- 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 hers. While Verna helps by playing the naive patient, Vic's Villainous Breakdown is caused entirely by her Accidental Murder of Alessandra and her subsequent guilt over it.
- Shout-Out: Victorine tells Tamerlane that Gwyneth Paltrow will sue her because Goldbug is a Goop ripoff.
- To Absent Friends:Frederick: I thought we were gonna be toasting our dead siblings or something.
- Wham Line: Roderick confirming he hears the beating sound, showing it's not just Vic's sanity slippage but an actual noise. This leads to the reveal of Al's mutilated corpse.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Madeleine seems to believe she's living in a realistic crime drama instead of a supernatural horror. She correctly deduces Verna is the one killing the Usher children rather than an immortal entity, but she incorrectly assumes she's another bastard daughter of Roderick hoping to become the sole inheritor of the empire.
- "And if we're going to succeed, we just need a better heart."
