292 "Murder at the Rue Morgue" (The Fall of the House of Usher E3)

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, I'm Rima. And I'm Pake. And this is Strange Indeed, a podcast dedicated to the Netflix show The Fall of the House of Usher. And this week we are covering episode 3 titled Murder at Rue Morgue. Ooh.

[00:00:32] And for anyone who may not know, we are recording this on Halloween. So happy Halloween to you, Pake, and happy Halloween to all of you. Yeah, happy Halloween! So if you're listening to this right as it dropped, you might still be in the Halloween

[00:00:47] window, I don't know, depending on whether it's late night after or early morning. Hope you had a great Halloween yesterday, listeners. Yeah, hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween. And eat some candy for me, because I don't have any. I did not get any candy for Halloween.

[00:01:07] I picked up a bunch of Reese's. I've got some of those left over. So maybe I'll get into those tonight and we'll see. Yum. Can't get enough of the Reese's. Yeah, so as we were just talking about before we started recording, you know, super appropriate

[00:01:25] to be discussing the fall of the House of Usher on Halloween. Just adds to the fun, spooky element and the vibe, that's for sure. So episode three this week. I was so excited for this episode after watching it, or watching episode two, and excited to

[00:01:47] see what followed episode two and was not disappointed. I thought it was a fantastic episode. A lot of great things to talk about. What did you think about this week's episode? I really liked it again.

[00:02:03] For certain very specific reasons, I really liked it, but I will get into those when we have our points. For sure. Yeah. But no, I thought it's really solid. I'll talk about these things like I've heard mixed things.

[00:02:19] I haven't looked at the feedback we have this week, but I know people are kind of up or down. I've heard people really loving it or struggling with it because of certain aspects. I think it's the Flanaganisms that I really love.

[00:02:30] So it's doing it for me, for sure. I agree. I'm pleased with it. But again, you and I both, I know, but just mostly I'll talk about myself and not talk for other people.

[00:02:47] I'm obviously a huge Mike Flanagan fan of most everything of what he puts out there. So it's hard for me to find fault with anything that he does or any of his projects.

[00:02:59] So I think I know what you're saying, and I'm sure we'll talk about it as we get into our points. So yeah, a lot of interesting things to talk about in this episode. I'm sure we're going to have a lot of either points or notes.

[00:03:12] So let's just go ahead and dive into episode three tonight. What is your first point? Okay. I'm going to start with Roderick Usher. And again, as the throughline of the episode has been, we see him talking with August DuPont.

[00:03:32] And then we get a little bit of flashback again of the younger version of him, was at Guilford and getting to understand a little bit more of his history. We didn't get a lot. We've got just little nibbles of pieces in the backstory.

[00:03:44] But we definitely saw him coming undone a little bit more in this interview or confession, whatever it is, with the ghosts and things like that. So I just wanted to spread light on a little bit of those things.

[00:03:58] But first, I had to write this entire dialogue, this whole speech out because it is... You got it too? I got it. I was like, we probably both spent the time writing this whole thing out and one of us is going to get to read it.

[00:04:11] And it's like, but you know what? It is the floor. I think it's that important. Yeah, the floor is yours, my friend. Let's hear it. Yeah, because it's absolutely wild. But it really just perfectly sums up one, just the usher style.

[00:04:26] But really there's just a lot of societal awareness and culture kind of thrown in there where you can really take a look at just how especially, not even just American, but like Western civilization and a lot of just capitalism and our own kind of hangups and things that

[00:04:45] were like, you know, popular culture, you know, and things like that. He really shines a light on in this dialogue, in this monologue. And I love it. So yeah, I was just going to read it out because it's so good.

[00:05:01] So of course he says, when life gives you lemons and Dupin says, make a lemonade? Which is what we usually think of the saying. And he says, no. First you roll out a multimedia campaign to convince people lemons are incredibly scarce,

[00:05:19] which only works if you stockpile lemons, control the supply, then a media blitz. Lemon is the only way to say I love you. You must have, they must have accessory for engagements or anniversaries. Losses are out, lemons are in.

[00:05:33] 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 Lamone, a little accent over the

[00:05:45] 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. Timothee Chalamet wears lemon shoes at Cannes. Get a hashtag campaign. Nothing isn't cool or tight or awesome.

[00:06:01] 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.

[00:06:19] Then you patent the seeds. You write a line of genetic code that makes lemons look just a little more 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.

[00:06:31] 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 lempire for a few billion dollars, then and only then, you make some fucking lemonade.

[00:06:50] Take that monologue with So Lemon. Yeah, So Lemon, hashtag lemon. Man, we make that a thing running forward. We just really love an episode. Even past House of Usher, we start covering other shows, just like, what'd you think of the episode this week? Lemon. Pure lemon.

[00:07:07] So much lemon. Yeah. But I do, I really love that. Like I said, it's a really great way to sum up what the Ushers have done. Even Camille says something about, we don't make anything.

[00:07:21] We just, you know, their whole empire, lempire, is just piggybacking off of the success and creations of others, and making it their own, and making money off of it by their sneaky ways. And so we see, he knows exactly what he's done and what he's been doing.

[00:07:43] And it's great that it's also just kind of a, you know, pointing the finger at society and being like, and you people eat it up. We don't even have to try really. Absolutely. So yeah, I love that. And then yeah, just point out some of those other things.

[00:08:00] Again, you know, he's interrupted from this conversation with Olagi due to the hideous ghost of one of his children, this time a ghoulish little shoulder rub from Camille. And you wonder, like, August has to be a little worried about what's wrong with Roderick.

[00:08:16] He's like, he got up and then dude's just chucking glasses across the room with this expensive liquor. He stops mid-sentence and throws things across the room and freaks out. Am I safe here? I don't know. But he holds his own.

[00:08:31] He still changes the subject, giving this indictment of him. We do learn that Roderick, at least if we take him for his word, he says he did not know ligadone was addictive at first, that the chemist in the other company had lied to him about that.

[00:08:49] Of course we know that that didn't stop him from ignoring that fact once he was raking in the money from it. Then he could have changed course, but then at that point it was lucrative, so why worry about it then?

[00:09:03] And then just like the one little thing with the flashback, I'm still interested to see how he got to the top of that company. Because even here we see a little bit of him starting that journey.

[00:09:16] We learn that Rufus Griswold and Fortunato passed on his pitch, but then behind his back he went ahead and bought out Landor Pharma that owns the drug, which screwed Roderick over completely. And yet, then Griswold still managed to convince him that that was okay and offered him this

[00:09:34] opportunity of earning respect and maybe a seat at the table in the future if you continue to give me ideas and continue to prove your worth. Which is really scummy, but you can see the place that he's at at the time, Roderick is, that he's just desperate.

[00:09:49] And whether he doesn't see it, or maybe he does see it, but he doesn't care that he's being taken advantage of in a major way because he's just got to do what he's got to do.

[00:10:01] I like all of that and agree with that, and Roderick is also one of my points. So if I may, I'll just jump in and add what I have for my point. When you mentioned the flashbacks in this episode when we get to see the younger Roderick

[00:10:21] and Madeline and his young family, I have to feel like, because I think we were asking the question in the last episode, are these flashbacks before or after the New Year's party? I think we speculated that it was before that New Year's party that we see Roderick and

[00:10:38] Madeline in the bar when they meet Verna. So I think again with this episode, it is safe to say that so far. I like the picture that we get of Roderick, this young Roderick who is young and naive like his older self is saying.

[00:10:58] And I'm curious how Roderick may have turned out if he hadn't gone down this path because the older Roderick that we see today is so different than this younger Roderick, right? He seems very down to earth.

[00:11:11] He seems like a really good guy and all he wanted, it seems like anyway, was to provide for his family. He just wanted to give them a good life. He's got a young wife. They seem very much in love. He's got two young children.

[00:11:26] He seems, I mean, he wants to make something more of himself and be able to provide for his family. And he seems like he's trying to do things on the up and up and find a way in.

