Our list of the best quotes from Netflix gothic horror drama television show created by Mike Flanagan, loosely based on works by Edgar Allan Poe. The Fall of the House of Usher centers on ruthless siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher (Bruce Greenwood and Mary McDonnell), who have built Fortunato Pharmaceuticals into an empire of wealth, privilege and power. But past secrets come to light when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dying at the hands of a mysterious woman from their youth.
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1. A Midnight Dreary
Preacher: “Thank Heaven. The crisis, the danger, is past, and the lingering illness is over at last. And the fever called “living” is conquered at last. Be silent in that solitude, which is not loneliness. For then, the spirits of the dead who stood in life before thee, are again in death around thee. The breeze, the breath of God, is still, and the mist upon the hill, shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken, is a symbol and a token. How it hangs upon the trees, a mystery of mysteries. The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends and where the other begins. We stand on the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss. We grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably, we remain.”
Roderick Usher: She’s here.
'Resolution. Resolve. Means being unwavering, determined, a firm commitment to do something, or not to do something. And most people go their whole, wasted, stupid lives without one minute of true resolution.' - Roderick Usher Share on X
Roderick Usher: [referring to the cognac] You know, a single pour, it probably cost twice your annual salary. Have a glass. See what a few years of your worth tastes like.
Roderick Usher: Here’s to Title 18, Section 371.
Auguste Dupin: Sure. What’s not to celebrate? You got away with it. Again.
Roderick Usher: You know, nobody gets away with anything. Not really.
'You know what a resolution is really? It's a deal you make with the future.' - Verna (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Auguste Dupin: Grandkids take priority.
Roderick Usher: Don’t lecture me about family values. You’re just as s**t in that department as I am.
Roderick Usher: I called you tonight to give you the only thing you’ve ever wanted. My confession.
Auguste Dupin: [recording] This is Assistant US Attorney CA Dupin, sitting with Roderick Usher. November 20th, 2023. Mr. Usher has waived his right to have an attorney present.
Roderick Usher: And Mr. Dupin has waived a glass of Henri IV, so which of us is crazier?
Roderick Usher: This is indeed Roderick Usher. We’re in my childhood home. Yeah, this is where I grew up. Kept it all these years. The whole neighborhood actually. So I can watch the paint peel. The weeds grow. And smell the rot if I needed a pick-me-up.
Roderick Usher: [referring to his confessing] The whole thing. You brought what, seventy-three charges? All of them, everything, all yours. Right now. And I’ll throw in a a bonus. I’ll tell you how my children died.
Auguste Dupin: I know how they died, Roderick. Everybody knows.
Roderick Usher: Believe me, Mr. Dupin, when I tell you, you don’t know a thing.
Eliza: [flashback, 1953] Remember what Mother Teresa said, “Pain and suffering are like the kiss of Jesus.” It just means you’ve come so close to him that he can kiss you.
Roderick Usher: If pain and suffering were the kisses of Jesus, then he kissed the living f*** out of my mother in the years that followed.
Younger Madeline: Don’t say what you want, say what makes him say what you want. That way it’s his idea.
Roderick Usher: Thank Heaven! The crisis, the danger, was past, and the lingering illness was over at last. And the fever called “living” was conquered at last. Come, let the burial rite be read, the funeral song be sung, an anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young.
Roderick Usher: The last thing my mother did in this life was kill a powerful man. And we carried that secret with us, and loved her all the more. She was remarkable.
Auguste Dupin: You know, I read somewhere about high-powered negotiation tactics. How some truly brilliant business people will plant these moments into high-stakes conversations. Force a reaction, no matter how trivial. Talk softly to make an adversary lean in. Make them repeat themselves. Throw your eyeline behind them. Make them turn around. Just something to assert a little control. I’m not going to turn around, Roderick.
Roderick Usher: I would never close the gates. If you’re my blood, you’re my blood. It doesn’t matter how you got here, who your mother was. I have six kids. Six kids by five mothers. But they’re all mine. And I treated them so. If you’re an Usher, the gates are open. Period. Matter of principle.
Auguste Dupin: The gates are always open, but that doesn’t mean you answer the phone.
Roderick Usher: No, it does not.
Roderick Usher: You always were an effective orator, Auggie. Even your opening arguments, I was impressed. I watched that tape back a few times. That may have been the last time. You know.
Auguste Dupin: No. The last time you were impressed?
Roderick Usher: The last time we were all together. That day was the last day we were all in the same place. Alive.
Auguste Dupin: [flashback to two weeks prior] The Usher family under CEO Roderick Usher and COO Madeline Usher spent four decades growing Fortunato into one of the most profitable, powerful companies on the planet Earth. They’ve achieved this by doing awful, awful things. Flagrantly violating regulations, statutes, and the most fundamental ethics. And at the cost of people’s lives.
Auguste Dupin: The House of Usher has weathered every storm, sling, and arrow, and stands higher, stronger, and darker today than ever before.
Frederick Usher: Dad doesn’t do family dinners. This is about one thing. The mole.
Lenore: Informant. A mole is one of them who infiltrated us. An informant is one of us giving something to them.
Frederick Usher: Okay, so a mole is like Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed. An informant is Jack Nicholson in The Departed. He was! Nicholson was talking to the Feds the whole time.
Lenore: No. No. I get it. It’s just, there are other movies, Dad.
Frederick Usher: Not as good as The Departed.
Lenore: Are the charges true? Because if not, we’ve got nothing to worry about. But if someone really broke the law, shouldn’t they be punished?
Morella Usher: Lenore, that is a brave and thoughtful thing to say. Especially if you want to get written out of the will.
Tamerlane Usher: Dad needs to see his kids don’t need half a billion dollars and an endless supply of test monkeys to be successful.
Julius: I’d like to meet your family.
Leo Usher: There’s a whole process for that. Significant others are a thing. You don’t want that yet. The prenup’s like a f***ing phone book.
Camille L’Espanaye: We’re going to find out who’s talking to the Feds. Then I’ll freeze their f***ing head, and I’m going to give it to my father on a platinum plate. See if Cartier will make a platinum plate.
Roderick Usher: [to Juno, referring to his children] They will love you because I love you, and the only thing stronger than love is how scared they are of getting cut out of the will.
Madeline Usher: Mr. Pym has some important paperwork for each of you.
Camille L’Espanaye: Paperwork from the Pym Reaper, always a blast.
Madeline Usher: This is a robust, new non-disclosure agreement, and it is consequential.
Camille L’Espanaye: Forfeiture of inheritance? Waiving of civil suits. You guys, we really should get together more often, it’s just a balm for the soul.
Tamerlane Usher: Consequence only applies if it’s proven you violated the agreements. So it seems to me no one has anything to worry about. Unless they have something to worry about.
Tamerlane Usher: How do you spell “Froderick”?
Madeline Usher: Alright. Get the jokes out now because this isn’t funny. Fortunato is the reason you exist. It’s the reason you can have your little knock-offs, your heart implants, your debutante balls.
Madeline Usher: The company is the family, and we expect you to defend it with your life. And if anyone, anyone comes after us, we will exhaust our arsenal until the threat’s neutralized.
Frederick Usher: By neutralized, do you mean sued into oblivion, taken out of the Board, out of the will, on the streets.
Madeline Usher: Neutralized. Like dead.
Madeline Usher: When I find out who’s been talking to the government, to the goddamn government, against your own blood, there won’t be enough of you left to sue. I’ll have to sue the bloody puddle of gore in the designer shoes. And make no mistake, we’ll find out.
Roderick Usher: [flashback] Yes, I’m putting a bounty on you. You, the s**t bag, you the informant, you know who you are. It’s fifty million. Sleep tight. And to the rest of you, happy hunting.
Roderick Usher: And that was the last time I saw them all together. For some of them, the last time I saw them alive.
Roderick Usher: I know who’s responsible.
Auguste Dupin: You know who’s responsible for which death?
Roderick Usher: All of them.
Roderick Usher: I am responsible. And more to the point, perhaps there is a woman.
Roderick Usher: You know my favorite holiday? New Year’s Eve. You know why? Resolutions. People take that word for granted, they don’t realize just how heavy a word it is. Resolution. Resolve. Means being unwavering, determined, a firm commitment to do something, or not to do something. And most people go their whole, wasted, stupid lives without one minute of true resolution. Not me though. Not me. And not Madeline.
