Warning: the following article contains spoilers for The Fall of the House of Usher.
Mike Flanagan’s stories have been terrifying Netflix audiences on an annual basis for five straight years, ever since The Haunting of Hill House first emotionally wounded us. Now, The Fall of the House of Usher rounds out the horror mastermind’s contributions to the platform.
While the characters in Flanagan’s televised tales have always gone through some sort of relatable trauma that audiences have connected and empathized with, the cast of The Fall of the House of Usher are, let’s face it, not particularly pleasant people. Most, if not all of them seem to lack any sort of moral compass and are among the most entitled narcissists that have ever graced our TV screens.
So – we figured we’d take it upon ourselves to try and rank the Usher family in terms of just how awful they are as human beings. Note that we’ll only be listing off direct blood relatives of Roderick Usher, so spouses and partners are excluded. For the most part they were innocent bystanders, anyway.
A quick foreword/spoiler before we get started: This list has been written by a devout cat person. Take from that what you may.
9. Lenore Usher
Unsurprisingly, Lenore is at the very bottom of this ranking, as she didn’t do anything wrong besides be born into a morally corrupt business empire. The ‘scumbag’ gene that resides in the Ushers managed to skip a generation, and Lenore took after her grandmother Annabel Lee. When Verna came to take her life towards the end of the series, she took no pleasure in doing so – but a deal is a deal.
8. Tamerlane Usher
Every Usher has their own quirk (or several) that make them reprehensible, but Tamerlane is arguably one of the lesser evils in the family tree. Like her brothers, sisters, and parents, she’s relentlessly business-minded, but didn’t really do much (in comparison to the rest of the family) to hurt anyone. She sees her husband more as a corporate asset than a partner, and takes pleasure in cuckoldry. Around here, we’re chill with kinks, so long as it’s consented to by all parties – and it’s made clear that Tamerlane’s husband wasn’t all that into it.
7. Prospero Usher
Yes, Prospero is absolutely a jerk for going out of his way to convince his older brother’s wife to attend an orgy with him. But beyond that, he’s pretty much just a horny twenty-something who has the means and wealth to snort and screw his way through a hedonistic life. Again, consent withstanding, you do you, champ. Although, his intention to hold footage of his VIP party guests over their heads as a monetary boon (before his gnarly death) was perhaps a few too many steps over the line.
6. Camille L’Espanaye
Camille is where we truly start venturing deeper and deeper into the ugliness of the Usher family. She seems to take after her aunt Madeline – they’re both bereft of any heart, empathy and are cold and calculated. Upon learning of Prospero’s death, her siblings showed a shred of something that resembled grief, at the very least. Not Camille. Instead, she may as well have started salivating at the opportunity her brother’s death presented from a PR perspective. Yikes. Her treatment of her assistants is a whole other thing.
5. Frederick Usher
Okay, sure – Frederick got burned pretty badly by his wife Morella heading out and intending to cheat on him at Prospero’s party. Not to get into a tit-for-tat argument, but it’s FAIRLY safe to assume that Morella got her karmic retribution by suffering devastating burns all over her body. So no, Frederick, it’s definitely not okay to regularly paralyze and torture your wife! What the hell?!
4. Victorine LaFourcade
Ah, Victorine. What did those poor chimps ever do to you? While animal testing is an unfortunate and grim reality of the medical world, taking things a step further by keeping the poor chimpanzees alive by injecting them with adrenaline, all for the sake of fabricating positive results, is just downright horrible. But wait, it gets worse! Victorine knew full well that her experimental heart implant wasn’t working, and was completely willing to go ahead with human trials anyway, knowing that the likelihood of survival would be slim. SO not cool.
3. Madeline Usher
Ranking either Madeline or Roderick Usher above the other is tricky, and it honestly could go either way. It somewhat boils down to a philosophical argument of idea versus execution. Sure, Roderick was Fortunato’s shotcaller who propelled Ligodone to its stratospheric success, but he wouldn’t have been anywhere near as successful without Madeline pointing him in the ‘right’ direction. Her sheer heartlessness and complete lack of remorse when all was said and done almost earned her a higher spot on this list. But as the oversimplification goes, guns don’t kill people – people kill people. And Roderick’s body count is a whole lot higher.
2. Roderick Usher
It’s most succinctly summed up in The Fall of the House of Usher’s final episode: Roderick Usher climbed to the top of the tower on a pile of corpses. By taking over Fortunato and introducing the world to the Ligadone painkiller, Roderick has the blood of millions on his hands. He marketed “a world without pain,” knowing full well that he was achieving the opposite. He didn’t even hesitate to sign the lives of his children away in exchange for a life of opulence, bereft of negative consequence (Madeline did, which is another factor in how we ranked the pair). Not to mention the havoc his progeny wreaked on the world. The sins of the father carry down.
1. Leo Usher
Cat-murdering a**hat. Abuse substances to the point of blackout all you want, but don’t you dare mess with cats. In summary, Leo’s an all around trash bag of a person.