[00:11:37] How do I climb the ladder and get out of this mail room? But something happened and I think what has happened to some people is capitalism sucks people in and changes them. And I think that's what happened with Roderick because when you're watching Rufus and that

[00:11:57] scene with him, you can kind of see a little bit of Roderick today, the old version. So I don't know if that's exactly just being around it. You kind of get now that he's getting up out of the mail room and he's getting moved up

[00:12:13] and maybe we'll see more flashbacks of that if he and Rufus do get closer and also having that influence of Madeline because she's a very heavy influence in his life. He listens to her, he takes her counsel and he kind of does what she says.

[00:12:34] So I think between her and being around Rufus and kind of learning about how cutthroat you have to be and just capitalism in general because that's what his whole lemon monologue was about, right? I mean, that's capitalism at its core and how many billionaires have similar stories

[00:12:53] like Roderick had. This drug wasn't mine, someone else's. But I took it and ran with it and made all this money off of it. And how many other stories are there out there where billionaires aren't really creating anything?

[00:13:07] They're taking an idea or taking something from someone else and making it their own and then making all this money off of it and profiting from it. It's interesting to see the contrast though between the young Roderick and this older Roderick.

[00:13:25] And I think that trying to make sense of how or I guess what we're going to see in this journey with Madeline and sorry, not Rufus but with Roderick. But I think it's interesting when we have that conversation between Madeline and Roderick

[00:13:48] when he gets home and he's just like, he's pissed because he just got this check and he wants to go after him. He wants to be aggressive about it and I guess just kind of be like a big F you to Rufus.

[00:14:04] And Madeline's like, hey, that's not how you want to go about things. And she tells a story about how when they were foster kids, right? And she thinks it's better for them to lean into this opportunity, learn all these things from Rufus, get close to him.

[00:14:21] And then as time goes on and the opportunity strikes, then you can take over. You can find your opportunity and somehow get rid of Rufus. Now what that means, I don't know.

[00:14:34] But when she's like, the more that you charge at Rufus, he's going to put you in that closet and he's going to brick you in. The more that you charge, he's going to keep adding more bricks.

[00:14:44] And if that ain't some foreshadowing for what I think is going to happen, right? Right. Well, again, for those who know the works of Poe, yeah, she gives a very Amontillado-esque analogy and visual to him for sure. Help him build the wall and then, yeah.

[00:15:03] Well, it's been referenced. We talked about it in episode one because that's how it started was Pink Floyd's song, Brick Wall, the vision of the brick wall. And there is some very suspicious dust or something on Roderick's hands when they are at the bar in the years.

[00:15:22] And again, like you said, if you're familiar with Poe's works, you can't help but think there's some foreshadowing going on here. So is that going to maybe be Rufus' fate? I don't know.

[00:15:35] But it sure seems like it anyway because it's like, oh, she's landed on heavy with this reference. And I'd like again with Roderick, you talked about during his confession, is he telling the truth then about his drug? Was the chemist deceitful about how addictive that that pill was?

[00:16:01] I don't feel at this point Roderick has any reason to lie to Augie as they're having that conversation. He seems pretty upfront about everything. I mean, even going so far as to talk about the accident with Perry's death, which I'm

[00:16:19] sure we'll talk more into detail about, but he's just he's spilling it all like, oh, hey, yeah, we hit it all up in the tanks and we were going to get rid of it later when we

[00:16:28] were going to demo the building because he was going to pay attention. We didn't report it or we didn't disclose it because it meant fines. And then with the fines, we're going to come charges. And I'm like, dang, he's just really, really spilling his guts here.

[00:16:40] So I don't feel like he has any reason to lie about that. Like he he was young, he was naive. He thought the chemist was was honest. He thought the company was going to be ethical when he goes to them, you know, with with the pitch, you know.

[00:16:55] And then I wonder what he was going to say, because he was talking about, you know, you assume this and you assume they're going to be ethical and then you assume and then he was interrupted by Camille's ghost slash hallucination, because I'm not sure if she's

[00:17:08] actually there or is it a hallucination as a symptom of his disease or not. But I'm like, what were you going to say? What else? You know, what didn't we get there? Maybe it wasn't important, but it made me curious.

[00:17:23] So really loving that interaction again in their conversation and really fascinated with Roderick. And again, Bruce Greenwood just absolutely nailing this role. His monologue about the lemons. I loved it so much. I thought his delivery was amazing.

[00:17:40] And I think, again, Mike Flanagan's just like, F you to everyone that doesn't like my monologues. Right. I it is legitimate because even, you know, you talked about Roderick and Madeline's conversation where, you know, we have the like Amontillado kind of references.

[00:17:54] But even before that, she's talking the whole story of them as foster kids and Roderick fighting against it and being punished. But then she's the one that will then I just, you know, became their favorite little daughter and got in on the family business.

[00:18:07] And then once they were comfortable with me knowing all their secrets, I blackmailed him with it and turned it around and put him in jail. Like it's a lot of monologue and like a lot of conversation that I know that people are

[00:18:17] like, man, these characters just sit and talk way too much. Me and you, I feel like feel pretty the same about it. Whereas like, no, give me all of the great Mike Flanagan writing, please. I love these conversations and long drawn out dialogue because it's so juicy.

[00:18:32] It's so good. So juicy. And I think it really gives the actors something to chew on in their scenes. You know, I can't wait to read up on some news after we've covered the series and I don't get spoiled on anything and see if I can find any.

[00:18:51] I don't know if I'll find any interviews or not. It's a hard time right now. No one's really able to strike with the strike going on. So we'll see what happens and if I can find anything when the time comes.

[00:19:04] But I would love to know what their thoughts are, you know, about, you know, their scripts and, you know, the monologues and stuff. But I think that all the actors are really killing it when they get these dialogues. And I get where some people may not like them.

[00:19:19] We've talked about it before, like Midnight Mass had some infamous monologues too. And you know, there was, you know, either like them or you don't. And I get it is totally fine if you don't. And I get that maybe that's not really how people talk in real life.

[00:19:32] But, you know, in entertainment, I'm here for it, you know? So I really love the shit out of that Monologue. That pretty much covered most of my point with Roderick. Do you have anything else you wanted to add about Roderick? That's that on that one.

[00:19:51] Yeah, I was good there. Cool, cool. Well, that covered mine too. So it's back to you. What's your next point? All right. I've got another just quick one, which is just some of the aftermath of the Prospero

[00:20:04] tragedy and really just even after death, Perry can't get no respect. Oh, I know it. Man, which you mentioned again with Bruce Greenwood as Roderick and his kind of dialogue there spilling out that, yeah, the tragedy at Club Prospero or whatever. It was exactly what we figured.

[00:20:24] These corrosive chemicals that were stored in the tanks up on their roof purposely and Perry made a stupid. However, again, the one thing that sticks out in that story to August and then when the flashback

[00:20:38] when they're really digging through it is that the waitstaff had all bailed right before it happened and Arthur Pym is digging through trying to figure out what's going on, has this whole camera footage that he's already pulled and scrubbed through and now is going

[00:20:54] to get rid of and he's digging into the guest list for looking for a place to place blame and then also like, well, let's find out every single person was there and we can maybe put some pieces together.

[00:21:04] Because in perfect Usher style, they are keeping the investigation and all this stuff completely in-house. They're like, we're not going to let the police touch anything that we don't want them to. We don't want it's like the stuff that really matters. We got it handled.

[00:21:23] And so they're just they're covering their own asses. But then poor Perry, the kid who actually died in this, they kind of seem as like an afterthought or an opportunity. When Frederick finds out, you know, he's more worried about his wife and what do we get?

[00:21:39] Oh yeah, dead Perry. Got it. It's like really? That's that's how you feel? Yeah, no respect. You know, like when they show up when they're telling the rest of the family and we get the Camille going, fuck, that's terrible. And you're thinking, yeah, your brother is dead.

[00:21:53] Isn't that terrible? She goes, the investigations, the lawsuits. It's like, oh, no, you're not bothered by his death at all. It's the other stuff that you're worried about. At least Vic and Leo seemed to care somewhat. Leo the most.