Verna: [flashback, 1979] You know what a resolution is really? It’s a deal you make with the future. The future’s coming fast. It’s nearly here. You already know your resolutions, don’t you?
Young Roderick: Yeah. We’ve got the same one. We’re going to change the world.
Verna: [to Roderick and Madeline] Your life will take a complete change of course. Tonight. You feel it. Both of you. In the air. We’re sitting outside of time and space.
Roderick Usher: [to Auguste] There’s a reason I’m telling you this. My mother, my children, New Year’s Eve. You’ll be reluctant to accept it, or believe it, but I promise you, every single piece is important.
Preacher: “By slow degrees, our sickness and dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling. It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height. And this fall, this rushing annihilation for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering, which have ever presented themselves to our imagination, for this very cause do we now, most vividly, desire it.”
Roderick Usher: It’s time. It’s time. It’s time.
2. The Masque of the Red Death
'Nothing worth having is ever easy.' - Verna (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Boss: [flashback, 1979] I don’t like you, Dupin. I’ve had issues with you people in the past.
Young Dupin: You people? Whole damn office still white as cream cheese, in case you’re worried we’re invading.
Boss: Who says I’m talking about your skin? That’s right. I noticed that too.
Young Dupin: Respect? Come on, nobody holds anybody to account, you know that.
'We all, all of us, know pain. It's the great equalizer.' - Young Roderick (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Young Dupin: This world needs changing.
Boss: Okay. Say you win. If you could catch them all, take all of it, all the greed, the foulness, the rot in the world, and sit down across from it, what would you say?
Auguste Dupin: Was it ever going to be enough? How much money would make you say, “We did it”? Does that number even exist?
Roderick Usher: That’s an idiot question. Of course not.
'There's no such thing as a step back. You go forward. And if you hit a brick wall, you don't go back, you go through.' - Young Madeline (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Roderick Usher: [to Auguste] Perry was the first of my children to die. And I know you think you know how that happened. But you don’t. The first thing you have to understand about my son is that he was, if nothing else, crazy.
Perry Usher: You never f*** family. Apparently, you just hunt them.
'Nearly realized is the sweetest. It's better, I promise, in the moment just before than in the moment after. That is the truth of this world.' - Verna (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Frederick Usher: What the f*** are you doing?
Perry Usher: I’m getting to know the family business, like Dad said.
Frederick Usher: You’re supposed to be shadowing me. Shadows don’t f***ing talk. They don’t speak.
Frederick Usher: [to Perry] Arthur has the power of six, or seven attorneys. And the last thing he f***ing needs is Gucci Caligula handing over the keys to the store.
'Things like this, all things, in fact, have consequences.' - Verna (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Frederick Usher: [to Perry] I know it’s you, you little f***. No wonder you’re so comfy talking around the Feds. Getting a lot of practice after hours? I know you’re the f***ing mole. I know it. And when I can prove it, I’m going to serve you up to Dad on a silver platter.
Leo Usher: You want a little Molly, a little coke, a little pick me up, or a check me out, yeah, I’m your guy. But I’m not a f***ing cartel, I can’t supply your whole f***ing rave.
Perry Usher: But you know people who move that kind of weight, don’t you?
Leo Usher: “Move that kind of weight”? What? Have you been watching f***ing Narcos or something? Because you should if you haven’t. It’s brilliant.
Camille L’Espanaye: The Ushers aren’t idiots. Except Perry.
Roderick Usher: It’s an old joke. Old joke I told them once. “Remember the golden rule.” It was in a comic book. The Wizard of Id. Number four, I think. Late ’60s, kitschy as hell. And the cover was a stout little king standing on a green tower looking down over his subjects, one finger up, making a proclamation, “Remember the golden rule.” “And what’s that?” His short little peasant subjects shout back from below. And then, this little peasant in the back, he pipes up. And in the last little word bubble it says, “Whoever has the gold makes the…”
[sees Perry’s burnt corpse in front of him]
Roderick Usher: The Wizard of Id. A play on The Wizard of Oz. A comic. About a sprawling cast of characters in a medieval kingdom called Id.
Auguste Dupin: More of a Calvin and Hobbes guy.
Roderick Usher: And I first saw it hanging outside Rufus Griswold’s office.
Roderick Usher: Gris, the original gangsta, you might say. All of this really starts there. In that office with Rufus Griswold. The original c**ks**ker.
[we then see in flasback to the comic with the writing “Remember the golden rule.” “And what’s that?” “Whoever has the gold makes the rules.”]
Rufus Griswold: A world without pain. That’s pretty good.
Young Roderick: It’s not just good. It’s imminent.
Annabel Lee: The kids are healthy, and happy, we’re together. Money isn’t everything. We’re okay. You’re both so f***ing high-tech, impressive. Roderick with your medicine. Madeline with your algorithms.
Young Madeline: Algorithms aren’t high tech. They’ve been around since antiquity. An algorithm is just a finite sequence of all defined instructions to solve a problem, or perform a computation. But, down the line, with computers, we could use them for anything. Financial markets. Investments. Predictive medical care. Hell, an algorithm could write movies and TV shows.
Young Roderick: Not well.
Young Madeline: You’ll see. Down the line, we could mimic human consciousness. That is immortality talk right there.
Annabel Lee: Yeah. But aren’t there just some things only we sad, little, flawed people can do? I mean, can an algorithm write a poem the way Roderick does?
Madeline Usher: You see, what your granddad doesn’t get is that this isn’t about building a chatbot. It’s about legacy.
Roderick Usher: How was your day?
Lenore: Good. Just visiting Nanna Madeline.
Roderick Usher: Oh, that’s right, she’s turning you into a video game, or something.
Camille L’Espanaye: You know what we used to call that place, right? Roderick Usher Experimental. His name used to be right there on the sign, before he got smart and took it down for something generic. When we were kids, he called it RUE Zoo. When we got older, we’d know better. Called it RUE Morgue.
Verna: I know everyone here. It’s my kind of party. It’s yours too, isn’t it?
Perry Usher: Do you like it?
Verna: I do. The music. The lights. The beautiful flesh. So pretty and soft. But the smells of it. All that sweat, the perfumes, the lotions, the musk. Sex, yes. But with a dash of Rome.
Verna: Tell me, and don’t lie. Is it everything you wanted it to be?
Perry Usher: Not yet. Almost.
Verna: Nearly realized is the sweetest. It’s better, I promise, in the moment just before than in the moment after. That is the truth of this world. But you did it. And it’s everything you imagined. And there’s still time.
Perry Usher: To what?
Verna: To stop it. Things like this, all things, in fact, have consequences.
Verna: There are always consequences. Take you, for instance. Someone, a long time ago, made a little decision, and then another, and then a big one, and then one of absolutely no importance. And then by and by, you were born. On that day, you were the consequence of a harmless choice made by someone in a moment where you didn’t even exist. And that choice defined your whole life. You are consequence, Perry. And tonight, you are consequential.
Verna: We could have had fun, you and me.
Perry Usher: Well, the night’s young. We can have all the fun you want.
Verna: I’ve always liked the bad boys. Got a weakness, I suppose. And you bad boys, you always just loved me.
Verna: [to the burnt by acid Perry] You beautiful boy.
3. Murder in the Rue Morgue
Roderick Usher: [referring to Perry’s death] A horrible accident.
Auguste Dupin: Except for one thing. There’s one thing that doesn’t jive with the “horrible, tragic accident” story.
Roderick Usher: So you caught that, did you? Go ahead. Say it.
Auguste Dupin: The wait staff.
Arthur Pym: [referring to the wait staff at Perry’s party] Why did they all leave at the same time just before?
Madeline Usher: They knew. They f***ing knew.
Arthur Pym: Then someone set this up.
'You can't help it when you're young. You assume a lot.' - Roderick Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Leo Usher: [referring to Perry] Say what you want, he was one of us. He didn’t deserve to die like that. F***. No one does.
Tamerlane Usher: Knowing stuff is your bread and butter, and Perry throws an underground party at a condemned Fortunato building, and you didn’t know about it?
Camille L’Espanaye: No, he didn’t invite his sister to the orgy.
Tamerlane Usher: Just his sister-in-law?
Camille L’Espanaye: Yeah. I have no idea how I’m going to keep that down. If the hospital doesn’t leak it, they’re definitely going to leak it. Somebody will notice that Morella Usher doesn’t have skin anymore.
