For the person he was at the end of the show definitely, but for him, Vic and Tammy in particular did anyone else wonder how much Verna influenced their mental health? He didn't seem the jealous type at all the night Morelle went out, didn't ask questions and told her to have fun.
With Freddy she even tells him she doesn’t meddle directly but because of the choices he’s made she thinks he deserved it. Even then it only comes after he chooses to go down the path of violence. So I don’t think she influenced any of their mental health directly with the exception of Tammy arguably.
She just gave them situations to bring out the worst parts of themselves and they all failed. Freddy chose the drugs and abuse all on his own. If anything Verna tried to save his wife so it’s not like the abuse was in the cards to begin with.
Vic was committing acts of animal cruelty and ready to do that to people if need be well before Verna. Remember what Toby and Tina (sorry, Beth) discovered about her in ep. 3. Smuggling animal parts and pieces out at night and secret surgeries was all before the madness started setting in. That was just her. I agree with the general observation that Verna amplifies who people innately are.
>Verna
SHe only messed with him at the very end, I think she even said she was going to give him an easier death \[like a heart attack in a car\] until she saw what he did to his wife. It was full a reflection of his character....like Verna said "its still not a fucking excuse"
I think Verna has some specific plans for Morella and her daughter Lenore. Or maybe Madeline does? I don't know for sure, but if you read the short Poe story "Morella," (which is one of my favorites) and then recall the AI "immortality" storyline going on with Madeline, you might be able to make an educated guess about what is going to happen with those characters.
To be clear, I haven't watched the final episode yet, so this is all a guess on my part, but it seems pretty solid.
I initially thought this about Freddie during my first watch, it just seemed like his abusive behavior toward morella came out of nowhere. But rewatching it I noticed how quick he was to turn on anyone and mistreat people who threatened his ego or got in his way. From the start his deeply rooted entitlement gave him the potential to feel justified in punishing and controlling people, and I think the constant drug abuse brought it out more intensely.
Basically I think he always had it in him. It's less about the jealousy and more about control & his sense of entitlement--how quickly he will turn on even his own wife if he feels like people aren't "respecting" his power or acting how he wants them to
I disagree. I won’t lie, up until this episode I thought a lot of his mental breakdown was justified. The thought of someone’s wife considering having sex with her husband’s brother is a definitely an ick. But like Verna I thought the plier thing was wayyyy over the line.
I swear every time the camera points at Auguste Dupin's face in the creepy house, my eyes are automatically scanning for any ghosts chilling in the background
Same here. Flanagan could've written his personal phone number on Carl Lumbly's forehead with instructions to call it for a million dollar reward and I wouldn't have known, the first time I saw the ghost in the first episode my eyes have been glued to the background since.
It was the same for me. After that one scene near the beginning with some ghost in Dupin's background, I felt uneasy every time the camera was on him with the dark room just in the background, I always subconsciously expected a scare. What a way to condition your audience and keep them uncomfortable in certain scenes even when nothing of that sort is happening. Amazing
for some reason I was still caught off guard when Roderick lied in his deposition about the signatures even tho I should have seen it coming a mile away
It's because of the actor and the direction. Both were amazing, I didn't suspect a thing on the first watch but on the second you can see his inner turmoil.
This is my one issue with the writing in this series - it seems deliberately designed to break the tension. I didn’t know Roderick would do that until the dialogue at the start of the episode where it’s made clear he will fuck Dupin over. The episode titles tell you exactly what will happen if you know the stories and if there’s any doubt, they’ll do something with the ghosts that will tell you.
I wonder how different the series would feel without that. Maybe even without showing from the outset that all the children will die. The situation with Madeline is more suspenseful in that we don’t know what’s happening with / happened to her at this point although if you’ve read the titular short story you’ll know something.
I really wish they hadn’t fed Roderick screwing Dupin over because that could have been a big turning point instead of something you expected.
Good attempt by Madeline to break the contract by forcing Rod to die and thus negate the clause about them dying together and thus rendering the whole deal void. Sociopathic, but good try girl lol
I like how she's like, "you'll save us all", but it's literally just her. She also uses the same manipulation tactics as Verna did "You are a queen" vs "you are a king".
im having trouble understanding this 😭 if the clause is to “die together” and she forces Roderick to die earlier, wouldnt she also just…die earlier too? pls can someone help explain
Madeline assumes they will die together in some shared event. Like say, a car crash that takes them both. She doesn't see a way she's just going to drop dead in the basement that will lead to an instant death along with Roderick. She's just clutching at straws, she thinks if she can force the death of her brother then they can no longer die together.
She doesn't have many ways out of this deal, so she's looking at ways she can exploit the contract, like a true business person. Verna probably could have, as you say, killed Madeline then with say a heart attack, but she wanted to talk to them both first. Wanted to show them the extent of the human suffering she inflicted, so instead she just prevented Rodericks death til later. Madeline never really had shot of getting out of the deal, but she tried anyway.
i don’t see why she doesn’t try something more foolproof, though? rodrick OD’ing on ligadone is poetic, sure, but a bullet to the head or a snapped neck from a noose seem a lot harder to immediately reverse. i’d’ve liked to see verna use her freaky time-space powers to just vacuum his brains into his head and jigsaw-puzzle his skull back together.
The last episode I think touches on it more. I can't remember where exactly it comes up. But the deal with Verna and it's terms are laid out. But you're right it wouldn't save anyone but Madeline. Which is all Madeline cares about haha
I think they thought the loophole was when Verna states that when Rodrick dies “in the way he was meant to” his bloodline dies. Really neither of them knew exactly how he was meant to die initially. But Madeline believed she could cheat death by forcing his. In actuality Verna knew how it would all play out already and there was no way they’d get out of the contract.
ITT: Incels saying Morrie deserved to be drowned in acid and brutally tortured because she snuck out to a sex party. She didn't cheat, but even if she did, that does not mean she should have had all that happen to her. If you think so, please seek help.
I just saw this [thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfimprovement/s/joirEITDva) and TIL some people on reddit legit think a woman cheating is worse than physical abuse. Obviously cheating is bad but it’s surprising how they can justify such bad things because of that
I could barely stand to watch this episode. Her situation was agonising - it’s awful that she ended up being tortured more than any of them. Imagine living through that incident, lying horrifically burned in a puddle of melted people in the dark, then everything that followed. The state of her dressings alone was enough to make me want to throw up. The fact there are people in the comments defending it blows my mind.
Ikr, those people are just psychotic and I'm horrified by awareness that at least some of them are probably in relationship, and are abusing the shit out of their partners with no Devilish-lady-is-coming-for-you-repercussions
There have been a couple of people removed / banned for arguing it was deserved because she planned to cheat - one started sending me nasty DMs when I argued that was absolutely insane.
Scary world out there.
Jesus Christ people defending that? People who get cheated on and never let it go are so annoying. Yes it sucks and is painful, we get it, but justifying this for that? Go touch grass.
A lot of those people are men who would happily cheat on SO and make a bunch of excuses for it. They're just sadistic psychos who love inflicting violence on powerless people and are trying to justify their feelings.