[00:22:07] But then they just continue to like point blame or try to figure out where to move with that stuff. Now, Camille has all these ideas about making it an opportunity. I'll talk more about that because I do have her as a separate point later to really dig

[00:22:22] into the meat of her character. But but yeah, I think there was one moment. It's a small moment because we see, what's her name? The granddaughter, Lenore, walking into the hospital and kind of overhearing Roderick and Frederick having this conversation where Roderick is telling him you were supposed

[00:22:45] to have this place demolished. I don't care about the, you know, the red tape and all that stuff. It's like, no, you under the table, you hire some people to go and take it down behind everybody's back.

[00:22:53] Like you knew what you were supposed to do and you didn't. And he's telling me, you did this. It's your fault. And you can see the Henry Thomas, close, personal, wonderful friend of ours, Henry Thomas. You see that look on his face. He did really well of like.

[00:23:08] You know, that has got to be the most painful sting that Frederick has felt maybe ever is, you know, being daddy's favorite. And yet here's daddy putting the blame on him and telling him that kind of stuff, saying this is because of you. It's on you.

[00:23:23] You can tell, I feel like that's going to spiral him out a little bit more. I agree. It probably will. Mm hmm. And then, yeah, lastly, just again, Arthur going through everything and he's cleared

[00:23:37] all of the guests that were there except for the one Verna, which although all of the pictures that they have of her show her with the mask on, I have a feeling Roderick knows who she is.

[00:23:51] I think he's got a feeling while looking at that picture that he knows what's going on there, especially after Arthur mentioned something about that. They'd questioned the staff and they said they vaguely remember her saying something to them. They don't remember what it was.

[00:24:03] All they know is that they had this unexplainable urge to leave the building. So they did. And I feel Roderick has enough history with Verna to kind of know when she's at play. Yeah.

[00:24:19] I got that suspicion as well from his reaction, but you can't, I don't think say that in the company that he was with. Right. Yeah. Interesting that Arthur Pym just happens to have some boots available to be walking around

[00:24:38] crime scenes and the rain boots were definitely apropos considering the goo that he was stepping into. Yeah. It did not look like his first time at a crime scene. It was kind of disturbing the ease with which he's... He's got some kind of pull.

[00:24:56] He just walks in like, no, I go in there before you do. That's how this works. Now let me in and I'm just going to look around, take the phone, do what I, clean up my stuff that's important to the family and then you guys can go in.

[00:25:09] And it's... Yeah. Yeah. The cops yelling at him one final time, don't touch anything. He indeed did touch some things. Yeah. Looked like Perry's cell phone, took the mask that Verna had left on Perry's face and clearly had gotten his hands on the tapes.

[00:25:34] And we found out about Frederick's wife, Merle. She did in fact not make it out. We were questioning that. Yeah. We were questioning whether she was in there and yeah, she did not leave, but she seems to be the only survivor of what happened.

[00:25:53] So yeah, we do know her fate. That is... Yeah. I'm glad we talked about Perry because we needed to kind of see the aftermath of that and how the family was going to react, I think.

[00:26:08] And I know we're going to talk about Camille so I won't talk about her specifically, but kind of gives us a little bit more insight to each of the siblings and their relationships and their interactions. I think all the siblings are awful, terrible.

[00:26:25] I don't think any of them are redeemable or necessarily good people by any means, but their reactions, I think to Perry's death, at least some of them really solidify that.

[00:26:44] So well, my next point and this is short too, but I would be remiss if I didn't give a huge shout out to the queen, Carla Gugino for her absolutely superb acting this episode. Yes.

[00:27:07] It's hard to really, for me anyway, find the words to describe how amazing I thought that she was. Now, disclaimer, she's great in everything that I've seen her in, but this episode I think really showed how she has really mastered her craft. Yes. I don't...

[00:27:29] Heads up, this is my next point myself. I'll dive right into it after you. And I'm not going into any detail. Carla Gugino. Yes. Oh my gosh, for real, for real. And I won't go into any detail about the scene because I know we'll probably talk about that.

[00:27:46] It was more of just a shout out to her as an actor in this episode, not just in the final scene between her and Camille, but also in the scene with Bill and Tammy at their house.

[00:28:02] I don't know what kind of training she did and who she worked with. Again, I'm not trying to dig for any kind of news or a whole lot because when she starts straying a little bit, you get spoiled. Because man, everything is just out there.

[00:28:17] So I haven't been able to take a dive into that, but I'm hoping to later. But yeah, in that scene when she was with Tammy and Bill, when we meet her in this scene at the door, she has like an accent, like a foreign accent.

[00:28:33] And she's like this very British escort with a lollipop in the veil. Oh, here's what we're going to do. Yeah. It was not expected because she keeps showing up and this might be one of your points, so

[00:28:45] I don't want to step all over, but she keeps showing up to others in this episode. And she's looking a little different, her hair, her speech, her behavior, everything is different. So she really shows up again as this different type character when we first meet her.

[00:29:00] And the way she just flips her speech from one sentence and she's like, oh, so we're having dinner first to then asking about the chicken piccata. I mean, she nailed Tammy's voice and her demeanor and her mannerisms.

[00:29:19] Yeah, it's definitely within my point because I want to talk about her character work and stuff in this, but yeah, it's this impeccable impression of Samantha Sloyan as Tammy. Down to almost the exact voice, even the body language, everything.

[00:29:39] To where I almost feel that Tammy's surprise in the scene could have been Samantha literally sitting there reacting to like, oh my god, she's nailing it. It would be so cool if that was her first time she had ever seen that or something,

[00:29:58] seeing that impersonation of her voice and her mannerisms. I love when they catch those off the cuff reactions, so that would be... I don't know that, but it would be really cool if it was because the change in her face was like, oh shit, she's got me down.

[00:30:19] Then yeah, her scene with Camille as when she hops on that table and I know that looked a little... I don't think she did that all on her own, an assistant, but just in a smooth way. A little wire stunty, but yeah.

[00:30:32] Yeah, a little bit stunty with the little help getting up on the table, but just when her... It was like her mannerisms also changed then. She had these movements of like a chimp as her body is gently swaying back and forth and her hand movements.

[00:30:49] I mean, she just really, I think, knows her body and got in tune with her body and it was just absolutely impeccable. So huge shout out to Carla Gugino if you're listening. I love you. I think you're amazing. Just absolutely superb. Absolutely. Emmy worthy for sure.

[00:31:11] So short point, but I thought super important. I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about that because it was just absolutely stunning, her work and I'm sure we're just going to have more to talk about as the series continues.

[00:31:26] Yeah, well, I'll have more to talk about right now. Go for it, jump in. Kind to hear it. Yeah, like I said, that was my next point. And so I will add on to what we're saying. Yeah, I mean, just Carla Gugino for sure.

[00:31:39] This was the episode that she shined so much. So at least so far, the most. I hope to see even bigger and better somehow. The rest of this is like, seriously, let's see it even more. Let's just throw all the awards at her.

[00:31:53] Just go for it because she's in her best Orphan Black right now, right? Playing all the characters and she's making connections. You know, talk about like the character of Verna as well. Like she's with all the different siblings.

[00:32:07] She's just kind of like planting the seeds and playing around. Oh, she runs into Victorine, literally. Yeah. And just appears to become the she's the perfect candidate for the human trials to go ahead and get started. And it's like she's testing them.

[00:32:21] She's seeing if Vic is really that desperate or like heartless to go down that route of being like, yeah, we know that's not ready. We know any human trials are going to end in tragedy.

[00:32:30] But this lady is just, you know, she seems to be just doesn't have many connections. She's kind of alone in the world, and she's the perfect candidate for this. And you almost see Victorine drooling at the thought of like, oh, this is the one!

[00:32:49] And then she puts on that very country kinda accent, and I think her name was Pamela Clem, like how more just like random country girl, like, oh, I'm not from the big city, but I'm here now! It's just very... To see it in that, it's like, wow!

[00:33:04] She went from that to then Candy, you know, the escort, and then we see her as security officer Le Bon later, and then the chimpanzee kind of accent. It's like she's just playing all of these roles and nailing all of them in different ways.