'An idea is nothing. An idea is a fart that your brain makes. But if you patent an idea, well, then it's an asset.' - Rufus Griswold (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Camille L’Espanaye: Perry Usher died horribly last night in a preventable accident. That’s public sympathy. We’re going to have something we haven’t had in three years. It’s public sympathy.
Camille L’Espanaye: [referring to Perry] That’s why we have a charity wing, dummy. So you can paste someone’s face on it. We remember that he did it, so he did it. He was very Paul Newman about his charity work when he was alive, but now that he’s gone, we can sing about it. But any attack on us while we’re grieving is an attack on him.
Victorine LaFourcade: And you wonder why people hate us. This is why.
Camille L’Espanaye: Actually, no. If you’re wondering how this family built its multi-billion dollar empire, this is why. Because opportunity doesn’t give a f*** what you’re going through. That’s why they hate us. Not because we grabbed the opportunity, but because they didn’t.
Toby: Do you actually want to send an arrangement? I can’t tell.
Camille L’Espanaye: Toby, dammit, everybody knows that edible arrangements are what you send to people you hate. So, yes.
Camille L’Espanaye: Perry’s dead, the family’s f***ed, you’re the frontline of my PR campaign, and you just took an edible?
Leo Usher: You want some?
Camille L’Espanaye: I mean, yeah. I want some.
Camille L’Espanaye: I love you. Leo loves you too. He says you’re getting engaged.
Julius: Did he mean it, or is it just the edibles, and the pot, and the speed, and the wine, and the coke, and the pills talking?
Camille L’Espanaye: You don’t make video games. You give money to people who make video games. But you don’t make s**t. Like Froderick is this Roderick Usher cover band, and he’s playing the hits, but it’s sort of off-key. And Tammy is basically just Goop with like a big golden bug sticker on it. And it’s not even her face on the product, it’s BILLT, the f***ing fitness clown. And then Vic’s heart mesh isn’t even her heart mesh, it’s the surgeon’s heart mesh, that’s why she’s f***ing the surgeon. And you’re like this amazing, I don’t know, like, Xbox Gatsby. And I just spin. Dad decided that I belong in a room of smoke and mirrors, and I’m like a ceiling fan, and I spin, and I spin, and I spin, and I don’t go anywhere. Ushers don’t make stuff. None of us.
Roderick Usher: Death was something new for my children. They really hadn’t faced it. But like with all other things, Ushers adapt quickly. One thing I tried to teach them, the art of the pivot. When life hands you lemons…
Auguste Dupin: Make lemonade?
Roderick Usher: No. First you roll out a multi-media campaign to convince people lemons are incredibly scarce, which only works if you stockpile lemons, control the supply. Then a media blitz.
Roderick Usher: Sit back, rake in the millions, and then, when you’re done, and you’ve sold your lem-pire for a few billion dollars, then, and only then, you make some f***ing lemonade.
Young Roderick: [flashback] The whole thing was all my idea.
Young Madeline: No. No. An idea is nothing. An idea is a fart that your brain makes. But if you patent an idea, well, then it’s an asset. Do you get it now?
Young Madeline: [flashback, to Roderick] You have, for the moment, my gratitude. And that can be an asset. Hell, that can even have a value. You see, because I’m writing you a check right now. In the amount of five hundred dollars. I don’t have to do this, okay. I don’t pay finder’s fees for ideas. I don’t pay for other people’s farts. But you’re a smart guy. And you’re going to take this money, and you’re going to buy your wife something nice. Money for nothing. Money for words. Money for hot air. You walked in here, brain farted, and turned it into five hundred dollars.
Young Madeline: [flashback] And now, if you’re smart, you’re realizing what else my gratitude is worth. You’re realizing, “Oh, this guy likes my ideas.” A good manager wants to keep people with good ideas around. And gratitude’s worth more than you thought, isn’t it, Rod? And now you’re thinking, “Is he grateful enough to want to promote me?” And the answer is, “Yes.”
Annabel Lee: [to Roderick, referring to Madeline] You both had it hard. You had to be so hard. Both of you. So young. And I will never understand that. I won’t. I can’t. But I don’t like her, honey. I’m sorry, I don’t.
Young Roderick: “I was a child and she was a child in this kingdom by the sea. And we loved with a love that was more than a love. I and my Annabel Lee.”
Annabel Lee: More.
Young Roderick: “With a love that the winged Seraphs of Heaven, coveted her and me.”
Camille L’Espanaye: I have specific needs. I have specific requirements for a very specific and unique f***ing lifestyle. I think it’s really f***ing convenient that you two were excited when you signed your NDAs, and your consent forms, and that you two fell in love, Tina. One month after I finish paying off your student debt, Tina?
Tina: My name isn’t Tina. You know that. It’s Beth.
Camille L’Espanaye: I don’t give a s**t, Beth!
Camille L’Espanaye: Fine, okay. Okay. You’re in love. You’re in love. Adorable little morons. You would think that spending this much time around Fortunato Industries would teach the two of you a little bit about brain chemistry, you dopamine-riddled little f*** puppets. I’m just going to Venmo you your severance.
Toby: We’re not quitting. We just needed you to know.
Camille L’Espanaye: No, you’re not quitting. You’re fired, because you’re all but useless to me now, if you can’t perform your designated tasks. And I will not be able to f*** either of you from here on out without laughing. So, boom, we’re done.
Camille L’Espanaye: When the norepinephrine wears off, and the two of you are lying in bed next to each other, and one of you lets out a long fart in your sleep, you’re going to look back at this moment and realize what a stupid, f***ing decision you both just made.
Camille L’Espanaye: What’s a six-letter word for “f***ed”?
Verna: F***ed.
Verna: Your dad is a force of nature, isn’t he?
Camille L’Espanaye: I’m going to need you to tell me who the f*** you think you are.
Verna: Why do you hate her? I mean, on paper, you should be allies. The b****rd daughters of Roderick Usher. What an alliance you could have made.
Camille L’Espanaye: Okay, whoever you are, you are so f***ing fired.
Verna: I love how deliciously, pointlessly mean you lot can be.
Camille L’Espanaye: Okay, fired is the wrong word. Because I’m going to have you f***ing killed.
Verna: And you could too. You picked the worst job to hide your true nature. You clean up dirt for a living. Victorine, on the other hand, she picked better. She’s Mother Teresa, far as they know. Saving humanity one precious heart at a time. Inside though, you two are the most alike. You hate her because she hid it better.
Verna: You still didn’t need to come here though. It could have happened quiet. Peaceful. In bed. But I guess it’s got to happen like this. I’m sorry. It’s not personal. It wasn’t with your brother either. It’s just, well, here we are.
Camille L’Espanaye: F*** it. I got mine.
[she takes a photo of Verna, which shows her as a chimpanzee, who then kills her]
4. The Black Cat
Leo Usher: I don’t think you know what I am. I’m a money bomb. New cages. New computer. New building. I will adopt every cat in here and donate it to an orphanage. Set you up waterside in a new facility with tiny little kitty hot tubs.
Verna: They’d hate that.
Leo Usher: And dress you head to toe in Louis Vuitton if I have to. But I’m walking out of here with this cat.
Leo Usher: [to the cat] You little f***er, you saved my life.
'Denial. It's amazing how far you can get on denial. You know why so many people use denial to get by? Because it really f***ing works.' - Roderick Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Roderick Usher: The thing about denial is sometimes problems do just go away on their own, so it makes it feel like denial works. The placebo effect.
Roderick Usher: Denial. Sometimes it works, like I said. But other times, it doesn’t. It really f***ing doesn’t.
'Nobody knows they're the fall guy until they're falling.' - Young Madeline (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Leo Usher: “On behalf of myself and the Usher family, I’m saddened to announce the loss of our beloved Camille L’Espanaye, aged thirty-five.” What the f*** is this?
Tamerlane Usher: Yeah, that really is awful. Are we going with thirty-five?
Leo Usher: A f***ing robo-chimp rips off my sister’s face, and I’m saddened!
Roderick Usher: [to his children] Everyone toes the line. This is not about sticking together, it’s about forming a f***ing wall. And in case you haven’t noticed, Morella’s in the hospital, Prospero is dead, and Camille is dead. So save the static until I figure out what the f*** is going on. And until then, I don’t care if Madeline tells you to fart into a microphone on national television, you f***ing do it. We’re at battle stations. I’m the commanding officer. I don’t want to hear anything but, “Sir, yes, sir.” You get me?
