296 "The Tell-Tale Heart" (The Fall of the House of Usher E5)

[00:00:01] Hmm? Ah! Huh. Podcastica! 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. This week we are covering episode five. That's right. The dreaded, loved, whatever, Flanagan episode five.

[00:00:30] Uh, this time of The Fall of the House of Usher titled The Tell-Tale Heart. Which, I mean, obviously is one we have been looking forward to this entire time. Yeah, absolutely. And what is it about episode five of Mike Flanagan's shows?

[00:00:51] They're always, for some reason, if you look back, I'm like, they are always just like some of the most intense, like I know episode five without spoiling anything. So we go to, uh, to Bly Manor. Talk about Tania Miller again. She's got another episode five moment.

[00:01:05] But yeah, they just seem to always be like some of the most like intense and heavy or like come with like a huge twist or always there's just something that I don't know what it is.

[00:01:17] But his episode fives are usually the ones that you know, something big's going down, you know? Yeah. And you'd think that after all this time, um, and the emotional impact that it

[00:01:27] normally has on us every time that I would have had that in my mind when I watched the episode. But yeah, I didn't. I didn't. It didn't even occur to me. Oh, episode five. Oh, this is going to be an emotional ringer here.

[00:01:43] And you're gonna, you're just not going to know how to deal. So was not prepared at all. A very intense episode this week. I know we're going to talk about it, but what, what are your initial thoughts or feelings? Did you like this week's episode?

[00:01:58] I loved this episode. It is again, cause yeah, it was dark and it was heavy. It was intense, but like, I mean, again, telltale heart being the iconic thing that is, cause I mean, I know there's a lot of stories in here that even I'm not

[00:02:16] very familiar with when it comes to the world of Poe, but I feel like most everyone, if they have any grasp of Poe at all understands and knows the telltale heart. And so going into this episode, like immediately in this episode, which we'll

[00:02:30] talk, I mean, I'm going into discussion a little bit, but I mean, why not? I mean, when the episode starts with just that like clicking ticking sound and then you like very early on, you realize what that is.

[00:02:42] You know what you're in for and you're like, oh, here we go. This is it. Like I know what's happening and I am still not ready for this ride. Yeah. That I thought that was a beautiful touch with the opening of the, the

[00:02:57] clicking, squishy sound, just disturbing sound. I think I, it took me a while to get that out of my head, but yeah, it was a great, great way to open it. And this you're right. You know, I, I also loved this, this week's episode.

[00:03:14] It well, and I know we're going to talk about all the details, so I don't want to go too far into it, but you know, it, it was one that definitely, you know, I'm

[00:03:24] glad I think for the additional time, cause as we talked about last week, I had some travel this week, so we're recording a few days later than what we normally do. So again, uh, appreciate everyone's patience, but I'm glad for a little bit of

[00:03:38] the extra time to kind of sit with it a little because I'm like, gosh, I, I don't know that I could talk about this one as you know, as this, you know, any sooner than what we are tonight. Cause it, it hits. Yeah.

[00:03:52] Even after watching it the first time, which was the night we recorded last week, like after recording episode four, I immediately watched it that, that, that night. But even then, like I was like laying in bed, watching it on my phone and it ends.

[00:04:04] And I was just like, I had that same thought. I was like, oh, thank God I've got an extra two days to sit on this one. Cause like, that's a lot. Yes. And yeah, I, I feel like with what we've already seen in the first four episodes,

[00:04:19] it's, it's been dark, it's been gory, but something about this, this episode. And again, maybe it's Tania Miller, her performance amazing as always. She's such a, you know, wonderful actress. Um, so well, let's talk about it. What is your first point? Of the night.

[00:04:42] So I'm going to start real small, real. Cause honestly, I only have two major points for this one. So, you know, like there's just two big stories that I really wanted to touch on.

[00:04:54] So other than that, I was like, well, the first like two points I'm going to have, I'm just going to touch on like early scenes that maybe you don't have a lot of thought about, maybe you do, I don't know, but, uh, but just kind of two little

[00:05:06] scenes that are pretty early on in the episode. So the first one, uh, is the funeral itself. Um, I remember last week, you know, Leo was so worried about whether he would have to attend a joint funeral or if you'd have to attend two separate

[00:05:20] funerals and which one was worse. Uh, well we got our answer. It's one joint funeral. Uh, but the worst part for him is that now he's included as the third deceased, the third coffin. So I don't think he was expecting that one. Uh, call back. Good call back.

[00:05:37] Oh gosh. Mm hmm. Uh, so it's just this, it's a, it's a small scene, but there was a lot packed into it we're seeing already just like this obsession and workaholic kind of thing that Tammy is, which I was like, man, she's texting at the funeral, which

[00:05:55] I don't know what might be more offensive is that she still has the typing clicks turned on on her phone. Like who does that? What kind of psychopath? Um, yeah. You hear it tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

[00:06:09] It was like, I mean, texting is one thing, but why have you not turned that off yet? Who are you? No, it's not. If you're one of the, if you're a constant texter, turn off your keyboard sounds, it's all I'm going to say. Um, yeah.