[00:33:22] But again, when she's talking as Candy, or then becomes Tammy, you know, and she gets very specific about the tragedy of Perry and the family situation. Not like too specific about what happened, but she's making that conversation very real by addressing those things.

[00:33:39] That like, oh, I'm aware that these- I know who you are, and here's the things that are happening. And then she really sparks that moment up by asking Bill about his day, and you can tell he's not used to that.

[00:33:51] Tammy never pays him any attention, you kinda get this feeling. And so... Absolutely. He just lights up when she asks about his day. Yeah, you're spot on. Right. And then the next scene we talked about, you know, we cut to Camille going to Rue Morgue

[00:34:06] to get the evidence against Vic, and wouldn't you know it, there's Verna again! And yet another character. And are we supposed to assume that this is happening at the same time as Candy is having dinner with Bill? Or is it maybe later in the night?

[00:34:19] I was like, can this entity of Verna be in two places at once, or is it later and she went from one to the other? I don't know. I wasn't sure either. Anything's possible, I'm not writing anything off with- because we still don't really know

[00:34:32] who or what she is. And then just the graveness of that character there at the testing facility, with just like Perry, when Camille is there, she is giving her ample warnings to leave. You shouldn't be here, you don't have to be here.

[00:34:48] Giving her all of that, and it doesn't work. So again, it's gotta happen the way it does. It isn't personal. It wasn't with your brother either. It's just, well, here we are. But yeah, she gives this speech about the history of animal testing and research with

[00:35:05] chimpanzees, and then gets very dark and ominous. I love how deliciously, pointlessly mean you lot can be. You know, just really digging into that character, and it's just incredible to watch. And then she keeps asking Camille, why do you hate Vic? And I'm like, I wanna know too!

[00:35:24] Answer the damn question, Camille! I'm sick of- it's like four people have asked you this episode and you won't say, and I wanna know. Yes. And then yeah, that last transformation where she is the security officer, but as a chimp

[00:35:38] who's been tested on, and she's like screaming and breathing heavy and showing- it's so unsettling. And at that point again, I was like, all the awards, I don't even care what they are. Emmys, Oscars, Grammys, Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Peace Prize, World's Best Boss, World Series

[00:35:55] MVP, I don't care! Just put them all at the residence of Carla Gugino. Give them all to her! All the awards. Man. It's mind-blowing, honestly. I was talking to Daphne before she watched this episode, so I didn't want to give anything

[00:36:14] away, but I did tell her one thing, which I think she gave feedback? I'm not sure, I haven't looked. She did. But I just told her, I was like, the one thing going into this, without spoiling anything, I was like, Carla Gugino fucking kills it.

[00:36:26] She just shines, this is her episode. So, like… No lies told. Yeah, she was absolutely stunning. And I can't wait to see her in more episodes, just to see more of it. Yes. Because it's an absolute delight.

[00:36:51] And it's hard to remember, like, I'm supposed to be watching and paying attention and taking these notes and trying to make sense of it? I don't think I'm doing that good of a job, because I still feel like even with episode

[00:37:04] three, I still have so many questions more than I have answers or a whole lot of theories or anything, because I get so swept up in her performance and others' performance too, like Zach Guilford.

[00:37:16] I feel like all my brain cells are just gone when he enters a scene. Like, when he comes in through the office at Rufus and he's pissed about the pills, I'm just like, I don't know what's happening right now. Zach Guilford's on the screen. My mind is blank.

[00:37:31] All is right in the world. Like, oh wait, I'm supposed to be paying attention to what he's saying, and I'm supposed to be paying attention to this scene, like, what's going on here, right?

[00:37:40] I have to bring myself back for a minute, because it's easy to get swept up, and it's so easy to get swept up in Carla Gugino's performance. She was just absolutely spellbinding.

[00:37:52] And like you said, so my next point kind of touches on, I feel like it's a little short because I don't know what's going on, and so it's more questions, but it kind of ties

[00:38:03] into a little bit about what you said, how she's making these appearances now to other ushers and kind of, is she planting seeds? There's something going on here, right? She went after Perry, Camille, and now we've seen her with Tame and Bill, and with, I just

[00:38:23] blanked, who else? Oh, Victorine. Yeah. So I also wonder, there was a blonde lady that was coming to Leo's party when Camilla left. That gave the drugs to Leo. Yeah. We didn't see her face. I had the same, yeah, I had the same question.

[00:38:39] I was like, could it have been? I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, that we didn't see her face. Yeah. So I don't know if it was, but it makes me really suspicious because it was very purposeful,

[00:38:55] maybe it was just to talk about the drug, but I'm like, well, why didn't we get to see a face? So was that her too? I don't know. Yeah. But what I find interesting is, like you said, for a second time, we see Verna trying to

[00:39:10] get an usher to make a different choice. And really, she's telling her, you don't have to be here. And of course Camille, she's just very angry and, oh, she's something. I love Camille. I know she's terrible, but she's so fun to watch and entertaining.

[00:39:31] But she tells her multiple times, you don't have to be here. She gives her every opportunity to stop what she's doing and leave. And she did the same with Perry. And if Camille, I think, had said, okay, you know what? Yeah. You're right.

[00:39:48] I'm out of here and made a different choice. It wasn't going to save her necessarily. It sounds like she's still, and I mean, we're all going to eventually meet our end.

[00:40:00] But did this give her an option to go peacefully as, I mean, I feel like that's what Verna was referring to, right? Like she could have. Yeah. She said it could have happened in your sleep at home. Yeah. But now it has to happen this way. Right.

[00:40:15] So she's given her choice and it sounds like it's still not going to prevent the outcome. It was still going to happen, but you can either go in this horrible way or you can go in a peaceful way. You know, Perry not walking away from his blackmailing party.

[00:40:36] You know, Camille could have walked away from getting dirt on her sister if they didn't commit what I'm thinking are these sins. They won't necessarily be spared from death, but could it maybe be death without pain? Yeah.

[00:40:56] Because I do think there's something with sin involved with their actions. Perry was greedy and Camille, I think her sin is envy. I think she was envious of Victorine. I think that some of what Verna was trying to tell her was, you want what she has.

[00:41:33] She can hide what she does. You can't hide what you do. You try to push dirt around and she tries to hide the dirt, but she can't really hide who she is. I think there's something to that. So I feel like there's something there.

[00:41:51] When Verna looks at Victorine, when she gives her her file and her papers, she gets a look on her face. When Victorine's like, here, I'll take that. She seems now very interested. Oh, you have heart problems? Let me take that. You can see the look on Victorine.

[00:42:11] There's like a pause there between her handing the file over and the look on her face and just like, boom, you just made a choice. You know, that's going to be the beginning of your downfall.

[00:42:23] Like maybe she'll still get another chance later to maybe still walk away from it, but I think right there she's like, you just made a choice to be a bad person. You know that this isn't ready for human trials, but here you go. You're interested anyway.

[00:42:42] So I don't know. Very, very curious. We're seeing this for a second time and seeing if this is going to be a trend with, because we know all the Usher siblings are going to die. We learned that first episode. So is that going to be a trend then?

[00:42:58] And how does that play out in the rest of the series? Yeah, I'm trying not to read into it too much, but I like the idea of it because I'm thinking of the seven deadly sins and what would apply to the different Ushers.

[00:43:12] And it's like, because a lot of them could, because even like lust could apply to Perry, but also Tammy. But then Envy is kind of a few of them. Gluttony is hard to say. Maybe Leo, just like overindulgence of drugs and things. I think that he's gross. Yeah.

[00:43:33] Because man, was he really on it this episode? Wow. I was like, dude, you are- Just doing all of them. I was going to say, yeah, all of them. Yeah. All the drugs. I don't know how his partner puts up with that. It's not judgmental.

[00:43:58] It just seems so excessive. What we see of Leo, he is constantly either sleeping blacked out or just high all the time. I'm like, that doesn't seem like much of a life. Is there anything beyond that? I don't know.

[00:44:14] We haven't gotten to see a lot of Leo yet. So maybe there is, but it seems like that would get very tiring to live with someone like that. That lives in such excess, I guess. What's your next point? All right. Honestly, it's my last main point. Okay.

