'The Fall of the House of Usher' Finale Would Make Edgar Allan Poe Proud

When The Fall of the House of Usher reaches its conclusion, audiences are already well aware that no one from the great Usher family will make it out alive. Netflix's latest mystery, directed by The Haunting of Hill House's Mike Flanagan, twists a collection of Edgar Allen Poe's most famous stories into a tale of succession and murder. If you had any doubt, it grabs the audience right from the very beginning. The great Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood), now a Pharma CEO who embodies the likeness of Richard Sackler, is going to confess that he killed his entire family.

Still, even over the course of eight hours and countless deaths, knowing the outcome of The Fall of the House of Usher doesn't make the series any less surprising. It sees inventive adaptations of Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Pit and the Pendulum," and many more scary stories. The result is equal parts Succession, Painkiller, Final Destination, and American Horror Story. By the end, viewers are left with a complete narrative—and a mystery that's solved by supernatural events. While it may be a little too based in the real world, The Fall of the House of Usher is is still a blast.

So, What Actually Happened to the House of Usher?

Early on, Roderick Usher teases a fairly obvious deal with the devil: wealth and power in exchange for the lives of his entire family. While it's possible to view every family member's death as unconnected accidents, Usher believes that his selfish actions led to their eventual downfall.

Here's the kill list in order: Prospero dies after accidentally raining acid on his party; one of One of Victorine's chimpanzees mauls Camille to death; Leo jumps off his balcony after being tortured by a black cat; Victorine murders her partner and then commits suicide after she threatens to go public with her experiments; Tamerlane is impaled by a broken mirror; Frederick is drugged and left to die in a construction accident; Lenore passes away peacefully in her sleep.

Verna (Carla Gugino), who plays the aforementioned devilish supernatural entity, is also an anagram for "raven." She offers Roderick a deal, granting them immense wealth and immunity from criminal punishment. The catch? When it's time for Roderick to die, his entire family goes with him. His sister, Madeline (Mary McDonnell), also makes the same deal that night. It seals their fates together, and near the end of the series, they both try (and fail) to figure out how to live on without the other.

Naturally, it's not possible. After Madeline attempts to drug Roderick with their own opioids and Roderick tries to exhume Madeline in their childhood basement, the two die as the old building collapses on them. Assistant U.S. Attorney C. Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly) may not believe Roderick Usher's otherworldly confession, but it hardly matters at the funeral. The Usher family is, as Edgar Allen Poe would say, nevermore.

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