Victorine LaFourcade: Is Juno in the will?
Tamerlane Usher: Oh, no. Juno’s not really in the will. Is she, Dad?
Juno: I am still in the room, so.
Madeline Usher: [referring to security footage showing Camille] Stop right there.
Roderick Usher: Enhance.
Arthur Pym: That also isn’t really a thing.
Roderick Usher: What, you can’t enhance this image? You see it all the time on TV. They hit a button, it enhances it.
Arthur Pym: You can zoom in, but that doesn’t actually enhance it.
Madeline Usher: Well then, please zoom in, Arthur.
Arthur Pym: Alright, fine.
Arthur Pym: [as they see Verna in the footage] You recognize her?
Roderick Usher: Well, it’s a little tough to tell. Maybe if you could, I don’t know, enhance it.
Madeline Usher: Tell everyone to take up arms. We are at war. I don’t know who, I don’t know how, but I know what it feels like when a bullet flies by, even if I can’t hear the shot.
Leo Usher: What’s worse? A double funeral, or having attending two separate ones? I don’t even own anything funeral black.
Julius: We can get you something.
Leo Usher: I don’t even own a black suit! Oh, no. Wait. That’s not true. I do have one. False alarm. It’s just f***ing satin!
Julius: I’ll take care of it.
Leo Usher: I can hear Camille’s voice in my head right now. “Satin is silk for poor people, and no one should wear it to a funeral, unless they died in it.” F***’s sake.
Auguste Dupin: It feels at times like there are different rules for people like the Ushers.
Victorine LaFourcade: The device absolutely does not increase aggression.
Roderick Usher: Where is it now?
Victorine LaFourcade: It’s dead.
Roderick Usher: No, not the monkey, for f***’s sake. The two hundred million of intellectual property wrapped around its s**tty, dead heart.
Frederick Usher: Teenagers are all about hacking into stuff.
Lenore: Not really. You’re thinking of hackers, Dad.
Roderick Usher: Displacement. The other go-to coping mechanism in my family. It’s when you direct your more intense reactions towards something, or someone that doesn’t feel threatening. So you get to react, and be angry, be abusive, be violent, even, but you don’t risk significant consequences.
Auguste Dupin: I’m familiar.
Roderick Usher: I bet you are.
Roderick Usher: Napoleon was most like me in this way. Of all of them. Denial, displacement, projection. But see, I wanted something better. Something better for him. For all of them. A trait of mine that seemed to skip them somehow. Sublimation. And that is something that is one of the few coping mechanisms that’s considered positive. Sublimation is when a person chooses to redirect strong emotions into an object or an activity that’s appropriate and safe.
Roderick Usher: Do you remember the day we met?
Auguste Dupin: Of course I do.
Roderick Usher: I thought a lot of things that day. A lot of things I’d never thought before. I saw the world different after we met. Never imagined we’d end up here though.
Young Madeline: [flashback] Do you know what the real world is, Rod? Variables. Because in the real world there are side effects, and surprises, and anomalies, and acts of God, and all of that, and we weather that. For all the whiney little sheep out there, we weather all of it. The complaints, and the lawsuits, and the investigator, and the whole mess. Why? So their d**k can stay hard a little bit longer? Or they can kick that headache a little sooner? And then they attack us for it. F***ing people.
Young Madeline: [flashback, referring to his Ferrari] It’s not an ordinary car, Rod. This is an extraordinary car, okay? This is not a car for just anybody. This is a car for a somebody. You drive a car like that, you make a statement. About who you are, where you’re going, and how you get there. You follow my lead, you keep your nose clean, your mouth shut, and your eyes open, pretty soon you’ll be driving any car you want. Parking it in the driveway of any house that you could ever dream of buying. Because I’m a Candy Man, Rod. I’m Willy f***ing Wonka, and this is my chocolate factory. And you just got the Golden Ticket. You play your cards right, one day all this could be yours, Charlie Bucket.
Young Madeline: They forged your signature, Roderick. Your name, our name, is on evidence of a crime. Christ. Nobody knows they’re the fall guy until they’re falling. You work for a competitor, they’ll never trust you. You stay at Fortunato, they’ll never respect you. You just ate a spoonful of their own s**t in front of them and smiled. You can’t be part of the club now. You can’t be an equal. Not when they’ve watched you eat their s**t. That’s just nature. Which is doubly f***ed because your father built this company. It’s your birthright, Roderick. Our birthright. You’re going to go to work, and you are going to keep eating that s**t. And you’re going to make Rufus Griswold think it’s your favorite food. And then you’re going to call this number. Your wife is right. It’s the right thing to do. We’re going to call him tomorrow. And you are going to become best friends with Auguste Dupin.
Frederick Usher: [referring to Morelle] I can’t help but wonder why she was even at this…
Leo Usher: Perry’s orgy?
Frederick Usher: Please, don’t f***ing say that word.
Leo Usher: Sorry. Perry’s cuddle puddle. That can’t be much better.
William ‘Bill-T’ Wilson: Everyone knows that life is short and the universe is chaotic, and so much is out of our control, so the doomsayers will tell you. I say, “Fine. But what about what is in your control?” How in tune are your mind, your body, and the sacred Gaia energy? I’m BILLT and you can too. Your best days are a lifestyle away.
Leo Usher: The cat’s a f***ing psychopath.
Verna: She’s in the walls.
Leo Usher: What?
Verna: Cats are actually apex predators, you know? It’s all about hunting. They can lengthen their spines for short bursts of speed. Thirty miles an hour. They can narrow their shoulders and chests to squeeze into tiny spaces. Jump nine times their height from a standing position, and land on their feet almost every time they fall. They eat their prey to get taurine. An essential amino acid. Cats don’t make enough of it, so they have to eat it. They’re predators because they’re deficient. A lot like your father. Aren’t they, Leo?
Leo Usher: Alright, that’s done it. I’ll tell you what. I’ll tell you what. Don’t f***ing move! I can buy a new wall. I can buy a new loft! I can even get Hemsworth to send me a new hammer. But you, you little s**t!
[he starts to smash the apartment’s walls to find Pluto]
William ‘Bill-T’ Wilson: [referring to Verna] Are you sure that it was her?
Tamerlane Usher: She was standing right behind you wearing the same wig. You had to have seen her, Bill.
William ‘Bill-T’ Wilson: Well, I didn’t. Did you get a freeze-frame or anything?
Tamerlane Usher: It’s a live stream. You know I can’t get a freeze-frame.
Roderick Usher: CADASIL. Same as Mom.
Madeline Usher: Okay. And that’s five years on the outside.
Roderick Usher: It’s pretty advanced, so. It’s less. Much less. And I knew vascular dementia can cause hallucinations, but I just didn’t think… Nothing like this.
5. The Tell-Tale Heart
Young Roderick: [flashback to New Year’s Eve 1980] Growing up, my mom used to tell us that ravens were the minions of Satan, because Noah threw them…
Verna: Threw them overboard and they still survived the flood. Heard that one before. They’re not considered bad omens in every culture though. A lot of people believe ravens bring good fortune.
Young Roderick: I’m not sure I want to know my fortune.
Verna: Oh, why? See how your line splits here? Your life will take a complete change of course. Tonight.
'The mind of guilt is full of scorpions. And I wouldn't wish their sting on anyone.' - Roderick Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Verna: Women are the natural leaders of the species. Ancient Egypt had it right.
Verna: You decide on your resolution?
Young Madeline: You already asked us that. Change the world. Remember?
Verna: Your brother answered for you. I want to know what do you want?
Young Madeline: That is what I want. Do I strike you as someone who can’t speak for herself?
Verna: You strike me as a queen without a crown.
'Never waste your time on guilt or shame. Is their alchemy a savage cross to bear?' - Roderick Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Verna: Okay. You’re rich. You never have to work again. What now? What do you do with your life?
Young Madeline: I’d never let a man have power over me, and I’d figure out how to live forever.
Auguste Dupin: What did you do, Roderick? You and Madeline. You said this is your confession. Confess.
Victorine LaFourcade: The only people out for Usher blood are Ushers.
Tamerlane Usher: You have the same hole, Vic. I don’t know if you see it, but you have it too. Camille tried to fill hers with information. Perry tried to fill it with anything really. And Leo tried to fill his Dad hole with the love of his fans.