[00:44:40] For last is the biggest, of course. Just talk about Camille for sure. Kind of the big part of this episode. The title of the episode tells us exactly what's going to happen to her at the end. It just spells it out. With the murder at the Rue Morgue.

[00:44:59] And yeah, and we just see her throughout this episode. I don't know if decline is the right word, but we definitely see a lot of her personality where she is just awful, which maybe makes her death less sad.

[00:45:14] As much as I love Kate Segal, she did an incredible job. She's amazing. But yeah, I mean, just the way we see it, you know, she's like, oh, Perry's death. That's great news because I can spin this into public sympathy for our grieving family.

[00:45:27] You know, let's lie about all this charity work that he totally did. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. If we say he did it, he did it right. And you know, then any attack on us while we're grieving is an attack on him. And we see that that works because

[00:45:40] Dupin ends up looking really bad on the news when he's continuing to push against it. You know, of course, he could have chosen his words better. He straight up called it a balance. I was like, well, that's playing right into what Camille wanted there.

[00:45:52] You know, I like how she's watching the news when, you know, it's like, you know, justice has to be served. And the one reporter says, are you saying that Perry's death was justice? And he's like, no. And then Camille goes, boom, there it is. Like, yep.

[00:46:06] Good job, reporter. And I yeah, I love her style because she's like, yeah, send him some edible arrangements because he just bought us a couple more days of goodwill. She went very John Ralfio. I'm just a side note.

[00:46:21] I'm going to question every every edible arrangement I receive in the future now. Right. Yeah, I love this. Like, did you really want me to send him one? Toby, damn it. Everybody knows edible arrangements are what you send to people you hate. So yes. Shit.

[00:46:38] I will question every single one I receive. Right. Yeah. So yeah, she's terrible, but I do love her style. Like you said, she's fun to watch. But yeah, she keeps fishing. You know, for all this information on Vic, which again is weird.

[00:46:59] Why is she so obsessed with with Vic and why does she hate her so much? I seem to want to bring it bring her down. I even saw people online being like, well, is Camille? Was she the informant if there was one?

[00:47:11] Because she's really trying hard to find dirt on her sister, like for whatever reason. And she learns through Toby and Tina, if that is her real name, that Vic has been kind of fudging the numbers on these test subjects,

[00:47:28] replacing dead chimps with live ones, pretending it's the same one so that the progress looks to be doing better than it is. Again, why she's so set on finding this stuff out about her sister.

[00:47:42] Then with her scenes with Leo, after a good dose of edibles, she has this realization. But again, I mentioned, you know, the ushers don't make stuff that they just piggyback on other success. And she really comes to that realization. I like her.

[00:47:55] Kate Segal always gets those really existential lines, whether, you know, it's stardust or confetti or whatever else is going on. It's when you're married to the director and creator writer. Right. This time she's locked in a room with smoke and mirrors,

[00:48:12] and she's the fan that spins and spins and spins. Which again, I love that. Again, Leo asks her, why do you hate Vic so much? To where she just doesn't answer. She either completely ignores it or didn't even hear the question because they're both so high.

[00:48:30] And then one of the last straws, when Toby and Tina, sorry, Beth, come to Camille and they say, well, we're in a relationship, so we're no longer comfortable and willing to participate in the sexual aspect of our job with you. And again, she's just so awful to him.

[00:48:48] She's like, oh, it's convenient that right after I paid off your student loans, Tina, and I call you Tina because it's funny to me. And I like calling you Tina because damn it, Toby and fucking Tina work better. So while you're at work, you're fucking Tina.

[00:49:00] It's like, damn. So damn good. And then fires both of them because she says, well, you're all but useless to me now. If I can't fuck you, I'm just like, oh, OK, like, that's just I'm going to Venmo you your severance.

[00:49:14] Like, oh my God, one thing after the other is so bad. Uh. And then a little detail I noticed is whenever she's doing this, she puts on a hoodie and covers up and sits on the couch. Did you notice the hoodie she was wearing?

[00:49:28] It was a built-t wasn't it? Yeah, that built to the built. Yeah, Tammy's husband. And it makes me wonder because she was watching his like workout videos in the previous episode and she was there something going on kind of on the side between Bill and Camille?

[00:49:45] Maybe we'll find out later. I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised considering Bill's wife won't touch him and hires another woman to do it every time. So who knows? I wondered the same because she was alone, right? When she was watching the video, was it episode two that?

[00:50:03] Yeah. She was watching the video alone. And I'm like, why? Why? But then seeing that sweatshirt, I was like, does she is she crushing on? On him? I feel like, yeah, there's something there was. Yeah, which maybe when we get to like the more Tammy centric episode,

[00:50:23] because we know like they all end up dead, they'll all get their own kind of big story. Yeah. Maybe we learned some more about that. Who knows? But yeah, so again, with the hating Vic, we do get we never get an answer from Camille,

[00:50:37] but we do get something from Verna while she's in the chimp mode. Where she assumes that Camille hates Vic so much, because as she says that you're exactly alike, you're the closest to like out of everyone.

[00:50:51] But the world reveres what Vic does and holds her up as a hero and a saint. While the whole world knows that Camille is slimy, but they're doing the same things. It's just the way that they're doing it says you hate her because she hides it better. Yeah.

[00:51:06] Maybe there isn't a good reason that Camille hates Vic so much. Because if there was something so simple, why wouldn't she just say it? Like you said, she was asked multiple times in this episode like, God, why do you hate her so much?

[00:51:24] Like if the family doesn't know, you know, like Vic did something to Camille that everybody knows like, oh yeah, well, she screwed you over for this or she said this to you or you know something. If no one knows, then it's probably nothing.

[00:51:41] People can project their own inadequacy onto someone else. And I think maybe she was doing that with Victorine. I think that's what came out of it. I just think it was more petty than an actual valid reason. And I could be wrong, but it just... Right.

[00:52:01] If she couldn't say it and no one else seemed to know why she hated her so much, then I think it was absolutely nothing. I think it was her own projection onto her. Yeah. That's my guess.

[00:52:11] Very likely, probably is because I think that's even kind of what Verna is getting at. And right now, anything Verna says, I'm taking as gospel. So she knows. She seems to be some sort of all knowing entity, whatever she is, because not knowing Tammy,

[00:52:28] like in real life, like she's just some, as far as they know, just some escort that is filling in for their usual girl and how she can just pick up on her mannerisms and speech. You know, the same as hers. I mean, clearly, yeah, she's some sort of...

[00:52:43] Yeah, whatever she says, I'm, yep, you got it. You're right. So yeah, and that's really sad. Not talking too much about the death of Camille. I mean, it's, yeah, thought coming. It was brutal for sure. But yeah, so that's two down that we've seen how it goes.

[00:53:05] And then just one last little thing, of course, when the the doctors or scientists, whoever show up the next day, early in the morning, it's just Camille's car sitting in the parking lot. And I was like, and of course, Camille double parked in a handicap spot. Double.

[00:53:16] Even if it was late at night the night before, but still, but still, of course she did. You're like, yep, this solidifies. She's just, Camille was a trash human. Oh, she was terrible, but she was so freaking delicious. Kate, I love Kate Segal.

[00:53:36] Yeah, and I think, yeah, I think we had somebody say something about with Perry Prosper. I can't remember the actor's name, unfortunately. I'm sorry. But, but with Kate Segal is similar to that was like, well, if that character's dead, it's like, does that mean they're just gone now?

[00:53:51] It's like, I hope we might get to see them again in some more flashbacks. And I don't know. I don't know. I would hope to see more Kate Segal because she's great. I know. I know.

[00:54:01] I was as much as I enjoyed the episode, I was really sad that this had to be her episode because I'm like, oh, we're only on episode three. I don't want her to be gone yet. I want, I want more Camille. She was just, just so entertaining.

[00:54:18] She's terrible. She's awful. I know she's an awful human. She's an awful character, but I love awful characters. You know, they're, they're, they make my entertainment value like go up. So she was, I was really sad to see her go so soon.