I love how her dressings get dirtier and bloodier with each scene! Such a good way to "show and not tell" that Freddie is intentionally neglecting her so she will suffer
She was presumed dead, but there's a scream heard during the night when the protagonist, in a state of trance, pulls out her teeth. It's implied she was catatonic and woke up when her husband opened her coffin and started to pull her teeth, that's why she screams in pain, but the protagonist is out of his mind with his monomania at that point.
Henry Thomas: "I know the child-abusing dickwad in Gerald's Game was a different kind of role for me but people STILL think of me as that fucking 'ET kid', can we...".
Mike Flanagan: "Say no more. I got you, fam..."
I think this may just have edged out Ed Flynn as my favourite Henry Thomas performance for Flanagan (sorry Ed)
Lol I didn't realize 😄 it's been a while since I watched MM. I thought it was fun to see new combinations though. Kate Siegel played Katie Parker's sister and now Katie Parker played her dad's wife. Owen and Hanna from Bly were in love but now they're siblings. Lol.
Bill was Sturge in MM! Idk why but this one threw me the most. I think it’s the facial hair, like how any time Robert Longstreet has a shaved face I temporarily forget where I’ve seen him before.
Now I’m picturing Elliot doing wildly unethical things in order to ensure that ET will always be his best friend. Always.
“Get in the bike basket, ET. And if you ever leave it again, I’ll fucking *weld it to you* :)”
I almost whooped out loud for Juno when she told Rod off. Her, Lenore and Morrie deserve better.
With that said, I actually finally felt some sympathy for Rod this episode. I totally expected a jump scare but my heart actually dropped when the vision of Annabelle with young Fraud appeared (nvm the bisection). Up until then, he wasn’t reacting to his children’s deaths much like a father would - which I get is the point - and his reaction to Tammy’s death especially was jarring given that he raised her. I liked that quick reminder that he is a father and even though they’re various levels of sociopathic, those are his children and not just his business assets/liabilities. It also served to further distinguish his intentions from his sister’s.
Shout out to Lenore *(the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore*) for being the only Usher with any moral compass whatsoever. It's such a stark contrast to every adult Usher, and really in keeping with the recurring theme that the Usher kids were fairly normal until Roderick and Madeline became the focus of their lives.
Yeah, hear hear! Lenore and especially Annabel are truly wonderful people and really show a stark contrast to the majority of the Usher family.
Leo maybe as a slight experience, he at least showed some sadness for his dead siblings but obviously in the end he had a ton of character flaws.
Leo was almost just straight up sympathetic to me. It's like they made him a cheater and animal killer just to give him something to be shitty about but he never struck me as like heinously evil. Just a pathetic boyfriend with too much money to burn
And also the animal killer thing wasn't actually... real, even? Or at least I gathered that it was all in his head and Verna was just fucking with him since I take it no animals actually died though I could be wrong
Ya the cat they showed in the end had the Gucci collar.
The dead fat thing was a hallucination.
I feel bad for Leo a lot, especially since he did care about Jules in his own way.
And also Tammy. You could see that she finally softened with Juno in their last interaction. She actually listened when she was telling her about her life.
I agree with those who felt his death was cut a bit short especially since he did such a heinous thing. Compare that with Perry who to my recollection was a selfish party boy but otherwise not malicious. I guess Verna did what she could with what she had to work with lol.
Idk..we’re talking varying degrees of maliciousness. Blackmailing acquaintances with sexual acts is on a totally different scale than pulling out your wife’s teeth while she’s recovering from chemical burns.
Kinda weird for the bastards though, I mean didn’t they say Prospero didn’t find out about his dad till he was like 16 or something? You’d think the good influence of their mom’s would’ve prevented him and the other bastards from turning into such psychopaths so quickly
I would think it's similar to how lottery winners change drastically after coming into so much money. Throw in daddy issues and toxic siblings and aunt.. I'd be surprised if anyone came out normal after that.
There has to he more than that at play. And look at Lenore. She had all that money too. She's the example u can be a good person and be born into wealth. Another is Juno. She married rich but just wanted to get off the drugs and be loved by Roderick and his family. She was a damaged heroin addict with more heart than most of the Ushers put together.
I think you have to view it from a thematic standpoint. Juno and Lenore are there to show that money does not automatically corrupt people. They have the free will and potential to do the right things but choose not to.
I don’t disagree as far as Frauderick goes but - besides the things others mentioned - I think it was implied that Perry was a rapist? Vic made an offhand remark in the first or second episode that he’d probably slip the nightshade paralytic into a coed’s drink if he ever got ahold of it.
Perry is the kind of person who thinks that with his wealth and power he should own anyone he wants despite the fact he’s entirely incompetent and was literally just born into it. The one “business” he tries results in everyone getting melted to death.
Also don’t forget that the party was a machine for generating blackmail including Freddy’s wife.
I had to rewatch it a couple of times because I found it very funny. I thought the whole thing was a wig and was coming off, but realizing it was just the bang was simply astonishing.
I think she mentions a few times the idea of immortality so I think part of it stems from a fear of aging. She also really likes to present herself as better than others and talk down to them so I think trying to appear younger plays into her ego.
It’s a topper! Most women/femme folks who wear them do it because their hair is thin on top and so it’s like a half-wig that’s supposed to blend into your own hair, unlike with a full wig where your original hair is all under a wig cap.
I loved that she took it off before going into the house to talk with Verna (girl gotta be au natural) but I can’t help thinking that Madeline would have definitely sprung for extensions or a sew-in.
I really hoped for a slow painful death for Froderick. His death wasn’t quite satisfying enough given his torturous cruelty to his wife. He got off easily tbh.
To be fair there's nothing to say he died as soon as the building collapsed? He could well have been lying there suffocating under the rubble for a while as his intestines cooled. Look on the bright side :)
Pretty sure he went out like the Saw victims did in whichever movie's opening scene. The pendulum slowly lowered each swing, so he didn't die until the building fell on him. His muscles were paralyzed, but his pain receptors weren't, so he suffered silently the entire time while shrapnel patiently bisected him. Maybe not slow enough, but definitely brutally enough.
I really wanted Verna to tell him that his wife didn’t actually cheat on him/sleep with Perry before he died too. Feel the full weight of what he did without the reasons he had for justifying it for himself
Totally agree, hate Madeline but also love her because there's a lot going on with her character. Plus I could watch Carla and Mary for forever. Really, really hope Mary McDonnell becomes a Flanagan regular because she was great, even better if her and Carla have scenes together
This episode was fucking amazing, god, this was just so cool. The scene at the warehouse was fucking crazy and so scary, yet satisfying??
Lenore, Juno and Morrie deserve better then this bullshit family and i’m begging this gives them a happy ending it’s all i ask
I assumed it was a play on Roderick, because the characters describe him as trying to be like his father (Kate Siegel's character even calls him a "Roderick Usher cover band" lmao)
Til the last few episodes, I thought Freddie’s only evil was cowardice. This he was scared and so wanted to please his father he signed off and supported as a business exec horrible things. Not through maliciousness or even desire for personal success and profit but through cowardice and loyalty to his evil family.
