This is my favorite of Mike Flanagan's television shows so far, because it is the least serious and the most pulpy fun. In "The Fall of the House of Usher," We're introduced to a family of terrible people, who are all dispatched one by one in very entertaining ways. The show is also a pastiche of various Edgar Allen Poe stories, but updated for the modern day. For instance, the first death is patterned off of "The Masque of the Red Death," but instead of the events happening at a costume ball it takes place in an opulent illegal rave. Later on black cats, a raven, a pendulum, and a bottle of amontillado come into play.
Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood and Zack Gilford) and his sister Madeline (Mary McDonnell and Willa Fitzgerald) are the powerful heads of a pharmaceutical company, and Roderick has fathered a brood of six awful children - eldest son and heir Frederick (Henry Thomas), health guru Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan), medical device researcher Victorine (T'Nia Miller), video game producer Leo (Rahul Kohli), spin doctor Camille (Kate Siegel), and young hedonist Prospero (Sauriyan Sapkota). The two eldest, Frederick and Tammy, are the product of Roderick's marriage to his first wife, Annabel Lee (Katie Parker), while the rest are illegitimate. The story begins near its end, when all the kids are dead, and Roderick is confessing his crimes to a detective, C. August Dupin (Carl Lumbly), explaining how each of his children perished along the way. Everything is tied to a mysterious woman named Verna (Carla Gugino), who seems to have supernatural powers.
Because this is Mike Flanagan, we skip around in time quite a bit. There are flashbacks to 1980, a major turning point in Roderick's life, when he was involved in shady dealings with his former boss, Rufus Griswold (Michael Trucco). There are also a few tragic innocents among the reprobates - Annabel Lee, Roderick's teenage granddaughter Lenore (Kyliegh Curran), and his much younger second wife, a drug addict named Juno (Ruth Codd). The final major character is the Usher family's ruthless lawyer, Arthur Pym, played with gravelly menace by Mark Hamill, clearly enjoying himself. Many of the actors are from Flanagan's past projects, often playing very different characters or against type to good effect. Mary McDonnell as the wonderfully evil Madeline is a highlight, and Carla Gugino makes for a very charming specter. However, Bruce Greenwood definitely deserves the largest share of praise for anchoring the whole affair with such commitment. There are definitely some of the usual, lengthy Flanagan monologues, but not too many of them this time around, and the ones we do get are very memorable.
I've heard "The Fall of the House of Usher" referred to as a Gothic "Succession," but more than that it's "Succession" with the kind of consequences and karmic justice that we all wish existed in real life. The Ushers are clearly modeled after the Sacklers, heading a pharma company that makes a painkiller called Ligadone, which has contributed to the opioid crisis. Flanagan gets to make them all pay for their transgressions in the most gruesome and poetic ways possible. Some of the kills are very graphic, but shot in a stylized and heightened way so that they never pinged as anything really horrific. I've always appreciated that extra layer of distance and unreality that Flanagan's projects seem to have.
However, I think why I like "House of Usher" so much better than Flanagan's other shows is that it is by and large a very efficient piece of work. Most of the episodes are about an hour long, and none overstay their welcome. There's some sentiment and romanticism, as Roderick muses over his regrets, but no wallowing. We get some rants about the dark side of capitalism, but nothing too gratuitous. There's a Trump jab of course, but only one. Some might take issue with the repetitiveness of the kills and a clear formula being followed - you can probably guess many of the twists if you're familiar with Poe's work - but the execution (heh) of the setups and payoffs is note perfect.
For creepy winter viewing, you couldn't ask for anything better.
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