[00:54:34] But I really think it's going to make a big impact. Maybe it had to happen now because Camille was going to be the one spinning all of this for the family and spinning Perry and she could anything else that comes after,

[00:54:52] or if anything did come after that, then she could somehow work it into their favor. And I think it's going to make it even worse for the family as the show's called the fall of the house of Usher that their downfall is going to continue even more because

[00:55:08] she's not going to be there to work it into like the medium, turn it around. She was definitely a load bearing wall. And now that she's gone, the whole thing's going to just crumble. Good, better way to put it. Yep. I think so. Yeah.

[00:55:26] RIP Camille went out like a damn boss. Well, fuck it. I got mine. I mean, what a great last line. What a great last line. Oh, so good. Well, we covered all of my main points. So I mostly have notes from here on. Let's just jump into those.

[00:55:53] What notes do you have? All right. Yeah. Yeah, I've got a few things. One of them is about next week's episode title and some speculation. So I'll wait till later on that one. But yeah, see, talked about Arthur Pym a little bit.

[00:56:07] I think we've covered most of that. A little thing. Did you notice what game Leo was playing when Camille showed up? I wasn't able to confirm it, but I think based on what I was hearing as he was talking to Camille, was it The Last of Us?

[00:56:24] It was. It was The Last of Us. Okay, I thought so because it's not just taking that music bit. Okay. Right. Yeah, which totally fits because if y'all don't know Raul Cooley, or Cooley is like a huge video game nerd and loves The Last of Us.

[00:56:42] So that was nice. Yeah, that was cool to see. Let's see, all of his... He's grieving by doing drugs. Which ones? Yes. All of them. Do you want some? Yes. Including Monty, which we learned is this designer drug made after or from a legadone. Yeah, that's an interesting...

[00:57:06] That was new information. We didn't know that. We have the, again in that flashback with younger Roderick, with his wife Annabelle telling him that she doesn't like his sister, Madeline. Clearly that's why they didn't stick around forever, because Madeline's gonna win every time.

[00:57:27] Don't know how that plays out eventually, but yeah, Roderick's gonna pick Madeline over anybody. We didn't talk about Leo waking up from his drug-fueled grief session covered in blood. Seems like he took all nine lives of his boyfriend's cat, Pluto.

[00:57:51] Which we saw that he wasn't quite super fond of. He wasn't a big fan of the cat, but then I don't think he really planned to do this. Again, he blacked out completely, so it wasn't something he realized he did.

[00:58:05] But then in classic Usher fashion, he's gonna just clean it all up and lie straight to his boyfriend's face. Oh, he must have run away, or she must have run away. She'll be back. Sometimes it just takes a little bit. That was...

[00:58:19] What does Mike Flanagan have against cats? What? Because between this and Midnight Mass, I gotta know what's the vendetta with the cats. Just all the cats. Yeah. That was terrible. It's between the animal testing and that speech in this episode, and yeah, I just...

[00:58:46] Because I absolutely despise animal testing, and yeah, I know science, and we have many things that have saved humans because of it. But I still don't have to like it and can disagree with it. And for cosmetics and things like that, makeup, that's... Just no. Don't like it.

[00:59:08] Yeah. Won't buy it. And then the murder of a poor kitty. Hard to watch. Hard, hard episode to watch. They certainly touch on some things. I don't know what's up with that. He's definitely feeling some guilt over that for sure. I don't know how that's gonna play out.

[00:59:28] Yeah. Which is that something that leads to... Which maybe gives a little more credence to was the person that gave him the drugs for her in some form. I don't know. Hmm. See. Interesting.

[00:59:47] Yeah, and then really the last note that I had is just kind of Mirella and where she's at and what's gonna happen with her. We see, of course, she was the survivor of the acid shower dance party, and she's in

[01:00:01] the hospital, she's in really bad shape, but then Lenore goes back to see her, and she's ripping off her bandages and pulling at her face and stuff just in panic, which, again, was really hard to watch. It was a very gruesome and unsettling scene.

[01:00:16] And for poor Lenore, you're just like, well, next stop, trauma city. That's not exactly something that this teenage girl needs to walk into and see. And she's panicking, trying to get doctor's attention and stuff.

[01:00:28] So that's all we got of Mirella, so we really don't see any more aftermath with her, and we see what happens to her. I'm curious to see how that continues. No, that's traumatizing. Good, good notes. All lemon.

[01:00:52] And as we've been seeing with this series being influenced by the works of Poe, Murder at the Rue Morgue, the killer in that story was a chip, very much like in this episode.

[01:01:07] So, again, if you're familiar with his works, you might have known how this was going to end, but it's neat how they incorporated that with Victorine's research and experiments with the chimps and then how that plays out in this episode.

[01:01:24] Although I feel like it would have been more fitting had it been Victorine being or having her death caused at the hands of the chimp versus Camille, honestly. Yeah. I don't know how Victorine dies yet, but I think Camille's death would have... She deserved that, I think.

[01:01:47] Well, maybe no one really deserves it, but hey, it's a work of fiction, so I can say that. Some other notes. So, we've been kind of talking a little bit about Tammy's kink and why she really is persistent about this.

[01:02:11] And I think her husband goes along with it because it's what she wants and it makes her happy. I don't know if he gets anything out of it or not. Maybe he did this episode because she seemed to be into his interests and his day and what

[01:02:25] he has going on, so maybe now he is, but he seems to just kind of be phoning it in. Like he's there acting for his wife. And after seeing this episode and the flashbacks of Roderick and Madeline, and I mean, we've seen

[01:02:41] it in the previous episodes too, but seeing now this dynamic with how close Roderick and Madeline are, his wife is almost like the third wheel in that relationship, which isn't how it should really be, right?

[01:02:58] So, I wonder if why Tammy prefers this type of situation, someone pretending to be her instead of her playing out this role with her husband or her and her husband having this interaction is because did she grow up watching Madeline being the one to, or that her father

[01:03:24] listened to or cared about? That she's seen this from an early age. Her mom is holding her as a baby and she's seeing this play out. And I mean, I don't know how long Annabelle was around her mother.

[01:03:39] We don't really know anything about what happens to her or how long she was in the children's lives or anything, but did she grow up seeing Roderick or her father taking advice from Madeline?

[01:03:53] He listened to her, cared about her versus listening to, that's the role her mother should have been playing. So when she's watching Bill interact with other women, she's doing the same thing as her mother did, if that makes sense.

[01:04:09] She's watching her husband put someone else's needs first over her own. And I wonder if that's where that stems from. I don't know. Trying to just figure that out because I'm so curious, just so insistent that this is

[01:04:28] how it plays out and just super curious about where that comes from. A couple of other notes or quotes too. One of my, Camille was the star of this episode. She has some good speeches, good one-liners. Her, oh my fucking God, my day.

[01:04:52] That's going to be a regular in my daily. Her delivery of, I don't give a shit Beth. I'll just have that playing on a loop from now on. That was perfection. Absolutely love that. Xbox Gatsby. We got the Caligula, what was the Caligula? Gucci Caligula.

[01:05:22] Gucci Caligula before, now we get Xbox Gatsby. I'm really, really great ones. Did you watch the credits? Did you watch all the way through the credits? I didn't because my Netflix is set to like- Go to the next. Start rolling to start playing the next one.

[01:05:37] So then I just exit out. So was there something after? It wasn't like an after credits. It was just instead of like music or any or playing, it was the sound or chatter of chimps. Okay.

[01:05:49] So it was just quiet and all you heard was just the noise of chimpanzees in the background. And it reminded me very much of, and I don't want to, I won't give anything away, but it reminded me of the end credits of that one Midnight Mass episode where

[01:06:04] all you had was the character screaming. Yes. Yes. So I was like, oh, it's just very eerie. And just like knowing that, you know, you ended there with Camille's death and that evil, evil grin from that chimp, which was so damn creepy.

[01:06:26] And then they cut to the card and then just the sound of chimps. But you notice even at that very ending, like that chimp had a face and this is, it sounds like an insult, but it's not. It looked like Carla Gugino in just like a little way.