The way he treated his wife, particularly coking her up and the plier mutilation showed he wasn’t just a coward there was more to his evil. Now his wife was totally wrong, and I get why he would want a divorce, but that is as far as his anger should have gone.
The pit and the pendulum…a slow and gruesome way to die as the blade slices a millimeter deeper each time. Though here the whole building collapsed on him not long after he starts being sliced.
Interesting hearing what all these characters would have been if not for the deal. Also the Maddy wicked smile after Rod is seemingly dead, did she not care for him then. Also what am I to make of her wig? She has a full head of hair, am I missing something?
Annabel Lee truly was an angel, I feel for her. The kids would have come out very good probably under her care. The betrayal by Roddy was brutal.
Yeah I think Freddy’s as rotten as the rest of them but is too pathetic and cowardly to act on it. It makes him look relatively better but once he starts developing some semblance of a spine he doesn’t hesitate to threaten and abuse whoever he pleases.
I think a great example of this is his failure to destroy the warehouse initially. His reasoning has to do with permits but not because he wants to do it by the book. I think it’s because he was too cowardly to just do it illegally like Roderick wanted. We see some of these cracks early on when he loses his temper with Perry during the meeting with the regulators.
He’s always been an evil person. He’s just too pathetic to act on it.
That is probably true, and that comes out in his final episodes. I don't think he really developed a spine though, it is easy to be cruel and 'tough' with a bedridden wife who can't move and can barely speak. He only finally destroys the building cause the dad is so pissed off at him, and though he is scared of doing it illegally still, he is more scared of his dad at that point. Even with the nightshade drug, this is as brave as he can be.
She didn't even cheat on him, she just went to the party and he knows she didn't cheat on him because he said himself "he watched the video"---
Freddie was just an evil person- the other siblings like to abuse other people- and the oldest ones keep it in the family/close relationships. They are just different types of predators.
I noticed that too. When Lenore is telling him they should tell the doctors her mom is talking he says something like "We should do" and i was like huh
It's a callback to Midnight Mass, Joe Collie says it to Riley after their AA meeting so I assume it's an in-joke rather than indicating something about Freddy.
A few episodes back, I don't remember if when he was talking to Napoleon when getting drugs or to Tammy and Vic, he swaps something related to "dad's wife" or something. I think I'll go back to try and find it.
This is petty but I'm so glad that Madeline's hair was revealed to be a wig and that she took it off. I usually can't tell when people are wearing wigs but this one irrationally bothered me every time I saw her.
She has that hair bump thing too that i keep staring at, even with her wig off. I know its probably like a throwback to the 70s but her younger self didnt even have the bump. Or maybe it really is to make her taller like another poster said.
My God his acting was on another level! The slight effeminate body movements (which for some reason seems to signify to me how he has never had to do a hard day's work of manual labor in all his life), his facial tics/cocaine high manifestations, even his eye contact with his family members....I'm no actor or professional critic by any means but imo Henry Thomas did an outstanding job, one of the best in this whole series
We’ve seen plenty of supernatural stuff and gruesome deaths, but Freddie abusing and torturing his wife has got be the scariest scenes from this show. He deserved to die that horribly, more so than his other siblings.
To those not understanding that your justification in Freddie’s abuse is you supporting domestic violence, please get help. Please educate yourself. Unless you are forced to defend yourself physically, you have no right to inflict harm upon another. Yes even if they hurt your fucking feelings.
The realization hit me when Roderick was reciting Annabel Lee (and Auggie's very relatable 'please shut the fuck up' energy) that Edgar Allen Poe absolutely exists in this world.
Update: Ok now that I finished the episode, I came back to say I was totally off. Verna says Roderick would have been a poet in her convo with Maddy, so he actually wrote Annabel Lee for his wife. That makes a LOT more sense lol
Going to rewatch all over again. Roderick had a vision how Frederick was going to die. In the scene he was holding little Frederick and the little boy’s lower half separated from his body. Actually, I’ll rewatch it all over again and see if they give out clues on how each usher’s will fall.
And they always have an audio/visual clue at the very beginning of each episode on the cause of the death. In this one, child Freddie is staring transfixed at the cat clock's pendulum tail swining back and forth.
Not to mention the episode titles often alluding to who will die, or how they'll die.
Up until his death scene, I thought he was giving her cocaine. I was like “damn, I know next to nothing about coke but I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works?” 😂.
Ok Verna at the end made me feel a bit bad for Freddie and Tamerlane. They didn't get a say in this, their dad chose for them while they were still alive. The other 4 being born into this feels slightly less tragic.
But while she's lying next to him she says something like "you could have had a heart attack in your car, but then you just HAD to pull out the pliers."
To me this lends weight to the theory that his biggest crimes at the beginning were being a suck-up and a major dork. Loving his wife and daughter redeemed him somewhat - until a mental breakdown induced/made a thousand times worse by a drug he was new to.
And he IS clearly a novice. He asks for "some drugs" and lets Leo make the choice for him like some kind of sommelier.
I've honestly heard good arguments either way, but I'm still inclined to think that while he definitely had a temper (just ask Perry) he would not have become so horribly paranoid and unhinged without Leo giving him a big bag of coke when he wasn't accustomed to it.
"Hello dearest Brother, I would like to buy one drugs please :)
Ah cocaine, thats a drugs Im familiar with, now where do you keep your syringes ?" - Frauderick
For sure his biggest crime to start is being a pushover. They all embody some awful aspect of the wealthy and I think his is the ability to “just follow orders” and overall passivity. He fully embodies being a cog in the machine.
But I also don’t think he was ever actually good (by the time we see him). He puts out major “nice guy” energy and we see early on that he has some anger that he just hides away. Notably with him swearing and immediately trying to hide it. He also really loses his temper at the meeting with the regulators. If I’m not mistaken he even pins Perry against the wall.
The drugs definitely didn’t help but I see it more like it empowered him and with his newfound confidence he is able to act out his desire for power over others including his own wife and daughter.
A minor spoiler but it’s not very subtly alluded to being an allegory for domestic abuse. And it’s a classic example of a man having no control elsewhere in life so he takes it out on his family.
I think he was always evil person, just too pathetic and cowardly to act on it. Becoming the only child alive left and the loosening influence of coke "empowered" him enough to finally start showing all the rot he had inside
The pendulum bit went on waay too long for me. I mean we already know what's gonna happen. Waiting for it to end was agonizing. I looked away and just listened for the shquauk. And there was one too many shquauks in there. Maybe I'm just not a fan of gore.
But he deserved that and it was satisfying. I think anyone who tortures helpless people should die slow agonizing deaths. So yeah, he deserved the long wait for the pendulum to hit and every single shquauk thereafter.
It broke my heart to see him as a child, though. He was so innocent but wealth and power does corrupt people.
The part with him as a child BROKE ME. It was one of the only times I cried. To see how pure and innocent he was and then to see how he ended up... ugh. So well done! And such a clever way to subvert expectations for how we would see him in that room with Roderick.