Frederick Usher: Dad hole.
Tamerlane Usher: He went out to check the f***ing mail, he’d end up balls-deep in an Insta follower.
Tamerlane Usher: Look, we are sorry Dad’s Dad. And he dove off of our mother into a sea of strange pu**y, and we have been meeting the fruits of that ever since. And this is tragic, but for all we know there are three more coming to take their place. There, I said it. Dad’s whole thing is just keeping the door open for every b****rd he has in the free world.
Victorine LaFourcade: Okay, just because the door’s open doesn’t necessarily guarantee you a seat at the table. Come on, he throws us the food, and watches us fight for it. You know that. Especially us.
Tamerlane Usher: I want to know what sunbaked, half-rotten carcass Camille dug up on you before she died.
Victorine LaFourcade: Yeah, you got me. I’m killing the Ushers one by one. Guess who’s next?
Frederick Usher: Okey-dokey. I thought we were going to be toasting our dead siblings or something.
Victorine LaFourcade: Oh, f*** off, Froderick. Froderick and Maderlane. You two, you’re just like Dad and Mads. Linking arms, side by side, playing Red f***ing Rover, trying to get me to break through, so what? You can knock me down? Well, guess what? I don’t need to break through. Because I’m going over the top.
Tamerlane Usher: Do you think that the fifty mill is still on the table?
Frederick Usher: Probably not. Not with all the dead people and stuff.
Dr. Alessandra Ruiz: You’re not who I thought you were.
Victorine LaFourcade: What are you going to do, Al?
Dr. Alessandra Ruiz: Goodbye, Vic.
Victorine LaFourcade: Wait. You’re not going to tell anyone!
Dr. Alessandra Ruiz: Of course I’m going to tell. And I don’t f***ing care if you sue me, or you rip me apart! You Ushers, I really didn’t want to think it, but you’re all f***ing monsters.
Auguste Dupin: You know, I think I see where they get it. The Pym Reaper. If only we had a chessboard and a beach.
Arthur Pym: Love Bergman.
Auguste Dupin: You’re a smart man. You could be anywhere, doing anything. You know what they are, why do you do this?
Arthur Pym: I wouldn’t be where I am today without Roderick Usher. Neither would you, by the way.
Judge John Neal: Continuance isn’t the end of the world, Mr. Dupin.
Auguste Dupin: But, Your Honor, this is bulls**t! This family has repeatedly managed to evade prosecution, no matter how much evidence stacked against them, no matter how many testified, no matter how many bodies they pile up, they always slip through the cracks. It’s almost supernatural, Your Honor. And you’re going to let them do it again.
Auguste Dupin: There was never an informant.
Roderick Usher: Oh, I’m impressed, Auggie. I didn’t think that you had it in you.
Auguste Dupin: Come on. There’s no ethics whatsoever to your defense, and I’m supposed to run my case by the book. There’s even more scrutiny on me because you’re so damn unscrupulous. So, yeah. One time. One time, I play your way.
Roderick Usher: This would have been a fun one. I’m just as sorry as you we couldn’t play it through. Watching you s**t on your principles would have been worth every f***ing penny.
Auguste Dupin: F*** you.
Roderick Usher: Drag me, you f***ing honey badger. We finally got you off your white horse and down here in the mud.
Auguste Dupin: Let’s play in the mud. You’re right. I pointed at the kids, figured it would stir you all up. Pressure the fault lines. Maybe even pitch you against each other. Hell, you might eat each other alive. But, hey, it could finally crack the fortress. Let you all knock it down from inside. But, Roderick, I didn’t imagine for a moment the kids would start dying. Figured you might torture them a bit. But I never imagined in a million years any of them would end up dead.
Roderick Usher: You really stepped in it this time. Why, if it weren’t for you, they would all still be alive today.
Roderick Usher: Auggie, let me relieve you of that burden. No one died for your lie. So don’t carry that. You see, one had nothing to do with the other. So, just, you can let that go. And the mind of guilt is full of scorpions. And I wouldn’t wish their sting on anyone. Never waste your time on guilt or shame. Is their alchemy a savage cross to bear?
Rufus Griswold: And why would a woman want to run her own company?
Young Madeline: Same reason a man would.
Young Madeline: Smart girls are only sexy until you realize they don’t want to f*** you, and then they’re competition, and what do you do with competition? You take them down a peg.
Rufus Griswold: Don’t f*** with me, Madeline. Either of you. Do not f*** with me. F*** me, now that’s fine. Hell, you’ll climb that ladder fast. Men have to climb on their bellies in the dirt. But women, they can climb it on their backs. On their knees. World’s unfair that way, but it works. So you can f*** me any time you want. But don’t you ever f*** with me, Madeline Usher. Do you get me?
Young Madeline: I get you.
Annabel Lee: [referring to Griswold] I don’t understand why you went in there in the first place.
Young Madeline: To look him in the eye. Now I know what we’re up against, and it’s not much. Testosterone, hubris, aftershave. I’m relieved. I mean, s**t. What if he was smart?
Annabel Lee: Don’t have to be smart to be dangerous. I’m not scared of rattlesnakes because they’re so smart.
Young Dupin: [referring to Griswold] He’s smart, alright. Don’t misjudge him, he’s misjudged you. Don’t make the same mistake. People misjudge me all the time. Everywhere I go. Used to make my blood boil. But now I get it. It’s an opportunity. He’s underestimated you. That’s a gift. A failure of imagination. He sees you as formidable, he locks down, closes ranks, shuts the doors, battens the hatches. But he doesn’t think much of you, either of you. And that’s great for us.
Madeline Usher: [referring to Verna] This woman looks remarkably like a certain bartender we met back in 1980 just up the street from here, in fact. The bar’s long gone now. I already checked, but I know I’m right. And since my brother likes to stick his d**k into anything that moves, you’ve got new b****rds popping up like new smart phones, and maybe this one is crazy and wants to be first in line.
Verna: [to Victorine] Do you know the term “operant conditioning”? It’s what a horse has that lets them know a rider might be nervous or hesitant. They read erratic behavior. Not fear, not exactly. But animals learn real quick to avoid that person. That’s you. In a nutshell. You’re so out of touch with your human side, you can’t even listen to anything outside your own head.
Frederick Usher: [to Lenore] You understand who we are in the world, don’t you? We’re part of a kingdom. We’re like royalty. People fear that. They envy that. They want to tear it down. They want to tear us down.
Frederick Usher: [to Lenore] Now, if you could see the paper trail of s**t that Pym has protected this family from over the years, it’s thicker than a phonebook. That’s what that man does for us. So, if he tells you to say something, you say it. And if he says to keep quiet about something, you keep quiet. Because he’s also protecting you.
William ‘Bill-T’ Wilson: With everything that’s happened, you need a break.
Tamerlane Usher: Listen to me, Bill, because I really don’t want to go through this again. The optics will be fine. A few “my heart will go on” tweets will pad it out.
Tamerlane Usher: I’m sorry, Bill, just who do you think you are in this? You have one job, you smile, you jazzercise, and you bring that army of fitness f***ers with you. You are a face, you’re not a mouthpiece. So just smile and shut the f*** up.
Roderick Usher: [to Victorine] You, and your brothers, and your sisters, I always thought of you as a pride of lions. And a young lioness has to grapple with her, she has to grapple with her siblings before she goes off to hunt, right? Just learn how to use her claws, and her teeth, and her strength, before she can go off and slaughter the water buffalo. I want to apologize. For turning you kids against one another. I wanted to make you stronger. And I was wrong. And your work, well, I may need your work more than you know. I am not strong. I am not brave. And your work, well, it can make a big difference for me. So I am here to support you with everything I’ve got.
Victorine LaFourcade: [after we see in flashback that she killed Al] I’m sorry, Dad, she’s not being a team player. But you see, it works.
Roderick Usher: You’re fully funded. Let’s just get out of here and we’ll get the paperwork started.
Victorine LaFourcade: No. No, not until she apologizes. Not until she promises to be a team player.
Roderick Usher: Well, she’s quite dead. Isn’t she?
Victorine LaFourcade: Yes, that would explain it, wouldn’t it? Like, why it’s making that sound. It’s just pumping a dead useless heart.
Victorine LaFourcade: You know, I wish you’d just jumped. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to do this. Who am I kidding? Of course I would. Because the work is everything. Success is everything. And if we’re going to succeed, we just need a better heart.
