Carla Gugino's mysterious 'Fall of the House of Usher' character is the key to the show

Warning: This story contains spoilers for "The Fall of the House of Usher," which was released on Netflix on Oct. 12.

She wears different costumes, but she's always there.

Amid the myriad of mysterious storylines and various literary references in new horror Netflix show "The Fall of the House of Usher," one element keeps reappearing: Verna, the mysterious character played by Carla Gugino.

The Netflix show follows the Usher family — twins Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and Madeline Usher (Mary McDonnell) and his many kids — as they die off, one by one. In each death, the same seemingly ageless woman seems to always be involved.

What does Verna have to do with the family's slow demise, and the ending of the show? Read on to find out.

Verna gives away her role in the show during her first conversation

Verna seems mysterious — but she gives herself away during her first conversation on the show, minutes before Prospero Usher (Sauriyan Sapkota), the youngest Usher, becomes the fist sibling to die.

The night of his blowout rave party, Verna appears, seductively luring him into a bedroom.

After Prospero asks who she is, Verna responds, "Consequence, and tonight is consequential."

Following a brief conversation, in which Prospero suggests they sleep together, Verna exits the room and disappears into the crowd. Suddenly, the sprinkler system starts up, which the youngest Usher child expects will make the night all the more lively.

But the liquid that falls from the ceiling isn't water — it's acid taken from a Fortunato Pharmaceutical laboratory, causing every attendee's skin to burn off.

As over 70 dead bodies lay on the ground of the club, Verna approaches Prospero Usher in the center and puts her mask over his face before leaving.

Verna shows up during the other Usher family deaths. Here's how

Verna is a stranger at first, making it easy to interfere with the Usher siblings' lives and set up scenarios that lead to their deaths. She unleashes their fears and preys on their worst impulses, all using a bit of inexplicable magic.

Camille L’Espanaye (Kate Siegel) is the nosy, PR-oriented daughter trying to dig up a secret from her sister Victorine Lafourcade's (T'Nia Miller) animal laboratory. Verna transforms from a security guard into a chimpanzee and fatally attacks her.

At this point, Roderick and Madeline Usher, along with their private investigator Arthur Pym (Mark Hamil), take note of the mysterious figure at the party and the mysterious security guard, but can’t place her.

When Verna sells Napoleon Usher (Rahul Kohli) a black cat, the son snaps a close-up picture of the woman, which brings the siblings a step further to recognizing her. But before they can stop her, she drives Napoleon Usher so crazy that he falls to his death off his balcony chasing down the cat.

Even as the family awakens to Verna's presence, the woman doesn't stop wrecking havoc on the family. She agrees to be the first patient for a human trial for Victorine's cardiac medical device, which definitely isn't ready to hit the market.

After Victorine Usher accidentally kills her girlfriend and the project's lead doctor, Alessandra Ruiz (Paola Núñez), and stores her body in a gruesome way, Verna seems to cause a constant clicking noise to drive the Usher daughter into madness. Victorine takes her own life.

Tamerlane Usher (Samantha Sloyan) is up next. She first appears as the sex worker Tamerlane and her husband hire. Then, she toys with her at the opening of her lifestyle brand. Verna looms large for Tamerlane, She ultimately destroys every mirror she sees; shards of glass fatally pierce her body.

As for Fredrick Usher (Henry Thomas), the last of the children to die? Verna ensures he takes too much of the paralyzing drug that he's been vindictively force-feeding his injured wife, who is severely burned from Prospero Usher's party.

While visiting a construction site, Fredrick Usher runs into Verna and suddenly can't move his body and collapses to the floor. He's killed by a giant pendulum at the site.

Verna's connection to the Ushers goes back to a fateful night at a bar

The final episode of the show reveals Verna to be the devil, or at least one of his demonic emissaries. She is the catalyst for the Usher family’s immense fortune, then subsequent downfall.

While the youngest children are all meeting death’s door in brutal fashions, Madeline Usher finally identifies Verna: She's the bartender they met on New Year's Eve in 1980, after she and her brother conspired to commit a crime.

Initially only giving glimpses into flashbacks of that night years ago, Verna appears to take a particular interest in a young Roderick and Madeline Usher.

That night, she posed as a bartender who served Roderick and Madeline hours after they killed Roderick's boss. Verna seems to know this, and asks them if they'd prefer wealth or fame.

When they both immediately answer they are seeking wealth, Verna says she can promise to make them incredibly rich on one condition: Their offspring will only live as long as Roderick and Madeline do.

After only a slight hesitation, the two make a deal with Verna, which is solidified with a shared drink.

Verna does have a moment of humanity, though, when dealing with the death of Roderick Usher's sweet and brave granddaughter, Lenore Usher (Kyliegh Curran).

Sitting on the bed next to Lenore Usher in the final moments of the show, Verna explains that she doesn't get any "joy" from moments like that, compared to other "parts of her job." She tells Lenore Usher that she saved her mom's life and will continue to make an impact, even after her own death.

Verna suddenly places a hand on Lenore Usher's head and the girl peacefully falls asleep to her death.

Verna is connected to other famous families

Through Pym's research, they find that Verna has been pictured with a number of wealthy and famous people throughout history, appearing to never age.

At one point, she tells Roderick Usher, however, that he has one of the top "body counts" of all those she's "worked with."

Fortunato Pharmaceuticals produced a drug called Ligadone, a fictional painkiller that caused millions of death.

At the end of the show, with Roderick and Madeline dead in their childhood home, Verna appears atop the house wearing a black lace dress and then transforms into a raven before flying away.

As lines from Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven," are read in the background, Verna visits the graves of each of the Usher family members and places a notable item related to each of their deaths on their respective tombstones.

Her name might have a clue

"Verna" is an anagram of "raven," a significant figure in Poe's work. "The Raven" is about a bird who is an emblem of death. And what is Verna, if not that?

This article was originally published on TODAY.com