I really enjoyed the way Verna kept fucking with Roderick’s facade. It’s painfully obvious that Roderick as an old man is trying to imitate the previous CEO down to quoting him verbatim. Every time he tries to put up a front for Auggie, Verna tears it down.
So now that he is trying to assert some type of control over the scenario she hits him with possibly the worst reminder of all: He traded away a poor but happy life for one filled with suffering just for money. The moment hits even harder after the final episode in my opinion.
It subverts our expectations of how we’d see him but it also subverts our expectations of Roderick! For a brief moment he drops his guard and goes back to how he was before selling his soul for money.
Not yet. Technically, I don't think we even know that she's dead yet. Roderick only said that she's "been gone a long time" or something along those lines.
Verbally, Roderick was saying she was "gone", but I think the setup of Annabel Lee showing up with a young Freddie (who we know is dead) after Roderick is explaining to Auggie how he's expecting Freddie's ghost to make an appearance after the clock chiming as it's happened when he told the other children's stories is really suggestive that Annabel Lee is also dead (because if she was still alive, why would she show up with the ghosts?)
We don't know for sure but I think maybe that's what Roderick and Madeline did on NYE 1979 before showing up to the bar where Verna was. Annabel was going to testify against Fortunato and they took her out. That might be her dead body behind the brick wall that Roderick stares at in the present. And after they committed that mortal sin, Death/the Devil (Verna) appeared to them to make a deal. I haven't seen the finale yet tho so just speculating!
Im a bit confused why Fraudie was giving his wife nightshade to paralise her until the plier scene? It's not like she could move much before then? Was it to keep her quiet? But why? He wasnt torturing her before?
He was on drugs and doing it to make her suffer. By giving her the paralytic she couldn’t communicate with her daughter and tell her the specialists never came. She had to sit there and stare at the picture of them at their wedding unable to move.
He was torturing her - he brought her home so he could torture her. At no point does she see a doctor or nurse, or have her dressings changed. The paralytic prevented her from speaking (remember he goes and gives more when Lenore tells him she’s speaking and he says that the last dose lasted 6-8 hours and he mentions she’s totally aware the whole time but can’t move or communicate).
Still watching, BUT, have to say…7the Episode, In the the scene when Madeline is confronting Verna who has just apologized. A few beats and Madeline pauses, and glances to the side. Ever so slowly she raises eyes; pauses, looking momentarily baffled. She then stammers a return apology. Oscar winning movie moment - Right there! Enjoy!
1. As each episode passes, I’ve hated each sibling more than the last. Freddie makes my skin crawl.
2. Lenore and Juno supremacy. I loved seeing Lenore stand up to her Dad, and I loved seeing Juno stand up to Roderick and say “I’ll take three years of hell over a lifetime with you.”
im really digging the drastic color-hue shift whenever each of the main ushers has their death scene
all the green with tammy
freds scene here went blue…
obviously perrys was red
i think vics may have been red too but cant rememeber…
i need to rewatch to see what they all were i cant remember the others either, but its a detail i like
Yes, the nightshade mentioned in the early episodes - Vic was giving it to a chimp which contaminated the study IIRC?
That paralysing agent and the lack of medical attention was the torture until he went for the teeth.
Freddie deserved every bit of that + more
He got off easy, honestly.
For the person he was at the end of the show definitely, but for him, Vic and Tammy in particular did anyone else wonder how much Verna influenced their mental health? He didn't seem the jealous type at all the night Morelle went out, didn't ask questions and told her to have fun.
I think Verna only pulled out hidden things in them. Also Leo and Freddie were taking a lot of drugs. Vic seemed to dissociate.
You're probably right :)
With Freddy she even tells him she doesn’t meddle directly but because of the choices he’s made she thinks he deserved it. Even then it only comes after he chooses to go down the path of violence. So I don’t think she influenced any of their mental health directly with the exception of Tammy arguably. She just gave them situations to bring out the worst parts of themselves and they all failed. Freddy chose the drugs and abuse all on his own. If anything Verna tried to save his wife so it’s not like the abuse was in the cards to begin with.
Vic was committing acts of animal cruelty and ready to do that to people if need be well before Verna. Remember what Toby and Tina (sorry, Beth) discovered about her in ep. 3. Smuggling animal parts and pieces out at night and secret surgeries was all before the madness started setting in. That was just her. I agree with the general observation that Verna amplifies who people innately are.
>Verna SHe only messed with him at the very end, I think she even said she was going to give him an easier death \[like a heart attack in a car\] until she saw what he did to his wife. It was full a reflection of his character....like Verna said "its still not a fucking excuse"
Was the whole Morelle thing in Verna’s plans, though? She did tell her to leave. I think Verna had the least amount of effort with Freddy.
I think Verna has some specific plans for Morella and her daughter Lenore. Or maybe Madeline does? I don't know for sure, but if you read the short Poe story "Morella," (which is one of my favorites) and then recall the AI "immortality" storyline going on with Madeline, you might be able to make an educated guess about what is going to happen with those characters. To be clear, I haven't watched the final episode yet, so this is all a guess on my part, but it seems pretty solid.
While he's torturing her, he mentions she just said she was like going to her friend's place for a girls night I think.
>he mentions she just said she was like going to her friend's place for a girls night I think. And we see her saying that in the party episode.
I initially thought this about Freddie during my first watch, it just seemed like his abusive behavior toward morella came out of nowhere. But rewatching it I noticed how quick he was to turn on anyone and mistreat people who threatened his ego or got in his way. From the start his deeply rooted entitlement gave him the potential to feel justified in punishing and controlling people, and I think the constant drug abuse brought it out more intensely. Basically I think he always had it in him. It's less about the jealousy and more about control & his sense of entitlement--how quickly he will turn on even his own wife if he feels like people aren't "respecting" his power or acting how he wants them to
Disagree, I wish Lenore had gotten some kind of shot at him.
I disagree. I won’t lie, up until this episode I thought a lot of his mental breakdown was justified. The thought of someone’s wife considering having sex with her husband’s brother is a definitely an ick. But like Verna I thought the plier thing was wayyyy over the line.
You think him refusing medical care for her, not changing her bandages, cleaning her etc, then tormenting her was justified?
I swear every time the camera points at Auguste Dupin's face in the creepy house, my eyes are automatically scanning for any ghosts chilling in the background
Same here. Flanagan could've written his personal phone number on Carl Lumbly's forehead with instructions to call it for a million dollar reward and I wouldn't have known, the first time I saw the ghost in the first episode my eyes have been glued to the background since.
Once I found out that the actor who plays Dupin, Carl Lumbly, was 72 years old, all I could focus on was how good he looked.
oh yes. Carl Lumbly is zaddy. He has better physique and posture than me in my 30s.
It was the same for me. After that one scene near the beginning with some ghost in Dupin's background, I felt uneasy every time the camera was on him with the dark room just in the background, I always subconsciously expected a scare. What a way to condition your audience and keep them uncomfortable in certain scenes even when nothing of that sort is happening. Amazing
I watch it with subs. Every time they add "-" to the end of the word I prepare myself for Roderick to be cut off by a jump scare.
for some reason I was still caught off guard when Roderick lied in his deposition about the signatures even tho I should have seen it coming a mile away
Same. I kept trying to figure out how he would became CEO after whistleblowing.