Roderick Usher: No!
Victorine LaFourcade: [as she stabs herself in the heart] Oh. Daddy?
6. Goldbug
'Sometimes things are just off. Reality's not what it used to be. All that we see, or seem, is but a dream within a dream.' - Roderick Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Auguste Dupin: I have to take it with a grain of salt, don’t I? There’s no way you witnessed these events. So what is this? Your best guess?
Roderick Usher: This is what happened.
Auguste Dupin: How could you know that?
Roderick Usher: I know because they told me.
Auguste Dupin: Before they died.
Roderick Usher: No, not before.
Madeline Usher: Four deaths in a row is not a coincidence. We don’t need to know how it’s happening to know it’s happening. We are under attack.
'Life is insane. It is madness. And the sooner you understand that, the better off you'll be.' - Roderick Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Madeline Usher: Yes, brother dear, has it not occurred to you that if these coincidences keep happening, that family firewall you’ve always talked about is being dismantled one brick at a time. We could lose control of the board. That woman from the bar, if we don’t find her, if we don’t stop her right f***ing now, you won’t have a family left. You won’t have a company either.
Frederick Usher: [to Lenore] Your Aunt Victorine, your Uncle Leo, your Aunt Camille, your Uncle Perry, none of them were right. None of them. And they were also, well, they’re not completely Ushers either.
'Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.' - Roderick Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Tamerlane Usher: I’m just having a really hard time here. And this thing, this Goldbug, it’s different than anything else that my family has ever done. And it is more important now than ever that the world sees that we’re more than just Fortunato. We’re not just pill-pushers. We can be about health and about beauty. And the Usher name is more than just Roderick and Madeline. And I’m scared, Bill.
[she looks up to see Bill is not there]
Juno: I’m sorry about Victorine. And Camille. And Leo. And Perry. All of it. All this madness. It’s just weird to me. I guess all these terrible things, and I thought, that’s when people come together. But we’ve never been further apart.
'Men have called me mad. But the question is not yet settled as to whether madness is or is not, the loftiest intelligence.' - Madeline Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Juno: I’ve never had much in the way of family. I thought when we got together, “Well, his family’s f***ing huge, isn’t it?” Just to be part of a group. Be really part of something, you know? Silly, aren’t I?
Arthur Pym: You were absolutely correct. This is intentional. You have been targeted. And this woman knows we are trying to find her.
Roderick Usher: Used to be a fun game when the kids grew up, trying to finish Arthur’s story. I like to think he killed someone. I like to think he’s eaten human flesh. I like to think he took a pi** on the tip-top of the world.
Auguste Dupin: A guy can dream.
Roderick Usher: We didn’t send a private investigator to find that woman. We didn’t send the police. We didn’t send a hitman. We didn’t send a mercenary. We sent Arthur Gordon Pym. Of course he found her. But not that day.
Madeline Usher: This is the same woman, Roderick. Remember what happened that night. Remember what she said.
Roderick Usher: You’re the COO of a Fortune 100 corporation, and you’re talking like a crazy person.
Madeline Usher: You remember that conversation, I know you do.
Roderick Usher: We were out of our minds, Madeline.
Madeline Usher: Maybe. Men have called me mad. But the question is not yet settled as to whether madness is or is not, the loftiest intelligence.
Roderick Usher: Do you hear that?
Madeline Usher: Hear what?
Roderick Usher: Bells.
Madeline Usher: [as she slaps him] Shut your mouth. Get your s**t together. The f*** is wrong with you? You know as well as I do what’s happening here. Stop playing stupid.
Roderick Usher: I don’t know anything about anything. My heart is dying. My brain is dying. I don’t know for a fact if you’re even here right now.
Madeline Usher: My first husband. I thought I missed him, but that was just this temporary insanity. This burp your heart goes through. He was fun to ride. Boy.
Madeline Usher: Men, when they think they’re immortal, all they want to do is f***. When they figure out they’re going to die, all they want to do is f***.
Tamerlane Usher: You f***ing psycho stalker!
Verna: That would be so much easier, wouldn’t it? You really f***ed this one up, didn’t you, Tammy?
Tamerlane Usher: What the f*** do you want from me?
Verna: Honey. No one can take being shot down, scorned, and attacked twenty-four-seven like you do to yourself. And if you could hear that, you’d know. It’s your last chance to be perfectly still, and breathe before the inevitable. Sweetie, you might not believe me, but this part has nothing to do with you.
Tamerlane Usher: I f***ed it all up. I f***ed it all up. I f***ed it all up. I f***ed it all up. I just want…
Verna: Some sleep?
[she sees Verna in the mirror above her bed, smashes it, and the shards of glass impale and kill her]
7. The Pit and the Pendulum
'Everything has a price. Every negotiation's a point of entry. Every deal is simply an expression of will. Mutual will.' - Madeline Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Annabel Lee: Kids make noise, Roderick. That’s how we know they’re working.
Young Dupin: [to Roderick] Both of us lucky in one way, at least. Got good people at home who love us anyway. Let’s not let them down. Let’s make this one worth it.
'What's a poem, after all, if not a safe space for a difficult truth.' - Verna (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Auguste Dupin: [to Roderick] Annabel Lee. You know, I’ve thought about it over the years because I’ve got a good sense for people. I ask myself. what went wrong? What malfunctioned with me back then to make me trust you? And I figured it out. It was her. I trusted her, so I trusted you. I mean, if that woman loved you, if she trusted you, f***ing fool to lose her the way you did. Much as I lost after what you did, and I lost a lot, damn near everything, it sustained me a bit, knowing you lost her.
Roderick Usher: And this was the reason that long ago in this kingdom by the sea, a wind blew out of a cloud, chilling my beautiful Annabel Lee.
Auguste Dupin: You’re the f***ing wind, Shakespeare.
Roderick Usher: So that her highborn kinsmen came, bore her away from me, to shut her up in a sepulchre in this kingdom by the sea.
'Lo! Death Has reared himself a throne, in a strange city lying alone. In a strange city lying alone, far down within the dim West, where the good, and the bad, and the worst, and the best have gone to their eternal rest.' - Verna Share on X
Auguste Dupin: I say to people all the time, “There’s no such thing as a good Usher.” But there was. One. Annabel Lee Usher. The only good Usher, and you chased her away.
Roderick Usher: Wrong. My granddaughter, Lenore. The best of us. And so like her grandmother too. All the best of Annabel Lee without the broken heart.
Roderick Usher: [to Auguste] I’m glad you liked Annabel, but she’s gone, she’s been gone a long, long time, and I would be lying if I said I never wondered how the f*** did this happen.
Roderick Usher: This is it, Freddie. They’re all gone, and it’s all about to fall apart. So, I need to count on you. And when they call, and they will call, you just don’t pick up, that’s the best message. And if they corner you in the street, you tell them, “I’m Frederick Usher. I’m the repository of the hopes and dreams of a f***ing empire. So take your treacherous bulls**t elsewhere.”
Frederick Usher: It’s amazing. My whole life, you know, they won’t take me seriously, and then, suddenly, you’re the new CEO, and everybody is f***ing so accommodating.
Frederick Usher: You know one thing Dad was really big about? It was a lesson that he taught us all. One of the first things he taught us. If you want to test a bond, you don’t really need to break it. You just crack it a little.
Frederick Usher: Second lesson Dad was big on was getting your house in order. You don’t have to be a tyrant, but if you don’t want to be consistently cruel, then you have to be sufficiently brutal at least once to establish authority.
Roderick Usher: You’ll have me on murder. That’s where we’re going. You’ll have me dead to rights on murder. More than one actually.
Auguste Dupin: And here’s where I stop in my tracks, slowly return to the chair, sit down, and start the recorder again. That’s what I do now, right Roderick? In your little script.
Roderick Usher: I mean, it’d be nice.
Roderick Usher: They’ve been at me all night. Make sure I get their stories right. Which it’s fantastic. As my personal hell is being micro-managed.
Roderick Usher: [to Auguste] I’m not insane. And while CADASIL is no picnic, it certainly isn’t this. No, I’m afraid you’re ringside for my reckoning, old friend.
Annabel Lee: [after Roderick betrays Auguste] What the f*** is wrong with you? Roderick was going to do the right thing. He was going to be a hero. That’s what I told my children.
Young Madeline: He did the right thing, you f***ing simpleton.