[01:06:43] In a very strange way. Well, it looked like it had green eyes, which I cannot, I mean, Carla Gugino, she's either got like bluish or greenish eyes, something. So I feel like that was intentional because I can't quite explain that.

[01:07:02] How much of that was Verna and her human-ness as she's interacting with Camille to then all of a sudden she's then this chimp, you know, where did that, when and how did that take place? You know, I can't explain that.

[01:07:20] But yeah, it very much had like this grin that you would see from like Carla Gugino, if that were her. I certainly don't want to compare her to a chimp because she's absolutely-

[01:07:30] No, that's what I was like, sounds like an insult, but like I mean it in the best way. Like there was this, yeah. The best way, the absolute best way. Yeah. Oh gosh.

[01:07:42] Let's see, the other notes I think we've talked about and I think that's all the quotes I have. Yep, that's all I've got so far. We've talked about everything else. So gosh, what a great episode.

[01:07:56] I can't wait as soon as this is wrapped, I'm heading straight to episode four. All right, I think that's a good place to wrap it. If you don't have any other notes or any other points, let's jump into listener feedback. You wanna take the first one for me?

[01:08:16] Yeah, this one comes from Dawn Elizabeth, says, What is it with these people and their strange kinks? I'm not kink shaming, but I just wonder if there's any reason for their weird sexual habits.

[01:08:25] I kept being wrong on who would be the next to die and I'm bummed that it was Kate Siegel. Hopefully we will see her in flashbacks. And of course the cat had to die.

[01:08:34] Do you have any theories on why the interview is taking place in the creepy old homestead? Unfortunately, I got a spoiler about Verna when checking out the cast. I'll pretend I didn't and say, who is that woman? I'm looking forward to seeing how she's tied with the family.

[01:08:46] Oh, I'm sorry you got spoiled. Yeah, that's a bummer. Luckily, I haven't. I'm still very curious. So hopefully it's something great. I'm sure we'll find out in due time. In due time, everything always comes along eventually. We just have to be patient as we're doing our weekly coverage.

[01:09:10] I don't know the reason for the weird sexual habits. I don't know if we will find out if it's important. Camille certainly had her arrangement with her assistants, which I'm not going to get into the ethical or the unethical of it. They signed NDAs and consent forms.

[01:09:35] Yeah, so it's all okay, right? Yeah. So everything's fine now. Yeah, not going to get into that or anything. But yeah, I'm not sure why that is and why. And I'm not really sure about Tammy either.

[01:09:50] The reason I think for the interview taking place in the creepy old homestead is because it's based on the Fall of the House of Usher short story where that is taking place. It takes place in a very similar type environment of this person's home that's described very

[01:10:09] closely to what you kind of see there in the show. So I think that's why. And yeah, I think that was all the questions that you had there. And again, sorry you got spoiled. That sucks. Gotta have to be so careful these days.

[01:10:28] Lindsay Schlicht says, I'm torn with this episode. The first 40 minutes or so I was pretty much bored out of my mind. More weird sex stuff, more terrible people, lots of business talk that I think I fell asleep during.

[01:10:42] The one scary part was a repeat of last week's episode, one of his mangled kids messing with Roderick during his interview. I was even contemplating this being my last episode. Those last 10 minutes got me through.

[01:10:53] Still no heart, but at least he amped up the creep factor, which had also been lacking for me. It was enough for me to at least attempt another episode. Still pretty disappointed, but hanging in.

[01:11:03] I just hope this doesn't mean we won't be seeing any more of Kate Segal because she's my favorite. Oh, I'm sorry you're not enjoying it more, Lindsay, but I understand. Right. Yeah. I hope that episode four does more for you. I haven't seen it yet.

[01:11:18] I will watch it as soon as we're done here. I'm excited to see where it goes. So yeah, hopefully it also helps you. I hope so. I don't know if we're going to get any heart in this series or not with Poe.

[01:11:31] I just don't know that we're going to get that. Basing it off his work, he definitely was not about heart, I don't think, except for- Right. Annabelle Lee is about the extent. Yeah, I was going to say Annabelle Lee is about the only... Yeah. Yeah.

[01:11:46] Well, hope you hang in there, Lindsay, because I certainly enjoy having you with us, but would totally understand if it's not your thing. All right, this one comes from Alma Contreras who says, Okay, I must confess, I'm a weak woman and I binge the whole thing,

[01:12:03] but I fell asleep somewhere after episode three, so I got to rewatch. Anyway, I'm so grateful to have this podcast to get me through Flanagan's works. You guys catch stuff that I miss after several watches, plus you both being avid Flanagan fans amps up my excitement too.

[01:12:16] Now, on to Camille, do you guys think she was the corporate spy or the mole? Oh, I asked because she was taking pics in the lab. I mentioned like I'd seen some stuff on like TV time about that. So yeah, she's also wondering. She goes on to say,

[01:12:28] I feel like the underlying moral to the story is how money and success can corrupt and pervert someone all the way down the bloodline. That's probably why Roderick's kids are all fucked people. Look forward to next week's cast. Well, Roderick didn't serve his kids at all.

[01:12:43] I mean, I feel like he just threw Perry into the deep end and told him to swim and didn't really help him along at all. And because it seems like or at least for the illegitimate children,

[01:12:57] the ones that were maybe out of wedlock outside of Tammy and Frederick, they were all brought into the fold later in life. They weren't born and raised into the family. They were brought in what Camille was 20.

[01:13:13] They basically, yeah, it was like they basically had to find out who their father was. And then what he said in the first episode is like, but if you're my kid, then the gates open. Where it's like, but they had to come to him.

[01:13:25] He wasn't seeking them out. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't think he did them any favors. So I don't know. And I don't know about Camille being the spy. It's possible, but I'm still questioning that there was one.

[01:13:45] I'm still wondering if that was just something that he was saying to get them all worked up and get them to like turn on each other and to really shake things up. Just a guess because I don't know. But I don't know.

[01:14:03] So it could have been a good ploy to, you know, well, if they think somebody's going to spill their secrets, they'll all spill each other's secrets before somebody can spill theirs and then watch it all crumble. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So we did get some email this week.

[01:14:20] This one is from Josh. This was feedback for episode two. So we'll go back an episode here. He says, I'm not quite sure what to expect from the rest of the show.

[01:14:31] I don't know about you guys, but for me, it kind of felt like we already heard the story that I was expecting to last this whole season. For a second, I wondered if I accidentally played the finale instead of episode two. I love not knowing what to expect.

[01:14:44] So I'm excited to see where the story goes from here. Flanagan seems to always tie an addiction thread into his stories. The season continues the trend, although from a different perspective. We haven't focused on a specific addict.

[01:14:56] Instead, we're seeing those responsible for pushing and profiting from the opioid crisis. Flanagan's inclusion of addiction in his stories always sticks out to me because it hits so close to home as I struggled with addiction throughout my 20s.

[01:15:10] Thankfully, I'll be celebrating my 15th year free on what would have been my dad's 65th birthday, November the 5th. Hey, congratulations, dude. Congrats, man. Yeah. Something I love about the show, which is related to the opioid crisis, is Flanagan

[01:15:24] exposing the imbalance, greed and cruelty of capitalism and doing it in a way where the correlation is simple for everyone to see. I like how he points out how absurd our economic system is when Verna mentions how easily we could fix most of the world's problems.

[01:15:40] It is something we could do if it weren't for the imbalance of our system, which allows a small percentage of the population to control the majority of wealth. Their greed, plus that which is inherently part of the major corporations in stock exchanges,

[01:15:53] leads them to continue hoarding all the wealth while always being unsatisfied. They will always seek more, more, more. There's an infinite drive to increase profits but never a satisfactory goal. If it's not gaining, it means it's a failure. If it remains steady, it means it's a failure.