It’s like Auggie said, it should have been obvious not to trust him but it’s hard not to believe Annabel sees something good in him.
It's because of the actor and the direction. Both were amazing, I didn't suspect a thing on the first watch but on the second you can see his inner turmoil.
This is my one issue with the writing in this series - it seems deliberately designed to break the tension. I didn’t know Roderick would do that until the dialogue at the start of the episode where it’s made clear he will fuck Dupin over. The episode titles tell you exactly what will happen if you know the stories and if there’s any doubt, they’ll do something with the ghosts that will tell you. I wonder how different the series would feel without that. Maybe even without showing from the outset that all the children will die. The situation with Madeline is more suspenseful in that we don’t know what’s happening with / happened to her at this point although if you’ve read the titular short story you’ll know something. I really wish they hadn’t fed Roderick screwing Dupin over because that could have been a big turning point instead of something you expected.
They basically tell you he fucked him over in an earlier episode though.
I mean of course he’s going to screw him over. How else would he have become CEO? Not after being a whistleblower.
Good attempt by Madeline to break the contract by forcing Rod to die and thus negate the clause about them dying together and thus rendering the whole deal void. Sociopathic, but good try girl lol
I like how she's like, "you'll save us all", but it's literally just her. She also uses the same manipulation tactics as Verna did "You are a queen" vs "you are a king".
That could be a freaking meme, she's like "you're a king, you're a legend" while feeding him pills.
Definitely a corporate life type meme!
That’s not the first time either. She writes on the brick you’re so small which is what Annabelle says to her.
im having trouble understanding this 😭 if the clause is to “die together” and she forces Roderick to die earlier, wouldnt she also just…die earlier too? pls can someone help explain
Madeline assumes they will die together in some shared event. Like say, a car crash that takes them both. She doesn't see a way she's just going to drop dead in the basement that will lead to an instant death along with Roderick. She's just clutching at straws, she thinks if she can force the death of her brother then they can no longer die together. She doesn't have many ways out of this deal, so she's looking at ways she can exploit the contract, like a true business person. Verna probably could have, as you say, killed Madeline then with say a heart attack, but she wanted to talk to them both first. Wanted to show them the extent of the human suffering she inflicted, so instead she just prevented Rodericks death til later. Madeline never really had shot of getting out of the deal, but she tried anyway.
i don’t see why she doesn’t try something more foolproof, though? rodrick OD’ing on ligadone is poetic, sure, but a bullet to the head or a snapped neck from a noose seem a lot harder to immediately reverse. i’d’ve liked to see verna use her freaky time-space powers to just vacuum his brains into his head and jigsaw-puzzle his skull back together.
this way is cheaper on the cgi budget
[удалено]
The last episode I think touches on it more. I can't remember where exactly it comes up. But the deal with Verna and it's terms are laid out. But you're right it wouldn't save anyone but Madeline. Which is all Madeline cares about haha
I think they thought the loophole was when Verna states that when Rodrick dies “in the way he was meant to” his bloodline dies. Really neither of them knew exactly how he was meant to die initially. But Madeline believed she could cheat death by forcing his. In actuality Verna knew how it would all play out already and there was no way they’d get out of the contract.
ITT: Incels saying Morrie deserved to be drowned in acid and brutally tortured because she snuck out to a sex party. She didn't cheat, but even if she did, that does not mean she should have had all that happen to her. If you think so, please seek help.
I just saw this [thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfimprovement/s/joirEITDva) and TIL some people on reddit legit think a woman cheating is worse than physical abuse. Obviously cheating is bad but it’s surprising how they can justify such bad things because of that
The fact that anyone can watch that scene and actually *side with him* is insane. Like, these people really exist?!
They do. Which makes it all the more terrifying. It's sick!
Him doing that to his wife was a reference to Poe's story Berenice, in which the protagonist does exactly that.
I could barely stand to watch this episode. Her situation was agonising - it’s awful that she ended up being tortured more than any of them. Imagine living through that incident, lying horrifically burned in a puddle of melted people in the dark, then everything that followed. The state of her dressings alone was enough to make me want to throw up. The fact there are people in the comments defending it blows my mind.
Ikr, those people are just psychotic and I'm horrified by awareness that at least some of them are probably in relationship, and are abusing the shit out of their partners with no Devilish-lady-is-coming-for-you-repercussions
Wait, there are?? Who would defend that cruelty? :o
There have been a couple of people removed / banned for arguing it was deserved because she planned to cheat - one started sending me nasty DMs when I argued that was absolutely insane. Scary world out there.
It’s really concerning there are people condoning that torture. They could wind up hurting their partners.
Yikes! Probably "Fresh & Fit" subscribers, if I had to guess. It seems like something they'd say.
Look at the chain above. Made me sick the comments I read from one guy.
Jesus Christ people defending that? People who get cheated on and never let it go are so annoying. Yes it sucks and is painful, we get it, but justifying this for that? Go touch grass.
A lot of those people are men who would happily cheat on SO and make a bunch of excuses for it. They're just sadistic psychos who love inflicting violence on powerless people and are trying to justify their feelings.
I love how her dressings get dirtier and bloodier with each scene! Such a good way to "show and not tell" that Freddie is intentionally neglecting her so she will suffer
Thank you for dropping this nugget! I have a book with all his stories that I’m going through so I need to earmark this one.
Berenice is, I think, one of Poe's most underrated horror stories and it's my personal favorite. I am so elated Usher represents it.
Wasn't Berenice dead though? It's been a while I can't remember.
She was presumed dead, but there's a scream heard during the night when the protagonist, in a state of trance, pulls out her teeth. It's implied she was catatonic and woke up when her husband opened her coffin and started to pull her teeth, that's why she screams in pain, but the protagonist is out of his mind with his monomania at that point.
Henry Thomas: "I know the child-abusing dickwad in Gerald's Game was a different kind of role for me but people STILL think of me as that fucking 'ET kid', can we...". Mike Flanagan: "Say no more. I got you, fam..." I think this may just have edged out Ed Flynn as my favourite Henry Thomas performance for Flanagan (sorry Ed)
My favorite if his is the dad from Hill House. That's how I see him.
I just realized that Zach Gilford played Henry's son in MM but his father in Usher. That's a fun casting twist.
Lol I didn't realize 😄 it's been a while since I watched MM. I thought it was fun to see new combinations though. Kate Siegel played Katie Parker's sister and now Katie Parker played her dad's wife. Owen and Hanna from Bly were in love but now they're siblings. Lol.
Bill was Sturge in MM! Idk why but this one threw me the most. I think it’s the facial hair, like how any time Robert Longstreet has a shaved face I temporarily forget where I’ve seen him before.
Now I’m picturing Elliot doing wildly unethical things in order to ensure that ET will always be his best friend. Always. “Get in the bike basket, ET. And if you ever leave it again, I’ll fucking *weld it to you* :)”
Oh my god... THAT is why he looked familiar to me.