Young Madeline: I thought it was an act. I figured you just played the housewife so you could keep a roof over your head. Spread your legs, or suck his d**k twice a week and you’re set. You never have to work a day in your life. And I thought, “Good for her. She found her angle.” But this is really you. Isn’t it? I thought you only existed in the movies.
Annabel Lee: You are so small, Madeline.
Madeline Usher: It really is you. It’s amazing how much I’ve denied. But it is you. And somehow I knew you’d be here.
Verna: Well, I left you the address, don’t pat yourself too hard on the back.
Madeline Usher: I want to ask you to stop.
Verna: Come on. Ask me? That isn’t you. And frankly, I think you’ve forgotten what I am.
Madeline Usher: Fine then. I want to renegotiate.
Verna: You can’t.
Madeline Usher: Why not?
Verna: The ink is dry.
Madeline Usher: For him or for me?
Madeline Usher: Words got us into this, words can get us out.
Verna: You blaming Roderick or rhetoric?
Madeline Usher: I want new terms, and I shall have new terms. Or have you forgotten what I am?
Verna: There she is. Ah, there’s my Cleopatra.
Madeline Usher: Everything has a price. Every negotiation’s a point of entry. Every deal is simply an expression of will. Mutual will. We can sort this. Woman to woman.
Verna: I’m not a woman.
Madeline Usher: You know what I am capable of. You know what I have done. You know who I am.
Verna: You’re a collection of impeccable, elaborate masks in orbit of a stunted heart.
Verna: [to Madeline] There are certain things one shouldn’t have to face in life. Time enough for self-reflection after. Yes. I know who you are. And were. And who you could have been. I see all three. Standing shoulder to shoulder. And together, they break my heart.
Verna: I know who you are, Madeline. You’re one of my favorites. And I understand. You find an adversary, you kill them. You find a hurdle, you jump it, or dismantle it. You find a locked door, you pry it open.
Juno: You’re a monster, you know that? I married a monster.
Roderick Usher: No, dear. I’m Victor Frankenstein. You’re the monster. You are my perfect creation.
Juno: [to Roderick] Three years? Okay. I can do three years. Because, yeah, I’ve had a hard life at times. And I’ve made mistakes, but that’s what I thought you saw in me. Because that s**t made me f***ing strong. So, I will take three years of hell over a lifetime with you. Easy.
Verna: You should know there’s common ground between us. You, your brother and I, we share something. I recognized it the moment I laid eyes on you. Pain. You might accuse me of being the broker of suffering. I could say the same of you. But I consider myself more its witness. You’re in pain. You’re exhausted. Uncertain. Frightened. For the first time in years. I can’t take that pain from you. But I can give you something for it. And it’s not a drug. Years ago, I offered you certainty. Tonight, clarity. No strings.
Madeline Usher: I doubt that.
Verna: Your brother, you know what he would have been? A poet. That’s where his talent was. A broke poet, sure. But frankly, is there another kind? He and I share that as well. We both understand that language in its highest expression is musical.
Verna: Some clarity for you. What’s a poem, after all, if not a safe space for a difficult truth. Here’s one. Came to me when you adorable little things started building cities. I call it “The City in the Sea”. Lo! Death Has reared himself a throne, in a strange city lying alone. In a strange city lying alone, far down within the dim West, where the good, and the bad, and the worst, and the best have gone to their eternal rest. No rays from the holy Heaven come down on the long nighttime of that town. But light from out the lurid sea streams up the turrets silently. Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls, up fanes, up Babylon-like walls, up shadowy long-forgotten bowers of sculptured ivory and stone flowers. Resignedly beneath the sky the melancholy waters lie. But lo, a stir is in the air! The wave, there is a movement there! The waves have now a redder glow. The hours are breathing, faint and low. And when, amid no earthly moans, down, down that town shall settle hence. Hell rising from a thousand thrones shall do it reverence.
Madeline Usher: I thought you were offering clarity.
Verna: Let it steep a moment. It’ll come to you.
Verna: [as the building is being demolished] No need to panic. No need to worry what’s lurking around the corner. You’ve been scared your whole life. And now you get to put that down. It’s here, Frederick. I’m finally, finally here. The cool thing is, like nobody gets to see this. From this vantage point anyway. So, at least try to appreciate that.
Madeline Usher: [to Roderick] Freddie’s dead. That means there’s just us left. You remember the deal. You remember the terms. I know you do. “Into the world together, out of the world together, or there’s no deal,” that’s what she said. There is only one way out. And I think you know that too. I love you. More than anyone in the world. And now I need you to be a hero again. I need you to be my brother. We need you to be our hero.
Roderick Usher: [referring to overdose on their drug, Ligodone] No other way?
Madeline Usher: There’s not. I have run it all down. Every possible scenario. You trust me, you have always trusted me. This is the only one. This is it. Go ahead. You can do it. Now, that’s a legend. That’s a king. You’re saving us all. You’re a legend. You’re a king. You are saving us all.
Verna: [to Roderick as she saves him from overdosing] Can’t let you out that easy. Hello again, handsome.
8. The Raven
'One of my favorite things about human beings. Starvation, poverty, disease, you could fix all that, just with money. And you don't.' - Verna (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Lenore: [to Arthur] I don’t care what’s good for the family. Or the company. This is about my mom. And if you think you’re coming near her with more pliers, over my dead body, you f***ing ghoul.
Auguste Dupin: I mean, your own sister cut off your head. That’s what did it in, you know. My boss said, we’d already won once you were on the plate. “No point in pushing the case. The dragon was slain.” I told him he was wrong. He says, “Roderick Usher lost his children, and his company too. What else do you want?”
Roderick Usher: What else did you want?
Auguste Dupin: Justice.
Roderick Usher: And what does that look like?
Auguste Dupin: For what you’ve done? I don’t know. Suppose I’ll know it when I see it.
Roderick Usher: I hope you do see it. I am pretty sure you will.
'The real world is Darwinian. Survival. Chaos. Power. Leverage.' - Young Madeline (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Roderick Usher: Our love it was stronger by far than the love of those who were older than we, of many far wiser than we. And neither the angels in Heaven above, nor the demons down under the sea, can ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
Annabel Lee: [to Roderick, referring to their children] I thought you were a rich man all this time, but I see you now. I look at you and I see you. The poverty of you. Maybe this is a kindness in disguise. Maybe they died in their childhoods.
'Treasure. What the f*** does that even mean? Gold's just a transition metal element, nothing special. Money's not even gold anymore. It's just ones and zeros. It's a lie agreed upon.' - Madeline Usher Share on X
Annabel Lee: I don’t know you, Roderick. The man I know, the man that I love could never. But you’re not him. Are you? I think I made him up.
Roderick Usher: For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee. And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee. And so, all the night tide, I lie down by the side of my darling, my darling, my life, and my bride, in her sepulchre there by the sea. In her tomb by the sounding sea.
'You can't eliminate pain. There's no such thing as a painkiller. And imagine if we'd put that on the bottle. I bet I still could have sold it.' - Roderick Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher) Share on X
Auguste Dupin: It’s time, Roderick. You said you’d tell me how they all died. And you did. But you also said you’d confess. There are no more bodies left, Roderick. No more skeletons in the closet. Tell me what happened. It’s time.
Rufus Griswold: [as Roderick and Madeline are walling him in] What the f*** is this?
Young Madeline: It’s a hostile takeover.
Rufus Griswold: Seriously, what is this?
Young Madeline: I thought we were going to to see all the stages, but we may never get out of denial. We’re going to be finishing this wall and still be hearing, “Seriously, what is this?”
Verna: I find most people have a threshold qualifier. Something, or someone they’d be unwilling to sacrifice, no matter how sweet the deal.
Young Roderick: Don’t think I’m like most people.
Verna: So what would you do to make your dreams come true? People talk a good game, but money where your mouth is. What would you be willing to do?
Young Madeline: The real world is Darwinian. Survival. Chaos. Power. Leverage.
Verna: You’re a killer, aren’t you? Both of you. Couple of real killers.
Young Madeline: I wouldn’t say that.
Verna: Really? What else would you call it? I mean, you killed Rufus Griswold tonight, didn’t you? And you’re here, building an alibi. This bartender would say you were here all night. Closed the place and then some. What if I said I could guarantee that you’ll get away with it? And not just that. All of it.
Verna: You feel it. Both of you. In the air. We’re sitting outside of time and space. This is the moment luck meets opportunity.