[01:16:10] It's all part of the reason you have these multi-million and billion dollar companies offering such shitty, insulting contracts to the writers and actors leading to the strikes in Hollywood. They could easily afford to give both groups everything they ask for, but when it comes

[01:16:22] to their infinite need to increase profits, they always seem to cut costs from the bottom. It's ironic because in most cases that bottom of the ladder tends to be one of the most important parts of the process, whether it's factory workers creating tile in the flooring

[01:16:34] industry or writers and actors in the film industry. I assume that Mike wrote this before the strike for obvious reasons, but I wonder if he had a feeling it was going to happen. Maybe that influenced this story, especially the devil's critique of capitalism in the episode.

[01:16:47] Josh from Pennsylvania. Nice. Yeah. Nice. Good insight, Josh. Thank you for that. Thank you for sharing. A lot of really good thoughts. And then, yep, here it is. We do have another email from Daphne. It says, Hi Reem and Peck.

[01:17:04] I love how this episode gave us all things Carla Gugino. She slayed it. Watching Verna, aka the Raven, intertwine herself with various characters created some confusion as to which Usher family member was next on the chopping block.

[01:17:17] The character of DuPain is featured in Poe's story, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, as his character shares a dilapidated old mansion with an unnamed narrator. There are other connections to this episode, including two murdered women, as well as DuPain's deduction that an orangutan killed them.

[01:17:33] Did not enjoy seeing Julius's poor cat Pluto deceased. I hope Leo didn't do it, but who knows? Makes me think of Poe's story, The Black Cat. I'm wondering if that will tie in at all.

[01:17:43] How the Usher family can cope without Camille to spin the tale of lies will be fun to watch in the upcoming episodes. Who's next? Can't wait to find out in episode four. Loving your coverage, Daphne. Thank you, Daphne. Great as always. That was great.

[01:18:03] Thank you everyone so much for your feedback, for taking the time to leave feedback on our Facebook posts. All the posts are up. So if you are binging through, I don't blame you. If I wasn't covering it, I would be too.

[01:18:16] So but go ahead and watch the episodes, leave us some feedback, send us an email, send us a voicemail, whatever you like, and we will certainly get to it. But yeah, love hearing y'all's thoughts because I don't have a clue as to what's going on.

[01:18:33] So I need you guys to help me figure it out. So we're back to our regular coverage for now. So we are going to be covering next week episode four of the fall of the House of Usher, which is titled The Black Cat. Daphne called it.

[01:18:53] Yeah, Daphne was wondering. And so maybe a little spoiler, not really because I haven't seen anything, but just based off of deductions. So if people are like real worried about it, maybe they've skipped over this already because the title of the episode.

[01:19:07] But The Black Cat, I mean, we see that. Does that mean that we say goodbye to Raul Coley's character of Leo in this next episode? That's what I'm feeling, but we'll see.

[01:19:19] I feel like based on what we saw in this episode, then it probably is, yeah, is my guess. Also, I wanted to point out, I don't know, because you didn't have any news or anything, but if we can talk about this, I just want to give a little...

[01:19:39] It's not about this show, but Mike Flanagan news. I'm sure those who really follow him and know have seen that he is working on a Stephen King short story adapted movie. He sure is. So another Flanagan film coming out.

[01:19:54] It is The Life of Chuck, which is based off of a short story novella from Stephen King. I won't give any information really on that. If you want to dig into it, you can. But the cast, of course, pulling from here, already looking amazing a lot from here.

[01:20:08] Stellar. Kate Siegel, Samantha Sloyan, Raul Coley, Michael Trucco, Matthew Lillard, Mark Hamill, Molly C. Quinn, Tom Hiddleston, Matt Bedell, Carl Lumley, Karen Gillan, Sorian Sipkota, Heather Langenkamp, Jacob Tremblay, David Dasmalchian, Violet McGraw, Mia Serra, Harvey Guillen, uh... Whoa, we're doing the shadows! Yes. Yes. Chiwetel Ejiofor, uh...

[01:20:37] Yeah, so it's quite a cast, and I'm already so excited for it. There's not even really anything out for it. It's in production right now, so they really haven't even started a lot of stuff with it, but I'm already obsessed with it and ready to see what happens.

[01:20:54] I'm glad that you brought it up. I did not. I didn't add it to the news segment, not for any particular reason, just because I was still trying to get some more information on it.

[01:21:03] It was kind of last minute whenever I was looking at it, and I'm like, well, I'll get to it. But I'm glad that you brought it up. I am very interested, obviously, like you said, another adaptation of Stephen King,

[01:21:12] and I feel like Mike Flanagan does Stephen King very well. I feel like he gets him, understands him. So I'm excited for that. Like you said, absolutely stellar cast. I'm excited to watch that when it comes out, and they are able to go ahead and move forward

[01:21:26] with that project right now because they were able to, even with the strikes going on, they were able to strike a side deal to make it happen. Like some have. Some, because it's an indie, this is an indie film, and some of the smaller studios have

[01:21:43] been able to make agreements with the unions to be able to work. Yeah, if any of those are worried about this, it is following SAG-AFTRA guidelines and things. So it's all clear with the writers and actors, guilds, both are, everything is cleared for this to go forward.

[01:22:03] There's no scabby behavior going on. Right, right. It's all on the up and up. Yeah, happy to hear that. But yeah, exciting. I really hope that they are able to keep going, that there isn't any type of halting to the

[01:22:19] work because Mike Flanagan's been able to put out a new project every single year. I mean, if you go back and look at everything he's put out, it's been a year, every single project each year.

[01:22:34] So I'm hoping that it's able to continue, that there isn't anything else that holds it or that can prevent it from coming out. Otherwise, it kind of stops that little streak he's got going for putting out a project a year.

[01:22:47] So he's moving forward full steam ahead and I'm here for it. Yeah. So yeah, I just wanted to bring that up because it was on my mind. I was like, man, I'm excited. More Flanagan is always great. So that should be great.

[01:23:00] I'm here for it all the time. I'm a fan for life. Between him and his amazing wife, whom I discovered has a TikTok account, and now I'm completely addicted. I can't stop.

[01:23:13] I sound like a total creeper right now, but I mean it in the best way possible, I swear. She's absolutely hilarious on her TikTok and thinks she's great. So looking forward to seeing them to continue to work and put out more projects. Yeah.

[01:23:31] So like Rima said, we'll be back next week with episode four. So if you have your thoughts and want to write in, call in any of that stuff, feedback for that or any other episode coming up this season, all that's on our Facebook page or any other

[01:23:44] links that you can find at podcastica.com to reach us wherever you want to. While you're there, be sure to check out our other shows like Run For Your Lives with Peck and Daphne. You guys are starting to wrap up your current season, right?

[01:24:00] Yeah, actually the season finale was actually last week, but then we put up an episode today, a special we usually release on Fridays, but there is a Halloween episode that dropped on Halloween because we got to do that.

[01:24:14] So technically it's the first episode of the new season, but now we're going to take like a month break before we get back to that. We'll still be recording and getting stuff prepped for the next season.

[01:24:23] Yeah, we dropped our Halloween episode of Pet Sematary Bloodlines, a prequel Pet Sematary film today or yesterday, depending on when you're listening this quickly. Yeah, so you can go check that out. That's our Halloween special, kind of wrap up the season for now.

[01:24:39] So we'll be off for about a month or so, but definitely go back and listen to old episodes. There's a lot of fun stuff and we are already making a lot of plans and getting stuff together for the next season.

[01:24:48] We're going to do some new stuff and fun stuff that I'm excited to do. It'll be a good season. Cannot wait. Cannot wait. Well, yeah, so you have to definitely check that out. Check out all the Podcastica stuff. A lot of good stuff going on.

[01:25:02] The Walking Dead cast, which is now the cast of us starting an official Walking Dead rewatch. They're going back through all of those. The Loki cast is going on, Disney plus Loki going on. That's been killer.

[01:25:15] So yeah, just give Podcastica love and you can always just find all those shows that you love and especially Strange Indeed if you're listening here and give those ratings and reviews. Five stars on Apple Podcasts and anywhere else you listen to us. We definitely appreciate that.

[01:25:28] Yeah, give everyone some love. Thank you in advance. All right. For now, that is our show. Thanks for listening, everybody. Until next time, I'm Rima. And I'm Pey. And Margaret Doty Sheffield is Strange Indeed.