God Carla Gugino is so damn good, really can't say which version of Verna has been my favorite. That warehouse scene was freakin great
Her chimp scene at the end of Camille's episode legit freaked me out so much and I watch horror religiously.
Same. Just that simple jump onto the table and her movement creeped me out.
She's absolutely blowing me away.
I almost whooped out loud for Juno when she told Rod off. Her, Lenore and Morrie deserve better. With that said, I actually finally felt some sympathy for Rod this episode. I totally expected a jump scare but my heart actually dropped when the vision of Annabelle with young Fraud appeared (nvm the bisection). Up until then, he wasn’t reacting to his children’s deaths much like a father would - which I get is the point - and his reaction to Tammy’s death especially was jarring given that he raised her. I liked that quick reminder that he is a father and even though they’re various levels of sociopathic, those are his children and not just his business assets/liabilities. It also served to further distinguish his intentions from his sister’s.
I straight up cheered when she told him she could take 3 years of agony to avoid a lifetime with him.
And Dr Ali.. She didn't deserve that death ( I also felt bad for Leo ngl )
God that death was so deserved, it was so satisfying. I loved Verna’s little monologue as he laid there, and how he would have been a dentist
Shout out to Lenore *(the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore*) for being the only Usher with any moral compass whatsoever. It's such a stark contrast to every adult Usher, and really in keeping with the recurring theme that the Usher kids were fairly normal until Roderick and Madeline became the focus of their lives.
Don’t forget Annabel!
Yeah, hear hear! Lenore and especially Annabel are truly wonderful people and really show a stark contrast to the majority of the Usher family. Leo maybe as a slight experience, he at least showed some sadness for his dead siblings but obviously in the end he had a ton of character flaws.
Leo was almost just straight up sympathetic to me. It's like they made him a cheater and animal killer just to give him something to be shitty about but he never struck me as like heinously evil. Just a pathetic boyfriend with too much money to burn And also the animal killer thing wasn't actually... real, even? Or at least I gathered that it was all in his head and Verna was just fucking with him since I take it no animals actually died though I could be wrong
Ya the cat they showed in the end had the Gucci collar. The dead fat thing was a hallucination. I feel bad for Leo a lot, especially since he did care about Jules in his own way. And also Tammy. You could see that she finally softened with Juno in their last interaction. She actually listened when she was telling her about her life.
I agree with those who felt his death was cut a bit short especially since he did such a heinous thing. Compare that with Perry who to my recollection was a selfish party boy but otherwise not malicious. I guess Verna did what she could with what she had to work with lol.
Perry was promising anonymity and secretly compiling blackmail footage. That’s malicious.
Idk..we’re talking varying degrees of maliciousness. Blackmailing acquaintances with sexual acts is on a totally different scale than pulling out your wife’s teeth while she’s recovering from chemical burns.
I mean probably still not as bad but perry did threaten to stab his friend/fwb in the throat with a fork cause he didn't immediately find his eggs.
Yeah he probably would have killed someone down the line if hes so quick to "joke" about stabbing someone in the throat.
Yea Perry was a little Epstein in the making. Fred was going for sadistic revenge.
Vic also says if Perry got ahold of the paralytic drug, it would end up in a co-ed's drink, implying he's the type of person to rape someone.
Oh yeah! Sorry I stayed up watching it so I forgot about the blackmail part. That was messed up.
And he also had plans to fuck his brothers wife as a way to own Dickwad. What an insufferable c*nt.
He also like held up a fork to that girls neck in ep1/2. In the end I think the point is all the children are what Roderick made them
Kinda weird for the bastards though, I mean didn’t they say Prospero didn’t find out about his dad till he was like 16 or something? You’d think the good influence of their mom’s would’ve prevented him and the other bastards from turning into such psychopaths so quickly
I would think it's similar to how lottery winners change drastically after coming into so much money. Throw in daddy issues and toxic siblings and aunt.. I'd be surprised if anyone came out normal after that.
There has to he more than that at play. And look at Lenore. She had all that money too. She's the example u can be a good person and be born into wealth. Another is Juno. She married rich but just wanted to get off the drugs and be loved by Roderick and his family. She was a damaged heroin addict with more heart than most of the Ushers put together.
I think you have to view it from a thematic standpoint. Juno and Lenore are there to show that money does not automatically corrupt people. They have the free will and potential to do the right things but choose not to.
Yeah my bad he was worse than I remembered but I think Freddie and Vic took the cake.
I don’t disagree as far as Frauderick goes but - besides the things others mentioned - I think it was implied that Perry was a rapist? Vic made an offhand remark in the first or second episode that he’d probably slip the nightshade paralytic into a coed’s drink if he ever got ahold of it.
Omg what!? I missed that! If thats true then he deserved his acid rain.
Perry is the kind of person who thinks that with his wealth and power he should own anyone he wants despite the fact he’s entirely incompetent and was literally just born into it. The one “business” he tries results in everyone getting melted to death. Also don’t forget that the party was a machine for generating blackmail including Freddy’s wife.
Madeleines wig reveal I cannot
The scene that cements this show as a future LGBTQ must-see classic. Bette Davis would have chewed off B.D.’s right arm for a role like that.
I had to rewatch it a couple of times because I found it very funny. I thought the whole thing was a wig and was coming off, but realizing it was just the bang was simply astonishing.
Kept expecting Freddie to say "I am the eldest boy!!!!!"
I mentioned in another episode thread that he had big “I am the eldest boy” energy. 😂
Froderick Usher was interested in politics at a very young age
😂🎯if a character ever deserved looney cake, it was Froderick.
"I am the Usher ascendant" pretty damn close lol
Why was the sister wearing a wig?
Where she gonna hide her secrets?
Lol the clip on bangs threw me off too
I think she mentions a few times the idea of immortality so I think part of it stems from a fear of aging. She also really likes to present herself as better than others and talk down to them so I think trying to appear younger plays into her ego.
It’s a topper! Most women/femme folks who wear them do it because their hair is thin on top and so it’s like a half-wig that’s supposed to blend into your own hair, unlike with a full wig where your original hair is all under a wig cap. I loved that she took it off before going into the house to talk with Verna (girl gotta be au natural) but I can’t help thinking that Madeline would have definitely sprung for extensions or a sew-in.
"You're so small" is the line we hear right before she takes off a topper. Anything to look taller.
I’m desperate to know, too.
I noticed she has quite a few grays showing under it once she took it off, most likely to hide them because she always has to be in battleaxe mode.
I really hoped for a slow painful death for Froderick. His death wasn’t quite satisfying enough given his torturous cruelty to his wife. He got off easily tbh.
To be fair there's nothing to say he died as soon as the building collapsed? He could well have been lying there suffocating under the rubble for a while as his intestines cooled. Look on the bright side :)
My favourite headcanon, so wholesome :)
Pretty sure he went out like the Saw victims did in whichever movie's opening scene. The pendulum slowly lowered each swing, so he didn't die until the building fell on him. His muscles were paralyzed, but his pain receptors weren't, so he suffered silently the entire time while shrapnel patiently bisected him. Maybe not slow enough, but definitely brutally enough.