Young Roderick: That’s a hell of an offer. And you’re going to say it costs what? Our souls or whatever?
Verna: No such thing, for one, and even if there was, you already sold them tonight, one brick at a time. No. No. Nothing so silly as that. It won’t even go on your tab.
Verna: What if I said you get all that, the whole thing, and the price is deferred? Let the next generation foot the bill. So that’s the deal. You get the whole world, and when you’re done, at the end of it all, just before you would have died, Roderick, just before you would have died anyway, your bloodline dies with you.
Young Madeline: Well, just hypothetically, how long would he live?
Verna: He? Not we? No, dear, you two die together. You came into this world together, and you go out of it together. Or no deal. I’m a creature of symmetry. You’d live a long time. Longer than any man in the Usher family ever has. But when that curtain falls, everyone takes a bow together.
Verna: What’s more loving? Forty years, fifty years of a gilded life? Or seventy, eighty years of anxiety, tribulation, and heartache? Every Usher that exists today, and every Usher yet to be born, they will live a blessed, privileged life, and depart the stage together.
Young Madeline: Hypothetically?
Verna: No. Real deal. It’s an offer. On the table. What do you say?
Young Madeline: I’d say that’s a good deal.
Young Roderick: I’d say that’s a done deal.
Verna: [referring to the cognac] You drink this on the best day of your life. Or your last night on Earth. This moment calls for it. To the House of Usher. Whose time has come.
Roderick Usher: [referring to their deal with Verna] It faded like a dream. And by the time we got home, it didn’t feel real. At all. And a day or two later, we were so worried about someone finding Gris, we both kind of blew it off. We were drunk. Maybe we were stoned. We remembered it differently. It was a folie à deux. A delusion shared by two. And then we never talked about it again. They never found Gris. The cops never came. The board voted me in. And the work began. Ligodone began. And over the years, it was just a weird dream. Nothing more.
Arthur Pym: We’re a virus, I think. People, I mean.
Verna: But you’re so damn interesting. That’s why I had to go topside. I had to see the ship go by with my own eyes.
Verna: What happens to you when the Ushers are gone? Which is imminent, by the way. You’ve enjoyed a sense of immunity throughout your life, but it isn’t yours. It’s theirs. Just reflected.
Arthur Pym: Let me guess. You can do something about that.
Verna: I can.
Verna: Humanity will s**t that bed themselves. Corporate justice in this world is a punchline.
Verna: Everyone loves something. And in that love there’s collateral.
Arthur Pym: No. I have no collateral. Collateral is leverage. And I won’t be leveraged. No man or woman has leveraged me in seventy years of life. And I’m not going to cede that ground, not this close to the end. So, thank you for your consideration. And for your generous offer. But I think I’ll play out my hand. If it’s all the same to you.
Verna: Fair enough. Thank you. This has been a pleasure.
Lenore: I think maybe, maybe not having Fortunato anymore, maybe it’s a good thing. For you. That place wasn’t good, Grandpa.
Roderick Usher: No, it wasn’t. But it was mine. And maybe you’ll make it good. Some day. Can you do that, do you think?
Lenore: I say this with love. Let it go. Let it all go. I mean, you’ve got more money than you’ll ever be able to spend. Than I’ll ever be able to spend. Let’s put it to work. Try to fix things. Let go of Fortunato, and Ligodone, and all the bad stuff. We did bad stuff, Grandpa. Our family did bad stuff. It’s not too late to fix it.
Verna: [to Lenore] There is a lot about my job I love. But there are moments like these that bring me no joy. I hope you know that.
Verna: [after she’s tells Lenore about her mother recovering and forming a foundation in her name] 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. I thought you should know that.
Auguste Dupin: Wait. What are you talking about? Lenore Usher isn’t dead.
Roderick Usher: She is. She died earlier tonight.
Roderick Usher: Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary. Deep into that darkness peering long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. And the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, and the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore”. And the raven never flitting still is sitting, still is sitting on the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door. And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming. And the lamplight over him streaming throws his shadow on the floor. And my soul, from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted nevermore.
Roderick Usher: Well, I guess we’ve finally come to it. Haven’t we? World without pain. That was the whole point. Nobody can stomach a little discomfort. It hurts. It hurts, and they cry, and cry, and I took it away! I reached in and I snuffed out those flames in their backs, in their joints, their heads, and their hands. I waved my wand, wasn’t enough. It was never enough. They just kept wanting more. More and more.
Verna: Oh, honey. Don’t kid a kidder.
Verna: [to Roderick] You know, I’ve worked with a lot of truly influential people over the years, but when it comes to sheer body count, you’re in my top five.
Verna: Why did you come here tonight? On your way home. Your real home. Was it to say goodbye? One last look at your great tower. Your pyramid. That’s your true monument, Roderick. Out there. It’s a wonder of the world. And it’s eternal. That’s your legacy.
Madeline Usher: You always said it was you and me against the world. Said we’d change the world. We did, didn’t we?
Roderick Usher: We did.
Roderick Usher: I mean this house, this carcass of a house, this is our tomb. So, we need all the dressing, all this treasure, for the afterlife.
Madeline Usher: Please, treasure. What the f*** does that even mean? Gold’s just a transition metal element, nothing special. Money’s not even gold anymore. It’s just ones and zeros. It’s a lie agreed upon. We built a life. A privileged f***ing life, out of nothing but dirt, and trauma, and empty pockets, and broken hearts. We did that. And say what you will, it was f***ing substantial.
Roderick Usher: It was.
Madeline Usher: Would we have done anything different if we’d believed that woman in the bar was real? I suppose that’s the only question left.
Roderick Usher: Did you believe it? Honestly, I can’t remember what I believed.
Madeline Usher: I believed it enough to get an IUD. And you still wouldn’t glove up with the f***ing stewardesses.
Roderick Usher: I was who I was.
Madeline Usher: And I loved you for that.
Madeline Usher: These f***ing monsters, these f***ing consumers, these f***ing mouths. They point at you and me like we’re the problem. They f***ing invented us. They begged for us. They’re begging for us still. So I say, we stand tall and proud, brother. Bill’s come due. Let’s not hide here in the basement like we’ve got something to be ashamed of. No. Not us. You and me against the world. Don’t care if it’s Death herself. If she wants Madeline f***ing Usher, she’s going to have to look me straight in the eyes.
Roderick Usher: You’re right. You’re Madeline f***ing Usher. You are a queen. You’re a goddess. And you’re going to live forever.
Auguste Dupin: [referring to Madeline] What did you do?
Roderick Usher: I sent her off like a queen. Queen Twosret, as a matter of fact.
Roderick Usher: Thank you for coming tonight, Auggie. I’m sorry for all the times I inconvenienced you. It may not have been perfect, but you can’t say we didn’t change the world. How many people can say that at the end?
Roderick Usher: I promised my confession. And here it is. I knew. Deep down. In the witching hour. I knew. I knew I would climb to the top of the tower on a pile of corpses. And we told them, it was about soothing the world’s pain. That’s the biggest lie we told. You can’t eliminate pain. There’s no such thing as a painkiller. And imagine if we’d put that on the bottle. I bet I still could have sold it.
Auguste Dupin: [at the Ushers graves] Opioid epidemic’s with us now. You tattooed it on the world, but they’re trying to take it down. Take it apart. Heal it. Didn’t know what to do with this. Because it don’t matter in the end why you did any of it. I don’t f***ing care why you did it. We don’t want your confession, or your rationale, or your explanation. So take all that with you, why don’t you. Goodbye, Roderick. I’m going home, to my husband. My kids. Their kids. I’m the richest man in the world. You know that?
Verna: Thy soul shall find itself alone ‘mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone. Not one, but all the crowd, to pry into thine hour of secrecy. Be silent in that solitude, which is not loneliness, for then the spirits of the dead who stood in life before thee, are again in death around thee, and their will shall overshadow thee. Be still. The night, though clear, shall frown, and the stars shall look not down from their high thrones in Heaven. With light like hope to mortals given, but their red orbs, without beam to thy weariness shall seem, as a burning and a fever which would cling to thee forever. Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish. Now are visions ne’er to vanish. From thy spirit shall they pass no more, like dewdrop from the grass, the breeze, the breath of God, is still, and the mist upon the hill. Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken is a symbol and a token. How it hangs upon the trees, a mystery of mysteries.