Nothing tastes as sweet as the death of a horrible character in a story. In Flanagan’s new show, there are a lot of those, but who deserved theirs the most?
Mike Flanagan’s newest spooky series, The Fall of the House of Usher, has had me glancing over my shoulder and jumping at every creaky floorboard ever since I finished it for the first time. I mean, who needs a good night’s sleep when you can binge-watch the entire thing in one sitting, am I right? It’s not like the eerie vibes and creepy characters will haunt your dreams or anything.
Now, if you’ve been a fan of Flanagan’s past Netflix hits like The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor, you know the drill: ghostly goings-on, haunting memories, and copious amounts of family drama thicker than pea soup. The Fall of the House of Usher tosses out the heartwarming moments Bly Manor and Hill House both have and instead cranks up the dark comedy. Let’s be real, the Usher family isn’t winning any “Best Family” awards anytime soon – because they’re dead. They wouldn’t if they were alive either, for that matter.
Watching the Usher clan meet their doom was… weirdly gratifying in a way. Call it a twisted sense of justice or just plain old schadenfreude, but I found myself slightly relieved when some of them started to perish. But I am not cold-hearted, though some people would disagree with you, and some of these deaths didn’t sit right with me. A few of the Ushers did win my heart over and, in doing so, I left myself vulnerable to pain during a show where we all know death is the theme – as I often do to myself.
With these deaths comes an opportunity to rank them all. Who deserved it the most? Who didn’t deserve it at all? Who did we just not care about?
Let us find out. Oh, ENORMOUS SPOILER WARNING for the entire plot of the show.