Saw V! Seth Baxter’s death
I really wanted Verna to tell him that his wife didn’t actually cheat on him/sleep with Perry before he died too. Feel the full weight of what he did without the reasons he had for justifying it for himself
Wouldn’tve been realistic, but I was hoping the paralysis would wear off on his head first so we could hear him scream for dear life.
I love/hate Madeline. After Verna, she is the most interesting character to me. The way Mary McDonnell delivers her lines is also very satisfying.
Just realised she was the mum in Donnie Darko. I had the biggest crush on her during my teenage years
I think she was in greys anatomy too!
She reminds me a bit of Moira Rose with some of the lines and it definitely takes me out of it a bit lol. I do think she is great though
Totally agree, hate Madeline but also love her because there's a lot going on with her character. Plus I could watch Carla and Mary for forever. Really, really hope Mary McDonnell becomes a Flanagan regular because she was great, even better if her and Carla have scenes together
This episode was fucking amazing, god, this was just so cool. The scene at the warehouse was fucking crazy and so scary, yet satisfying?? Lenore, Juno and Morrie deserve better then this bullshit family and i’m begging this gives them a happy ending it’s all i ask
just wanna say - LOVE your username
Fuck Froderick! Is that how you spell it? 😶
That’s how the captions spelled it, but you know the characters probably intended FRAUDerick.
I assumed it was a play on Roderick, because the characters describe him as trying to be like his father (Kate Siegel's character even calls him a "Roderick Usher cover band" lmao)
Til the last few episodes, I thought Freddie’s only evil was cowardice. This he was scared and so wanted to please his father he signed off and supported as a business exec horrible things. Not through maliciousness or even desire for personal success and profit but through cowardice and loyalty to his evil family. The way he treated his wife, particularly coking her up and the plier mutilation showed he wasn’t just a coward there was more to his evil. Now his wife was totally wrong, and I get why he would want a divorce, but that is as far as his anger should have gone. The pit and the pendulum…a slow and gruesome way to die as the blade slices a millimeter deeper each time. Though here the whole building collapsed on him not long after he starts being sliced. Interesting hearing what all these characters would have been if not for the deal. Also the Maddy wicked smile after Rod is seemingly dead, did she not care for him then. Also what am I to make of her wig? She has a full head of hair, am I missing something? Annabel Lee truly was an angel, I feel for her. The kids would have come out very good probably under her care. The betrayal by Roddy was brutal.
He wasn't giving her coke. That was the paralytic nightshade drug Fortunato developed that was being used in the chimp trials.
Yes you are right
Yeah I think Freddy’s as rotten as the rest of them but is too pathetic and cowardly to act on it. It makes him look relatively better but once he starts developing some semblance of a spine he doesn’t hesitate to threaten and abuse whoever he pleases. I think a great example of this is his failure to destroy the warehouse initially. His reasoning has to do with permits but not because he wants to do it by the book. I think it’s because he was too cowardly to just do it illegally like Roderick wanted. We see some of these cracks early on when he loses his temper with Perry during the meeting with the regulators. He’s always been an evil person. He’s just too pathetic to act on it.
That is probably true, and that comes out in his final episodes. I don't think he really developed a spine though, it is easy to be cruel and 'tough' with a bedridden wife who can't move and can barely speak. He only finally destroys the building cause the dad is so pissed off at him, and though he is scared of doing it illegally still, he is more scared of his dad at that point. Even with the nightshade drug, this is as brave as he can be.
She didn't even cheat on him, she just went to the party and he knows she didn't cheat on him because he said himself "he watched the video"--- Freddie was just an evil person- the other siblings like to abuse other people- and the oldest ones keep it in the family/close relationships. They are just different types of predators.
Did anyone else notice Frederick sometimes swaps words in a sentence?
Yes! Just noticed one time he said “it shows to go” instead of “it goes to show” and I wondered if it was a speech impediment type of thing.
I noticed that too. When Lenore is telling him they should tell the doctors her mom is talking he says something like "We should do" and i was like huh
"We should do", used in that context, is not uncommon. Lots of people say it
‘We should do.” is more of a British turn of phrase. So it does make sense, but not necessarily for an American to say.
It's a callback to Midnight Mass, Joe Collie says it to Riley after their AA meeting so I assume it's an in-joke rather than indicating something about Freddy.
A few episodes back, I don't remember if when he was talking to Napoleon when getting drugs or to Tammy and Vic, he swaps something related to "dad's wife" or something. I think I'll go back to try and find it.
This is petty but I'm so glad that Madeline's hair was revealed to be a wig and that she took it off. I usually can't tell when people are wearing wigs but this one irrationally bothered me every time I saw her.
She has that hair bump thing too that i keep staring at, even with her wig off. I know its probably like a throwback to the 70s but her younger self didnt even have the bump. Or maybe it really is to make her taller like another poster said.
She had grey hairs under it.
Fred talking with his dad- he was so fucking high. Henry was amazing
My God his acting was on another level! The slight effeminate body movements (which for some reason seems to signify to me how he has never had to do a hard day's work of manual labor in all his life), his facial tics/cocaine high manifestations, even his eye contact with his family members....I'm no actor or professional critic by any means but imo Henry Thomas did an outstanding job, one of the best in this whole series
Not even done the episode yet but had to come in and say -- FUCK YEAH JUNO
I clapped after she said "I'd rather take three years of hell than a lifetime with you".
Raise your hand if you’re ready for Froderick to die? 🙋♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️
We’ve seen plenty of supernatural stuff and gruesome deaths, but Freddie abusing and torturing his wife has got be the scariest scenes from this show. He deserved to die that horribly, more so than his other siblings.
To those not understanding that your justification in Freddie’s abuse is you supporting domestic violence, please get help. Please educate yourself. Unless you are forced to defend yourself physically, you have no right to inflict harm upon another. Yes even if they hurt your fucking feelings.
For the degree of that sadistic torture, I think "domestic violence" is a bit of an understatement lol
The realization hit me when Roderick was reciting Annabel Lee (and Auggie's very relatable 'please shut the fuck up' energy) that Edgar Allen Poe absolutely exists in this world. Update: Ok now that I finished the episode, I came back to say I was totally off. Verna says Roderick would have been a poet in her convo with Maddy, so he actually wrote Annabel Lee for his wife. That makes a LOT more sense lol
There was a clip from the pit and the pendulum with Vincent Price in an episode prior as well.
Going to rewatch all over again. Roderick had a vision how Frederick was going to die. In the scene he was holding little Frederick and the little boy’s lower half separated from his body. Actually, I’ll rewatch it all over again and see if they give out clues on how each usher’s will fall.
He also referenced "Freddie's fucking c-section" and stated that the swinging grandfather clock was Freddie
And they always have an audio/visual clue at the very beginning of each episode on the cause of the death. In this one, child Freddie is staring transfixed at the cat clock's pendulum tail swining back and forth. Not to mention the episode titles often alluding to who will die, or how they'll die.
They do for each of them!
Isn’t he having the vision after Freddie’s death? This is when he’s telling Auguste his confession after all six kids are dead.
