Every Brutal ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ Death, Ranked
THE FINAL DESTINATION franchise is one of the most unique and stand-alone in all of horror. With a main villain that is quite literally "death's grand design," a Final Destination movie is generally less concerned with the story linking things all together, and more concerned with how those links connect a series of intricate, unique, and imaginative death scenes. They're movies where we generally know what is going to happen—most everyone is going to bite it!—and are more concerned, in the moment, with the how.
The Fall of the House of Usher, Mike Flanagan's latest limited horror series on Netflix based on the work of Edgar Allen Poe, comes from a similar place. We see right up front in the very first episode that all of Roderick Usher's children die in the course of a week. But the show flashes it all quick enough that it trusts we'll remember the general idea—this happens—but the way it all unfolds, gradually told throughout the course of the season, still comes with great suspense and shock.
Both House of Usher and Final Destination fit neatly into the way the great Alfred Hitchcock described "suspense" versus "surprise":
Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!"
Sounds like a familiar feeling, does it not? When you know a death is coming—but you don't know quite when or quite how—it makes you more attentive. It makes you more nervous. It makes you fear that the worst could happen at any moment, which is kind of the best of all worlds for anyone telling a story meant to scare.
The Fall of the House of Usher depicts a bunch of deaths we all know are coming, but adds in a few notable surprises along the way, too. Throughout the course of the show, we're shocked, saddened, and generally riled up by these—and by the show's conclusion, it all kind of fits and makes sense.
We took the opportunity to rank them all, using a combination of how brutally violent they are, how impactful they are, and how much they just made us think about, well, everything.
Arthur Pym
The Death: In prison, presumably of natural causes.
Arthur Pym, a.k.a. "The Pym Reaper," (Mark Hamill) lived one hell of a life. Well, depending on who you talk to. For some, having zero family, zero friends, and, at the end, zero meaningful connections, probably sounds like a living nightmare. But after his doomed time, decades ago, on the "Transglobe Expedition," Pym reinvented himself into a dangerous lawyer/fixer for the Usher family, and lived his life by a very specific code—one he never broke, even with the chance to salvage himself in a deal with Verna. Kind of a grim way to go out, but in his own mind, he never broke. He probably isn't complaining too much.
Eliza Usher
The Death: Illness, buried alive, reanimated, died again
I mean, look. Slowly dying of a painful illness is not the way anyone wants to go, and being buried before actually even being fully dead is, you guessed it, the stuff of nightmares. But Roderick and Madeline's mother Eliza (Annabeth Gish) going out just after strangling a man who wronged you to death? Not bad. Not bad at all.
Tamerlane Usher
The Death: Stabbed to death by jagged glass from a broken mirror on the ceiling
Tamerlane Usher (Samantha Sloyan) kind of just lost it. Lack of sleep, selfish, ambitious, and kind of just always being in her own head led her down a dangerous path of loneliness. Her death could have easily been avoided if she would've just let anyone—including her own husband—in. But, alas. Stabbed by random jagged glass from her ceiling, a symbol of both a literal "glass ceiling" and her own sexual, quasi-cuckold hang-ups. Rough stuff.
Napoleon Usher
The Death: Fell off a balcony after being driven insane by a cat
OK, look. Napoleon "Leo" Usher (Rahul Kohli) was not a great guy. He cheated on his boyfriend, Julius, regularly, he supplied people (including his brother, Frederick) with whatever drugs they wanted, and he, um, killed a cat while he was high on said drugs. That said: he seemed like a pretty chill guy? That is, until his replacement cat drove him absolutely insane, gorged his eye out, and eventually drove him to (accidentally?) leap to his death off a balcony. Did he deserve great things? No. Did he deserve this? Eh, maybe.
Victorine LaFourcade
The Death: Stabbed in the chest by... herself
Victorina LaFourcade (T'nia Miller) had the potential to be Roderick Usher's most impactful child. With her experimental surgeries and mechanical heart pieces, she wanted to truly help people who needed it. Unfortunately, her ambition and drive for the approval of both her father and society outweighed any kind of moral scale. And so her first "human subject" (who was, of course, Verna, and did not really consent at all to what she wanted to do) went sideways, Vic began hearing a heartbeat everywhere, and eventually went mad. By the time she killed Dr. Ruiz (more on her in a bit), and her father found her, things were far too far gone, and she took her own life. Not the most inventive death in the series, but by far one of the creepiest.
Lenore Usher
The Death: Painless touch and takeout from Verna
She never had a chance. Lenore (Kyliegh Curran) lived the best life she possibly could, with a pureness of soul that Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) suggests to Dupin (Carl Lumbly) skipped a generation from his first wife, Annabel Lee (Katie Parker). Verna knows that Lenore did absolutely nothing wrong, and that her grandfather and great aunt simply signed her life away. It comes with no pleasure to Verna, but she has to take her out, and so she does it as painlessly as possible. And as we learn, her death indirectly leads to the creation of a charity that saves many lives.
She's the only good Usher—and so her death hurts us just as much as it hurts Roderick (who immediately launches into a "The Raven" fever dream). Nevermore.
