The Fall of the House of Usher

The Fall of the House of Usher (2023) is an American streaming television miniseries airing on Netflix, loosely adapting the works of Edgar Allan Poe into a narrative about the corrupt CEO of a pharmecutical company and his family.

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.

C. Auguste Dupin: Was it ever going to be enough? Over the years, I've talked to a lot of people who have taken your drugs. Soccer moms with headaches. Accountants with carpal tunnel. Kids with sports injuries. Their docs prescribe them Ligodone, pitch it like extra strength Tylenol. Fast forward a year, they're shooting up heroin behind dumpsters. Or they're dead.

Roderick Usher: Don't be naive. I'm not responsible if people abuse Ligodone. This is an old and boring argument. Do you know how much Ligodone my wife takes every day? She's fine

C. Auguste Dupin: Wasn't your wife a heroin addict before you met?

Roderick Usher: She is a success story from every angle, I agree.

C. Auguste Dupin: You knew the extended release formulation created abuse potential. You knew it was highly addictive. You marketed it non-addictive anyway because you wanted more than the hundreds of millions you were pulling before Ligodone hit the market. That wasn't enough for you, so that's my question. 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. Course not.

Perry Usher: 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. 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.

Perry Usher: Not this. I mean ... That's the whole point. You didn't read the invite?

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.

Camille L'Espanaye: Perry's dead, the family's fucked, 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.

Roderick Usher: When life hands you lemons...

C. 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. Lemon is the only way to say "I love you," the must-have accessory for engagements or anniversaries. Roses are out, lemons are in. Billboards that say she won't have sex with you unless you got lemons. You cut De Beers in on it. Limited edition lemon bracelets, yellow diamonds called lemon drops. You get Apple to call their new operating system OS Lemón, a little accent over the "o." You charge 40% more for organic lemons, 50% more for conflict-free lemons. You pack the Capitol with lemon lobbyists, you get a Kardashian to suck a lemon wedge in a leaked sex tape. Timothée Chalamet wears lemon shoes at Cannes. Get a hashtag campaign. Something that isn't "cool" or "tight" or "awesome," no, it's "lemon." "Did you see that movie?" "Did you go to that concert? It was effing lemon." Billie Eilish, "OMG, hashtag lemon." You get Dr. Oz to recommend four lemons a day and a lemon suppository supplement to get rid of toxins 'cause there's nothing scarier than toxins. Then you patent the seeds. You write a line of genetic code that makes lemons look a little more just like tits. And you get a gene patent for the tit-lemon DNA sequence, you cross-pollinate. You get those seeds circulating in the wild, and then you sue the farmers for copyright infringement when that genetic code shows up on their land. 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 fucking lemonade.

Leo Usher: I'm not part of the whole Usher pharma-bollocks. I make video games. You know?

Camille L'Espanaye: You don't make video games. You give money to people who make video games. You don't make shit. It's like how "Froderick" is this Roderick Usher cover band, and he's playing the hits, but it's sort of off-key. And Tammy is just Goop with a big golden bug sticker on it. And it's not even her face on the product, it's "BILLT" the fucking fitness clown. And Vic's heart mesh isn't even her heart mesh. It's the surgeon's. That's why she's fucking 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 do.

Camille L'Espanaye: Fuck it. I got mine.

Roderick Usher: Oh, isn't it beautiful? It's fit for a queen. Queen Twosret, actually. Pharaoh of Egypt, 19th Dynasty. Two giant sapphires were place in Twosret's head when she was mummified, in place of her eyes, to give her power and sight in the afterlife. Now that's how you send off a goddess. Priceless, they said. But you have to ask the right questions. Not "What do the sapphires cost?" But "What does the Supreme Council of Antiquities cost? What does the Coalition to Protect Egyptian Antiquities cost? What does the Minister of Antiquities cost? What does the Secretary General cost? What do the Egyptian National Police cost?" Answer those questions, one at a time. And in just a few years, those "priceless" sapphires are a birthday gift for my sister. I reached through time, and ripped the eyes out of a Goddess with my pocketbook and some patience. Does that make me a God?

Roderick Usher: I saw it with my own eyes. She did it herself. I saw Victorine push the knife into her own heart. And no ... No one helped her with her girlfriend. That much was clear.

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 and if that doesn't snap you out of this, remember, Vic had a board seat. [Roderick looks up] Now you're listening. 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 fսcking now, you won't have a family left.

Roderick Usher: How much do you know about Arthur Pym?

C. Auguste Dupin: I expect he's the kind of man you call if you, I don't know, accidentally kill a prostitute and need to dismember the corpse?

