The Fall Of The House Of Usher Episode 8 The Raven Ending Explained- Verna, The Raven And Why Everyone Had To Die

Everything must come to an end. Even the best things have an expiration date, and Mike Flanagan’s masterpiece The Fall Of The House Of Usher had to end. Surprisingly, it ended in an even more bonkers way than we could have hoped. The Fall Of The House Of Usher Episode 8 brought the literal house crashing down. Here is everything you need to know about Verna, the Raven, and why everyone had to die.

Madeline and Roderick Usher were ambitious. So much so they were willing to sacrifice not just their own lives but the lives of their entire bloodline for a lifetime of wealth and success. Maybe they didn’t really believe Verna or the Raven, as we now know she is, would make them pay. Maybe they didn’t realize the gravity of their decision. Like Verna told Perry, there are always consequences, and making a deal with the devil means you eventually have to pay up. For the Ushers, it was a steep price. The woman in the bar all those years ago they made the deal with is back. She kept her end of the bargain. Now, it is time for the price to be paid.

The Cask Of Amontillado Explained

In Poe’s short story, Montresor bricks Fortunato behind a wall and leaves him to die because he insulted him. Like Fortunato, Rufus was killed for being an insulting turd who held the Ushers down for too long. The Ushers use Rufus’ lecherous ways and expensive sherry against him and lure him into the basement of the company and brick him up, being the wall to die. Even Madeline’s comment to Rufus about not knowing the difference between sherry and amontillado is ripped from the pages of the short story. Rufus was a horrible person whose perversion was built brick by brick, just like the wall that now cages him. His disappearance effectively puts Madeline and Roderick in power positions and gives them control over the company. He haunts Roderick now in the jester costume he wore on the night he died.

Annabel Lee

The only true love of Roderick and the one regret he will admit to even now is his treatment of his first wife, and the mother of Tamerlane and Frederick is Annabell Lee. Roderick broke her heart when he betrayed Dupin and chose to protect the company. The most romantic and sad of all of Poe’s poems is Annabel Lee. The poem speaks of a universal love, so strong it transcends even death. He did love her, but unfortunately, he didn’t love her enough when he was with her to prioritize family over ambition. The only member of his family he truly loves and admires is Lenore, his granddaughter, who he says is just like Anabel Lee.

Lenore

As painful as it was to watch Verna kill Lenore, it was inevitable. She was always going to die, and we should have seen it coming. The tragic end to her young life was forecast in her name. In Poe’s poem, a young girl named Lenore dies heartbreakingly. In The Fall Of The House Of Usher Episode 8, Verna sits with Lenore and tells her the future.

She shows her compassion and lets her know her mother survives to create a group that saves domestic violence victims, and Juno gets sober and donates all of the Usher money to a charity that helps others break their addiction. Lenore and her mother are the opposite of the Ushers who trade in death. They traded in life, and it was important for Lenore to know the difference. Her death was not violent like the others. It was peaceful and as kind as death can be. She then lays her down, and Lenore dies.

It is a devastating blow that we all knew was probably coming, but it didn’t make it any easier to watch. She was one of a scant few true innocents in the Usher’s circle. She deserved better. We next learn the person who had been texting Roderick was a Lenorebot. It was a creation of Madeline’s and nothing more. With the utterance of the last of his dead children and grandchild, Roderick hears the raven who has come for him at last. In The Raven, Poe laments the loss of Lenore.

The Raven says nevermore as a sign that he will see her no more. In the closing lines of the poem, the narrator realizes the raven has never moved, which could symbolize that although he thinks the bird is evil and trying to drive him mad, he may be driving himself mad. Roderick certainly is evil for everything he knowingly did to gain power. The Raven/Verna was nothing more than someone who asked a question and benefited from bad decision-making. Ironically, it is the same reasoning Roderick used for not feeling bad about all the addicts he created who died.

Who Is The Raven?

Verna and the Raven are one and the same. She has been working with powerful people across history forever. Making deals and collecting lives when their time is up. It is hinted at that she had a hand in nearly every corporate rise. She questions the siblings on New Year’s Eve 1979 about what they would be willing to do to be as powerful and rich as they wanted. Neither of them had hard limits. Nothing was off the table. Madeline seems to think it is just talk. She has no children and doesn’t have the same leverage that Roderick does.

Her ruthlessness is more understandable. Roderick’s is not. He has two young children he willingly robs of their lives. Madeline defers to him in the end because he has the most to lose. Arguably, Roderick robbed his children of their lives when he raised them without love. He definitely did it when he agreed to Verna’s terms. She was always about death. They delivered a lot over the years, but she needs more. She needs the agreed-upon price. That price is all of their lives. The entire bloodline right before Roderick dies as well. When he is near death, they all go to the grave.

That’s the problem with manipulation. It capitalizes on our weakness and vanity. These two hear pretty words that guarantee them everything they ever wanted without thinking about whether it is fair to impose their consequence on everyone else. They drink to the House Of Usher and seal everyone’s fate. Even poor Lenore dies in The Fall Of The House Of Usher Episode 8. Just as they walk out of the door of the bar, they turn and find it doesn’t exist. They all did exist out of time for the briefest of moments before they returned to reality and took their corporate crowns.

Arthur Gordon Pym

Roderick hints that Arthur Pym saw terrible things in his adventuring days. Most of which he never talks about. Verna has studied him for decades because he is so rotten on the inside. She tries to make a deal with him, but he says he has no leverage because he has purposely avoided giving anyone power. The incredible pain on his face as he admits this solidifies Mark Hamill as an emotive actor capable of tremendous depth. He refuses her deal and eventually goes to jail for his part in the Usher scandal. In the story by Poe, Pym is a sailor who witnesses the cannibalism of a fellow sailor named Richard Parker. Verna hints that he probably saw that and more in his trek across the world.

The Fall Of The House Of Usher Ending Explained

In the Fall Of The House Of Usher stories, Madeline supposedly dies before her brother. We later learn Roderick buried her alive in an attempt to break the curse. In the series, Roderick gives her the paralytic drug and kills her. He gouges her eyes out and replaces them with the Egyptian gems he gave her for her birthday years ago. He thought she was dead, but just like her mother, she returned from the grave. She bursts through the door and reaches for him. As they collapse in one another’s arms, the house comes down around them just as it does in the story by Poe. These two love one another, but their love is hideous.

Finally, in the final moments of The Fall Of The House Of Usher Episode 8, Roderick admits he knew all along what he was doing. He even gloats that he could have told the world exactly what he was doing, and they still would have bought his medication. Madeline grabs his throat and strangles him as the house falls down around them. Only Dupin gets out alive with a newfound respect for what makes us truly rich. It isn’t money or gold but family and love. Very few of those in the Usher’s circle were lucky enough to escape unscathed. Fish rot from the head and the head of that fish hadn’t been pure for a long time.

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