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Tear Jerker / The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)

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Warning: As a Tear Jerker page, there are unmarked spoilers.


  • For all his faults, Leo genuinely loves his younger siblings. Camille's death plays a huge role in his breakdown, and it's clear that he was feeling guilty about Julius' cat from the start. His attempt at making up for his apparent action spirals out of control and he suffers both physically and mentally for it before dying; plus Mike Flanagan confirmed that Leo never actually killed Pluto, so he endures enormous physical and mental pain and a nasty death due in part to something he didn't even do.
  • Camille, Napoleon, and Prospero's mothers attend the first funeral, and they're clearly devastated. Leo's mother is visibly fighting back a breakdown, Camille's is giving Roderick a stern Death Glare as he walks past them without a word of sympathy, and Perry's just quietly stares at the floor. When Tamerlane asks about them (and the fact that she's only finding out who they are now, at the end of the funeral, speaks volumes all on its' own) Madeline dismissively refers to them as 'the mothers' and doesn't even tell Tammy their names, instead referring to them by the names of their children, the only aspect about them that matters to her.
  • Bill is not at the second funeral, and neither is Victorine's mother. This implies two things: they either deliberately stayed away or they were ordered not to come.
  • Morella's whole situation. She has a single moment of weakness brought on by the stress of being married to Frederick and winds up getting burnt by the acidic water sprinklers and tortured and then has her teeth ripped out with pliers by her husband, who clearly relishes what he's doing to her in spiteful revenge.
  • Although we are never made privy to the names or identities of all of Prospero's party guests, seeing their horrific and painful demises is not only frightening but devastating to witness. Seeing so many people trying to run and escape from the toxic chemicals, terrified and traumatized as they burn, and knowing there is no way for them to as they are barricaded inside, is absolutely one of the most disheartening scenes of the entire show and can leave you feeling deeply distressed and depressed afterward. That 78 people and counting died means there are also many grieving families out there that we never get to see, meaning the Ushers are not the only family that suffered here. Other families were no doubt affected by this as well.
  • Vic's Accidental Murder of Ali in a fit of rage, which she immediately regrets... but not enough to prevent Ali from getting medical assistance.
  • Tamerlane's breakdown is as sad as it's horrifying, with her realizing how badly she messed up her private and public life due to her own paranoia. In the end, she just wants to sleep, and she has enough time to understand she's going to die before the glass shard impales her throat.
  • Annabel Lee Usher's whole story. A good and kind woman who fell in love with Roderick before he fell into greed and ambition, had to see her beloved husband betray everything she thought he'd stood for as well as having her illusions utterly shattered by her sister-in-law, and then had to see her children get swept up into that same kind of greed until they rejected her for their father and his wealth. It's hard to blame her for crossing the Despair Event Horizon and being Driven to Suicide. Her appearance in the final episode is especially sad, with her ghost appearing to Roderick and angrily calling him out for dooming her babies to a premature death and then putting her hands on Freddie and Tammy's coffins.
    Annabel: 'He's rich.' When people asked 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 one day 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 is a kindness in disguise. Maybe they died in their childhoods.
    • That last line is compounded by the reveal in the final episode that they had in fact been sentenced as young children to die by Roderick and Madeline's deal with Verna.
  • Lenore's death. It turns out the White Sheep of the Ushers is also just as doomed to die as the rest of her less savory relatives, and in fact had been Dead All Along. She is the only one of the Ushers who received a painless death that involved no complications or suffering. It says something that Verna goes out of her way to give the girl a peaceful and easy end, and is holding back tears the whole time. Even for a being as powerful as Verna, there are rules she cannot escape, no matter how good a person has done or could do in their life. She later honors Lenore's grave with a raven feather (implied to be one of her own) and white roses, symbolizing the girl's purity.
    • Verna's "story" about Lenore's mother is quite the gut-punch. She tells of how Morella will recover eventually, after several years and a hundred skin graft surgeries later, and how she uses the money from the dissolved Fortunato payouts. Morella donates most of the funds she receives, but keeps enough to create a non-profit organization that eventually saves the lives of millions of victims from domestic violence. And what does Morella name it? The Lenore Foundation. This is the legacy she gets to hear about, right before she is peacefully, painlessly, taken with a simple touch.
    Verna: This is the part I really want you to hear. You did that. When you got her out of the house, when you defied your father, you did that. You saved those people. That choice you made echoes through millions of lives. And I thought you should know that.
  • The ghosts of Roderick's children haunt him throughout his and Dupin's meeting. It shows that despite a terrible father who warped them into his image, there is still a part of him who loved them and feels guilt about their fates. Particularly poignant is Freddie who appears as an innocent child alongside his mother, reminding Roderick of the happiness he could have had if he hadn't succumbed to greed.
  • For all that he's an unrepentantly greedy and unempathetic Jerkass, the expression of utter emotional agony on Roderick's face when he sees Lenore has also died is painful to look at. After all, he truly adored his granddaughter.
  • A small detail, but there's a moment where "Candy," acting in Tamerlane's place, asks Bill how his day was. He looks taken aback that she asked but, after some hesitation, is visibly happier for being invited to talk about it. It's a sad insight into his and Tamerlane's marriage that we see him so devoted to her and her day-to-day issues, feelings, and wellbeing, yet this is the only time we see that anyone allows the conversation to focus on Bill's.

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