Tragic Endings: The Dark Fate of the Usher Siblings

The demise of Roderick Usher's children in Mike Flanagan's Netflix mini-series, "The Fall of the House of Usher," is depicted in a chilling and gruesome way, with each experiencing different levels of severity in their outcomes.

Adapted from Edgar Allen Poe's story with the same title, this dark narrative focuses on Roderick (played by Bruce Greenwood) and his sister's ascent to wealth and influence through the Fortunato pharmaceutical company. As chief executive officers, they possess immense wealth and an inexplicable ability to evade legal consequences.

The true reasons for the tragic demise of all of Roderick's children are concealed in their past. Each death is connected to a mysterious and unfamiliar woman. Despite appearances, the police consider the deaths of the Usher children to be mere accidents or easily clarified incidents.

Prepare to be utterly shocked and appalled at the appalling magnitude of each child's demise. From acid rain to a rampaging monkey, the following is a detailed account of how each Usher child met their fate in The Fall of the House of Usher. Caution: Spoilers ahead!

Perry’s night-club festivities lead to death in The Fall of the House of Usher

In Episode 2, Perry Usher (portrayed by Sauriyan Sapkota) tragically meets his demise after being unexpectedly overcome by a fatal accident, leaving him with the pressure of demonstrating his value to his father unresolved.

Out of all of Roderick's children, only two share the same mother. Perry, the youngest one, is looked down upon by his older siblings and considered illegitimate. While his siblings have achieved success in their respective careers, Roderick and Madeline consistently reject all of Perry's ideas, particularly his proposal for a high-end VIP nightclub.

During Episode 2 of The Fall of the House of Usher, Perry comes up with a brilliant plan to prove his father's doubts wrong. Upon discovering one of Fortunato's abandoned testing factories, he and his friends devise a strategy to transform it into an exclusive nightclub. The club would have a strict guest list, where attendees would don masks and store their phones away. In the midst of a debaucherous atmosphere filled with drugs and sex, Perry intends to utilize the CCTV footage to gather compromising information on the elite. After all, knowledge is power.

However, Perry has a brilliant plan to transform his nightclub opening into a work of art. Despite the factory being abandoned, with its water lines drying up, Perry holds a different belief. He suspects that Fortunato secretly sourced their own water from the rooftop tanks. As the party unfolds, some of the staff mysteriously disappear without a word, just before Perry's friend activates the sprinkler system.

Chaos erupts when instead of water, the sprinklers release a highly corrosive acid. Panic ensues as everyone, including Perry, is subjected to the devastating effects of the acid, gradually eroding their bodies and devouring their flesh. Amidst the horrific scene of melted corpses, Perry finds himself submerged in this nightmarish sea of destruction.

Camille’s snooping leads to her gruesome death

In The Fall of the House of Usher, viewers discover that Victorine (T'Nia Miller) is desperately seeking an opportunity to conduct human trials using her medical heart apparatus. Despite years of trying the experiment on chimpanzees, it has consistently failed. In the midst of Perry's death, Camille becomes determined to uncover any dirt on Victorine and her experiments.

This is when Camille's assistant reveals the shocking gossip that Victorine has been fabricating the presence of livestock in her lab. Apparently, when a test subject dies during a trial, Victorine replaces it with a live one and creates identical incisions to falsely claim that the experiment was successful.

Camille, eager for evidence, visits Victorine's laboratory late at night and is granted entry by the enigmatic woman. She captures photographs of the test subjects, who bear unsettling stitched incisions on their chests. Unbeknownst to her, while she is preoccupied, a door belonging to one of the test subjects swings open.

In an unexpected turn of events, the woman reappears and delivers a passionate speech regarding Victorine's mission to rescue people. Surprisingly, as the speech concludes, Camille photographs the woman, only to discover that she is actually one of the test subjects. The test subject, overcome with fury, violently attacks and fatally injures Camille.

Napolean Usher goes mad before his death in The Fall of the House of Usher

The second eldest son, Napoleon (played by Rahul Kohli), meets a tragic end in a convoluted narrative of deception and insanity, ultimately presenting his demise as a suicide to the world.

Napoleon, who is also an illegitimate offspring of Roderick and a reputed game developer, finds himself in a predicament by Episode 3. After a wild night of indulgence in alcohol and drugs, he awakens to discover himself drenched in blood. Shockingly, he has unintentionally killed his boyfriend's beloved feline companion. Instead of confessing, he embarks on a quest to locate a replacement at a pet store.

There, he encounters a mysterious woman disguised as a worker. Napoleon comes across the exact same cat and decides to bring it home. However, things take a turn for the worse. His boyfriend remains oblivious to the feline, whereas Napoleon not only sees it but also endures a scratch to his eye. The peculiar part is that none of this seems to be real.

Gradually losing his sanity, Napoleon reaches out to the woman from the store for assistance in locating the cat. She insists that the cat is hiding within the walls, and before long, the feline emerges to attack Napoleon. In a fit of rage, he gouges its eyes and angrily casts the cat aside. Consumed by fury, he becomes determined to eliminate the cat – using Thor's hammer.

Enraged and losing his sanity, Napoleon's boyfriend arrives just as he is demolishing the wall. In a fit of rage, Napoleon lunges at the cat perched on the balcony railing with the hammer. Unbeknownst to him, the cat represents his own inner turmoil. Consequently, Napoleon tumbles over the edge and tragically meets his demise upon colliding with a gleaming yellow Ferrari. The concluding scene reveals that all the supposed rats that the cat had purportedly killed and left in the apartment were merely a result of his vivid hallucinations.

