The Fall Of The House Of Usher: [SPOILER]'s Death Is A Logic-Defying Plot Hole
Contains spoilers for "The Fall of the House of Usher" Season 1, Episode 6 — "Goldbug"
Netflix's "The Fall of the House of Usher" might be a live-action adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story of the same name, but it's also kind of a gothic reimagining of "Kill Bill." Verna (Carla Gugino), though we're not really sure who (or what) she is, is out to end the Usher bloodline, as per her agreement with Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and Madeline Usher (Mary McDonnell) all those many years ago. One by one, she fells the mighty Usher empire, reducing the criminally wicked family to so much blood and ash. Her plots are devious, grandiose, and more often poetically dramatic than not. But one of the murders falls flat in comparison to the rest.
In Episode 6, Verna sets her sights on Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan), the second oldest Usher child. Poor Tam struggles with insomnia because she's too busy prepping for the launch of her new beauty products, hating her family with impressive passion, and driving a metaphorical stake through the heart of a man who somehow genuinely loves her. All this to say, things aren't going well when Verna arrives. And while her ultimate end, courtesy of a shattered glass guillotine, is up to par with Verna's usual standard, the in-between bits are a little wonky. The journey to Tam's death requires the Usher heiress to make so many leaps in logic that you would think she was playing mental "Frogger" with her grip on sanity.
Tamerlane's death isn't a lesson, it's a show
For those who haven't seen episode 6, Tamerlane Usher begins to lose swathes of time, presumably from sleep exhaustion. Is she falling asleep or simply spacing out? The narrative doesn't wholly clarify that aspect, but we do know that it's messing with her perception ... and so is Verna, who taunts Tam with visions of a stalker and visions of a woman stealing her husband away. There's nothing wrong with a character suffering from a tenuous grip on reality, but Tam's mental faculties disappear faster than 5G coverage in the boonies. She's so completely lost that she doesn't even question why the microphone stand she threw at her "stalker" soars through the woman — who was never even there — and collides with Juno Usher (Ruth Codd). And that's weird, right?
Episode 6 takes a decidedly pointed turn toward the supernatural, but the only person who clocks that shift is Madeline Usher. Tam just glosses over the fact that her potential assailant doesn't even have corporeal form, as if she hadn't spent the last five episodes acting stable. Crass, vicious, and controlling, but stable. In comparison, her sibling's deaths feel more grounded in their own failures. Perry (Sauriyan Sapkota) ignored routine safety checks, Leo (Rahul Kohli) abused drugs and alcohol, Camille (Kate Siegel) entered dangerous restricted areas for a scoop, and Victorine (T'Nia Miller) broke health regulations to fabricate a false medical miracle. But Tam? With feet full of glass, she stabs the mirror over her bed without a single thought behind her eyes. Either she's a lot less intelligent than we assumed, or Verna did more behind-the-scenes tinkering than we know.
All episodes of "The Fall of the House of Usher" are now available to stream on Netflix.