Longfellow
The Death: Strangled to death by Eliza Usher
Longfellow (Robert Longstreet) was a rich, corrupt, and terrible man who was the CEO of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals when Roderick and Madeline were children... and also possibly/likely their biological father. Not a super relevant character, but imagine horribly wronging a woman who was once in your employ, believing that she had died, only to wake up in the middle of the night to find her in quasi-zombie form, strangling you to death. Grim! This death also foreshadows something else that would eventually come to pass. He may have the worst final moments of anyone in the show. Well, not quite. But we'll get there.
Roderick Usher
The Death: Strangled by Madeline Usher and crushed under the wreckage of his childhood home
Honestly? After all he did and all he went through, Roderick Usher's (Bruce Greenwood) death was probably pretty cathartic. It was a good run for this man until it was not. By the time he finally kicked it, it was basically the universe giving him mercy. Unlike his heinous sister, at least he expressed some semblance of regret and remorse for all the damage he had on both his family and the world.
But when it came to be his time, it was like the world repeating itself: just as their mother had come back to life, unexpectedly, to strangle the man who had wrong her (see above entry), Madeline Usher came back, strangling the man (Roderick) who had wronged her. The first episode comes back to the final episode. Good work.
Dr. Alessandra Ruiz
The Death: Hit in the head by a thrown bookend and then cut open and had her heart fussed with
Ouch! After Dr. Alessandra Ruiz (or Alli) discovered Vic's medical malpractice and intent to try her surgery on a human (Verna), she dumped her and threatened to expose all kinds of secrets. Vic, already going mad by the beating sound of a heart in her head, threw a bookend at Alli's head, killing her in that moment. But Vic was not done with her—she cut her open and inserted the mechanical heart. This wasn't discovered until Roderick showed up, and realized how much of a mess his oldest illegitimate child had gotten into. Bad!
Camille L'Espanaye
The Death: Face ripped off by a Verna-possessed chimpanzee
When Camille, (Kate Siegel) the Usher family's Public Relations mastermind, got word that there was potentially an informant within the family's ranks, her absolute worst impulses took over. She was petty and spiteful, and when she suspected it could be Vic, she became obsessive. That did her no good, as she eventually showed up to Vic's lab where she got absolutely massacred by a chimpanzee that Verna took the form of. This one could have actually had much grislier visuals, so you can thank (or condemn!) Mike Flanagan for that one.
Rufus Griswold
The Death: Buried alive in a secret room behind a brick wall
Rufus Griswold (Michael Trucco) was a classic asshole, a sexist and corrupt businessman who thinks the world should just work the way he wants it to. He took advantage of Roderick and Madeline, but was also a very stupid man, easily falling for their trap. After they drugged him, it was easy to make him disappear forever. And to this day he remains behind that brick wall, probably a pile of bones and dust at this point—something Roderick Usher clearly felt guilt from for years, constantly staring at that wall with a drink in his hand. But if we're being real? Not a huge loss!
Madeline Usher
The Death: Mummified, reanimated, and crushed under the wreckage of the Usher childhood home
Yeah. That kind of says it all, doesn't it? Roderick invited Madeline (Mary McDonnell) over for one final drink, and when she expressed absolutely zero regret or remorse for anything they did over the decades, his mind was made up. Roderick drugged Madeline—just like she did to Rufus all those years ago—and proceeded to mummify her, cutting her eyes out and replacing them with sapphires. Except, like their mother, she wasn't quite dead! She woke up, banged on the walls and doors like the quasi-zombie she had become, and got a good strangle in on her Twin brother before the entire house collapsed on them both. Both an extremely painful and extremely fitting way to go out.
Prospero Usher
The Death: Burned to death by toxic waste raining from sprinklers above
If Mike Flanagan wanted to set the tone for the deaths that were to come in The Fall of the House of Usher, the end of the show's second episode did just that. Prospero Usher (Sauriyan Sapkota), Roderick's youngest child, decided he wanted to be a famous socialite and party person and also a scumbag blackmailer (while ignoring all kinds of toxic waste regulations because he was stupid and didn't care). That proved to not be a good mix, as he ultimately got himself and countless others essentially melted to death by sprinkling toxic materials onto them from a warehouse's sprinkler system above. Gross, gnarly, and totally fitting of what The Fall of the House of Usher has to offer.
Frederick Usher
The Death: Paralyzed by the same drug he was using on his wife, Morella, before being slowly cut in half by a swinging piece of jagged metal and crushed under debris of a demolished building
While Lenore Usher—Frederick's sweet daughter—did not deserve the tragic fate that Roderick and Madeline sealed for her decades earlier, Frederick Usher (Henry Thomas) absolutely did. While Verna talks about the alternate lives that people could have had (Freddy could've been a dentist!) if their father never made the deal, it's null and void—because this Freddy is truly the worst of the worse. A petty, spineless, small man, rather than feel empathy for the horrific and painful accident that claimed his wife, he instead got paranoid and decided to torture her, paralyzing her, not changing her bandages, and, eventually, pulling her teeth out with pliers. By that point, we were all rooting for something very, very bad to happen to Freddy. And by the end of his final episode, we sure got it. He deserved what he got—and it was grisly as hell.
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