Roderick Usher: No, he's not nearly that boring. Do you remember the Transglobe Expedition? '79 to '82? Circumnavigated the globe? UK to the South Pole, to the North Pole, and home again. Around the world.

C. Auguste Dupin: I remember. One hundred thousand miles. Across the Sahara, swamps and jungles of Mali and the Ivory Coast. Unexplored crevasse fields in Antarctica. The Northwest Passage, graveyard of so many famous adventurers. And then, into the hazards of the Artic Ocean. I remember it, Roderick.

Roderick Usher: Arthur was there. He was barely 25. He put law school on hold to elbow his way onto the expedition, and he saw the fucking world. While you and I were dicking around with our petty little dramas, digging in the basement at Fortunato, Arthur Gordon Pym was bending the planet over and taking his piece. The things he saw. And he'll talk about them too. To a point. He always stops telling it as he gets to the North Pole. It used to be a fun game when the kids were growing 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 piss on the tip-top of the world.

C. Auguste Dupin: A guy can dream...

Roderick Usher: He told my kids that the Earth was hollow. And I don't even know if he was lying.

C. Auguste Dupin: He was lying.

Roderick Usher: He told Tammy the Earth was hollow. And that he found an island at the top of the world, that he called "Ultima Thule." And that it was the realm of beings who lived beneath us. Out of time. And out of space.

C. Auguste Dupin: Cute.

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.

Frederick Usher: I heard Tamerlane killed herself with a fireplace poker and, I swear to God, I can't ... I can't figure out what that means. I mean, how do you ... How do you even do that?

Verna: You know, I could have done this just about any way I wanted to. Could have had a heart attack in your car. Coke would have teed that up nicely. Could have been hit by a bus. But then you had to bring her home. And you had to grab the pliers. I'm gonna head out. I've got an appointment with your dad. He did you wrong, Freddie. You only ever wanted to be loved by him. You only ever wanted his approval. And it's still no fucking excuse.

Annabel Lee: "He's rich." When people asked how you took them, how you convinced them away from me. "He's rich," I'd say. "He's rich." And you don't understand what that word means. They were young. They only knew appetite, and "Here," you said, "come with me. Gorge yourselves." How could I compete with that? You didn't feed them though, did you? You starved them. Less and less of them came back each time until one day they were empty. They were siphoned. You started filling them up with ... What did you fill them up with, Roderick? What did you have to fill them with? Because you weren't rich, were you? I thought you were a rich man all this time, but I ... I see you now. I look at you and I see you. The poverty of you.

Roderick Usher: Annabel...

Annabel Lee: Maybe this is a kindness in disguise. Maybe they died in their childhoods.

Verna: 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. Let me tell you a story about your mother. See, she recovers very well now that she's in the clinic. Takes three years, more than 100 skin grafts, physical therapy, reconstructive surgery. But she endures it. She's strong. Her battle scars become armor. She inherits a sizeable fortune when Fortunato collapses. She puts it to work immediately. She gives most of it away, domestic violence and abuse charities, but keeps enough to start a non-profit. She sets up chapters all over the world. She calls it the Lenore Foundation. After her daughter. And she saves a lot of lives. Would you like to know how many? Dozens in the first year. Then hundreds. Thousands soon after. And then a major burst of growth. 600,000 five years in. And in a decade, it's millions. More than 3,000,000, in fact. Then it gets hard to count. Because the people she helps help others who help others and others. And so on and ... 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.

Verna: Fortunato Pharmaceuticals will be dissolved in a bankruptcy settlement. The family trust will turn over $4.5 billion, including federal settlement fees, paid in installments over nine years.

Arthur Gordon Pym: That's a pretty sweet deal.

Verna: It's a fucking Christmas present. It's a slap on the wrist that comes with a blowjob.

Arthur Gordon Pym: And you can make this happen?

Verna: Oh no, this will happen without me. Humanity will shit that bed themselves. Corporate justice in this world is a punchline.

Arthur Gordon Pym: Then what are you offering?

Verna: There's a file. Camille L'Espanaye was very good at what she did. She had a file on everyone. Even you. It barely scratches the surface, but the surface alone will get you 20 to life. It gets found, or it doesn't. So, you can either ride the phoenix out of Fortunato's ashes, or you can watch it fly away from a federal prison cell. This I can do.

Arthur Gordon Pym: What are you asking in return?

Verna: What do you have, Arthur, in this life you've built for yourself? What assets have you acquired? I'm not interested in money, property, or stock options. True assets. What have you got? No spouse, no children, no familial connections, at least none that you care about. But everyone loves something. And in that love, there's collateral.

Arthur Gordon Pym: No. I have no collateral. Collateral is leverage, and I won't be leveraged. No man or woman has ever leveraged me in 70 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.

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The Fall of the House of Usher

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