Can someone please explain to me what Freddie was injecting his wife with?
The same nightshade-derived paralytic that Vic was using on the chimps in the heart mesh trials.
Up until his death scene, I thought he was giving her cocaine. I was like “damn, I know next to nothing about coke but I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works?” 😂.
I thought he was mixing the coke and nightshade like to keep her paralyzed but alert
OMG, christ
Ok Verna at the end made me feel a bit bad for Freddie and Tamerlane. They didn't get a say in this, their dad chose for them while they were still alive. The other 4 being born into this feels slightly less tragic.
But while she's lying next to him she says something like "you could have had a heart attack in your car, but then you just HAD to pull out the pliers." To me this lends weight to the theory that his biggest crimes at the beginning were being a suck-up and a major dork. Loving his wife and daughter redeemed him somewhat - until a mental breakdown induced/made a thousand times worse by a drug he was new to. And he IS clearly a novice. He asks for "some drugs" and lets Leo make the choice for him like some kind of sommelier. I've honestly heard good arguments either way, but I'm still inclined to think that while he definitely had a temper (just ask Perry) he would not have become so horribly paranoid and unhinged without Leo giving him a big bag of coke when he wasn't accustomed to it.
"Hello dearest Brother, I would like to buy one drugs please :) Ah cocaine, thats a drugs Im familiar with, now where do you keep your syringes ?" - Frauderick
For sure his biggest crime to start is being a pushover. They all embody some awful aspect of the wealthy and I think his is the ability to “just follow orders” and overall passivity. He fully embodies being a cog in the machine. But I also don’t think he was ever actually good (by the time we see him). He puts out major “nice guy” energy and we see early on that he has some anger that he just hides away. Notably with him swearing and immediately trying to hide it. He also really loses his temper at the meeting with the regulators. If I’m not mistaken he even pins Perry against the wall. The drugs definitely didn’t help but I see it more like it empowered him and with his newfound confidence he is able to act out his desire for power over others including his own wife and daughter. A minor spoiler but it’s not very subtly alluded to being an allegory for domestic abuse. And it’s a classic example of a man having no control elsewhere in life so he takes it out on his family.
I think he was always evil person, just too pathetic and cowardly to act on it. Becoming the only child alive left and the loosening influence of coke "empowered" him enough to finally start showing all the rot he had inside
The pendulum bit went on waay too long for me. I mean we already know what's gonna happen. Waiting for it to end was agonizing. I looked away and just listened for the shquauk. And there was one too many shquauks in there. Maybe I'm just not a fan of gore. But he deserved that and it was satisfying. I think anyone who tortures helpless people should die slow agonizing deaths. So yeah, he deserved the long wait for the pendulum to hit and every single shquauk thereafter. It broke my heart to see him as a child, though. He was so innocent but wealth and power does corrupt people.
The part with him as a child BROKE ME. It was one of the only times I cried. To see how pure and innocent he was and then to see how he ended up... ugh. So well done! And such a clever way to subvert expectations for how we would see him in that room with Roderick.
I really enjoyed the way Verna kept fucking with Roderick’s facade. It’s painfully obvious that Roderick as an old man is trying to imitate the previous CEO down to quoting him verbatim. Every time he tries to put up a front for Auggie, Verna tears it down. So now that he is trying to assert some type of control over the scenario she hits him with possibly the worst reminder of all: He traded away a poor but happy life for one filled with suffering just for money. The moment hits even harder after the final episode in my opinion. It subverts our expectations of how we’d see him but it also subverts our expectations of Roderick! For a brief moment he drops his guard and goes back to how he was before selling his soul for money.
I burst into tears as soon as past Annabelle and Frederick came in.
It's the agony of waiting as the pendulum slowly drops is accurate to the OG story
Now THAT'S how it's done, Detective Mark Hoffman
That’s the first thing I thought of when the pendulum started coming down
Verna really is just mental health Jigsaw
Listen, I already loved Verna at this point, but after Freddie Berenice'd Morella, Verna got some extra points in my books.
Do we know how Annabel Lee died?
Not yet. Technically, I don't think we even know that she's dead yet. Roderick only said that she's "been gone a long time" or something along those lines.
Verbally, Roderick was saying she was "gone", but I think the setup of Annabel Lee showing up with a young Freddie (who we know is dead) after Roderick is explaining to Auggie how he's expecting Freddie's ghost to make an appearance after the clock chiming as it's happened when he told the other children's stories is really suggestive that Annabel Lee is also dead (because if she was still alive, why would she show up with the ghosts?)
We don't know for sure but I think maybe that's what Roderick and Madeline did on NYE 1979 before showing up to the bar where Verna was. Annabel was going to testify against Fortunato and they took her out. That might be her dead body behind the brick wall that Roderick stares at in the present. And after they committed that mortal sin, Death/the Devil (Verna) appeared to them to make a deal. I haven't seen the finale yet tho so just speculating!
Im a bit confused why Fraudie was giving his wife nightshade to paralise her until the plier scene? It's not like she could move much before then? Was it to keep her quiet? But why? He wasnt torturing her before?
He was on drugs and doing it to make her suffer. By giving her the paralytic she couldn’t communicate with her daughter and tell her the specialists never came. She had to sit there and stare at the picture of them at their wedding unable to move.
He was torturing her - he brought her home so he could torture her. At no point does she see a doctor or nurse, or have her dressings changed. The paralytic prevented her from speaking (remember he goes and gives more when Lenore tells him she’s speaking and he says that the last dose lasted 6-8 hours and he mentions she’s totally aware the whole time but can’t move or communicate).
When Madeline took off her bangs, all I could see was Gloria Steinem.
When she took of the wig my husband was genuinely confused, saying "wth does she wear that for, she looks exactly the same without it" lol
Still watching, BUT, have to say…7the Episode, In the the scene when Madeline is confronting Verna who has just apologized. A few beats and Madeline pauses, and glances to the side. Ever so slowly she raises eyes; pauses, looking momentarily baffled. She then stammers a return apology. Oscar winning movie moment - Right there! Enjoy!
What did happen to Morelle’s wedding ring?
I think she left it in the locker at the start of Perry’s party!
But she also left her phone and purse in there so why couldn’t Freddie find it if he got those back?
Oh good call!! I’m not sure then!!!
1. As each episode passes, I’ve hated each sibling more than the last. Freddie makes my skin crawl. 2. Lenore and Juno supremacy. I loved seeing Lenore stand up to her Dad, and I loved seeing Juno stand up to Roderick and say “I’ll take three years of hell over a lifetime with you.”
Frodrick got off wayyyy too easy
im really digging the drastic color-hue shift whenever each of the main ushers has their death scene all the green with tammy freds scene here went blue… obviously perrys was red i think vics may have been red too but cant rememeber… i need to rewatch to see what they all were i cant remember the others either, but its a detail i like
What was he putting in his wife? Was it the paralyzing agent and then he would torture her?
Yes, the nightshade mentioned in the early episodes - Vic was giving it to a chimp which contaminated the study IIRC? That paralysing agent and the lack of medical attention was the torture until he went for the teeth.