Victorine does the unthinkable in her medical trials

The next death is Victorine who slowly goes insane. She uses her dead girlfriend’s body to test her medical heart equipment and later ends with her dying by suicide.

Only three of the older Usher children remain, and Victorine's death is a remarkable tale. She disloyally conducted an experiment on a willing human subject without her girlfriend's knowledge, who happens to be a surgeon. Upon discovering that Victorine had been forging her signature on legal documents, her girlfriend becomes furious and storms out, while Victorine throws something in anger.

Victorine continues her life as normal until she starts hearing incessant strange sounds, reminiscent of a beating heart. Most spectators perceive this as a sign of her descending into madness. In the midst of the night, Roderick pays a visit to Victorine in order to apologize and check on her well-being. However, loud music distracts him, and Victorine hesitates to turn it off.

Hoping her father would hear, she deliberately makes a noise. He confirms that he does hear it. Catching a glimpse of her girlfriend in the background, Victorine follows her, and a flashback begins. As her girlfriend is about to leave, Victorine throws an object, hitting her on the back of her head. Bleeding on the floor, her girlfriend tries to seek help before the scene abruptly changes. In the search for the source of the noise, Roderick is shocked to discover Victorine's girlfriend with her chest pried open, revealing a heart still beating amidst medical equipment.

Having descended into madness, Victorine believes they need a superior heart and a test subject, leading her to hold a knife against her father's neck. Unexpectedly, Victorine turns the knife on herself, stabbing her own abdomen. The news describes it as a murder-suicide.

Tamerlane Usher’s career shatters to bits

Roderick's eldest daughter, Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan), tragically passes away in "The Fall of the House of Usher" when a sizable piece of glass pierces her neck.

Describing Tamerlane's career as an imitation of Goop, she finds herself married to a renowned fitness celebrity. However, their relationship faces challenges due to Tamerlane's unusual sexual preferences, which involve hiring a sex worker to impersonate her while she observes. Following a disagreement with her husband, Tamerlane courageously attends the launch of her brand independently.

She is horrified as she perceives herself being recorded in intimate encounters with an unidentified woman and the footage being broadcasted publicly. However, it is all fabricated, and the shattered screens only reveal images related to her own brand and merchandise. Disturbed and anxious, she becomes convinced that the person stalking Usher is inside her house, as she hears disembodied voices. Taking a fireplace poker in her hand, she proceeds to smash all the mirrors in a frenzy.

Inside her bedroom, overwhelmed by anger and frustration, she confronts the mirror positioned above her bed and notices the presence of the unknown woman. Fueled by rage, she impulsively lunges towards the mirror, aiming to shatter it with the poker. In a dramatic slow-motion sequence, the mirror shatters into countless shards, one of which brutally pierces her throat, while the smaller fragments scatter and envelop her.

Frederick Usher was the worst of the Usher bunch

After mistreating his seriously injured wife, Frederick Usher (played by Henry Thomas) meets his demise as the final descendant of Fortunato. His untimely death occurs amidst the destruction of a factory, where he is fatally sliced open by a blade.

Viewers may find Frederick's demise fitting. At Perry's gathering, his wife was present despite enduring severe acid burns, managing to survive. However, Frederick falsely believes she has been engaging in an affair with Perry, leading him to torment her relentlessly. Combined with his use of cocaine, Frederick succumbs to madness and overwhelming jealousy.

Over time, he gradually abuses his wife who is confined to her bed, and drugs her to make her compliant. In Episode 7, Frederick makes plans to demolish the factory that used to be Perry's nightclub. This is an attempt to ensure a smooth transition into his new role as successor and to eliminate any chemical evidence. However, he crosses a line when he decides to use pliers to forcibly remove some of his wife's teeth.

At the demolition site, he becomes paralyzed and the woman appears. She directly intervenes out of anger for Frederick's mistreatment of his wife. She manipulates his mind, making him add large amounts of lethal medication to his drugs. As Frederick lies motionless on the factory floor, the woman imitates his voice to give the signal to proceed with demolishing the factory.

As the wrecking ball destroys everything, a metal support beam goes loose with its sharp edge swinging back and forth. It soon gets closer and slices Frederick wide open.

Roderick Usher’s granddaughter also meets her death in The Fall of the House of Usher

As a result of Roderick and Madeline's agreement, it is necessary for all of Roderick's relatives, including his granddaughter Lenore, to perish.

Lenore, the daughter of Frederick and his spouse, holds the esteemed title of being the most exemplary Usher among them. Unbeknownst to her, her father was inflicting harm upon her mother. When the police arrive following his demise, spectators witness Lenore sitting beside her mother, finally recognizing the mistreatment she had endured.

The audience is led to believe that the protagonist will be able to live her life as the last heir of Fortunato and help her mother recover, but this turns out to be far from the truth. As a result of Roderick and Madeline's arrangement with the mysterious woman, their bloodlines must all perish as a form of punishment. In her bedroom, the protagonist is visited by the woman, who looks at her affectionately. She almost pities Lenore, as she is one of the unfortunate victims of the Usher family's tragic downfall.

The woman informs Lenore that her mother is being treated in a medical facility, undergoing skin grafts, and has received a significant inheritance from Fortunato. Lenore's mother generously donates most of the money to organizations combating domestic abuse and establishes a foundation in Lenore's name. With tears in her eyes, the woman wants Lenore to understand that it is because of Lenore's actions for her mother that all of this is made possible.

Lenore succumbs to eternal slumber with a gentle touch upon her forehead, never to awaken again. Roderick discovers her lifeless form positioned before the crackling hearth. For additional Netflix content, visit our hub, explore Dexerto's review, delve into its link with Haunting of Hill House, and much more.