[00:06:22] And then of course we see Roderick seeing these grotesque ghosts of his children at their funeral, which yeah, obviously at this point we've gotten accustomed to that. We know that he's seeing that, but then again, up in that upper area, we see this

[00:06:35] jester type character that we've only seen once before, I think in the first episode when he opens that car door. And I still really want to know what's up with that. I don't have much of a note past that other than like, you know, what's the deal

[00:06:47] with just, but that's what I'm worried. Like, I'm just like, I don't know. And I want to know, and we only have two episodes left. So you are three. So you better give it to me. I need it. I know.

[00:06:56] Got to, got to find that out where clock is ticking. Like I said, three episodes to go. Uh, I loved the little kind of almost you could miss it. Kind of scene of Arthur coaching Julius Leo's a boyfriend on how he's supposed to

[00:07:13] respond to any questions or the media or anything. This is a very difficult moment for me. Please respect my privacy at this time. It's like, good, you got it. It's just those little things again was showing with Pim.

[00:07:25] Uh, and then of course the last note that I had a little bit on that is just the mothers of the three deceased kids are there in attendance and Roderick just ignores them. Like it just, again, shows that kind of coldness that he, that what's become is

[00:07:41] like, he looks at them for a second, but then only to, to grab Juno and it's time to get out of here. And then just walks away without a word, a second glance. And they look really disgusted with him. Like he's definitely, they probably have no connection.

[00:07:55] Like it makes me feel, and there's not really anything to back this up, but it was like, you know, his open gate policy with the kids probably do not extend to the mothers. They probably get no financial compensation. They get nothing.

[00:08:08] I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case where he's like, well, it's my kid, but I don't have any connection to you. You know? Like I could see just the way that they look at him with such disdain and

[00:08:18] disgust, especially the one that I assume is Camille's mother. Uh, but yeah, it was just a little interesting thing, the way that they like looked at him with such hatred and then he didn't have time to say a word to them or anything.

[00:08:33] So it's, I'm putting little pieces in my head together. I was like, I don't know the full picture, but I can assume that like he's probably been horrible to them ever since. Whatever. Yeah. I'm curious there.

[00:08:47] I don't know if we'll get more into that, but it was interesting to see, um, the moms, I guess, if you will. Yeah. That funeral, um, the first, first trio, cause it started with what the last three. So. Oof. I like it.

[00:09:14] Um, I want to start with, uh, something I touched on. What was it? Was it after or, or when we talked about Perry's episode and that was, was it was a little bit about the color, a use of color for each of the siblings.

[00:09:38] I haven't talked about it much, so I want to kind of touch on it here. Um, with Victorine's episode and also talk a little bit about Leo as well. And I don't know that I called out Camille.

[00:09:51] I had what I thought is as a, what I thought a theory about hers a little bit, but let's talk about Victorine. So she's, I, I, I think with this order that we're going in with each of each of

[00:10:05] these kids, she's the third child and she's also an illegitimate child of Roderick and she's a scientist. We've seen her experiments on the chimps and how it seems to be a little unethical. If you will, just a tiny little bit, a little bit unethical.

[00:10:28] And if you notice, she's often wearing different hues of like orange and in her office, she has orange bookcases. Yep. She, well, and I looking up about like the color orange, it seems to like represent a determination.

[00:10:52] And I think in this case for Victorine, you know, she's been determined for most of the episodes that we've seen her in to get the approval for human trials for her medical device. Yeah. She is determined to find a person for those human trials.

[00:11:15] And then I think also orange can symbolize pride and arrogance, which I think are big traits that Victorine has as well. Oh yeah. So, and then we kind of see, I feel like there's a little bit it's during one of

[00:11:35] the scenes in her office and I'm not going to go too far into the scenes cause I feel like we probably have some notes or other points about that. So I'm just going to call them out and just in general, in generalities.

[00:11:45] But the scene in the off in her office with Verna or she's not Verna at that time, she's playing another character, but we know her as Verna and you see Victorine kind of shift into this. Her odd like paranoia state and the light changes. It looks orange-ish. Yes.

[00:12:07] This is the orange. Yeah. It kind of, and I have notes about this for sure in a later thing, but I'll talk about is yeah, the orange kind of symbolizes this derangement like this, like decline in

[00:12:19] mental state and this to where as this sound is happening and Verna is, you know, Pamela or whatever is starting to say some really weird things. And it's, you see her kind of just her mental state really declining. And it starts really subtle.

[00:12:37] Like you said, like the walls on the bookcase being orange as that's where she's standing, but then the hue of the room gets more and more orange. You get this orange glow on the actress's skin or especially Verna.

[00:12:48] And then like, it just gets darker and darker and darker. And then whenever she kind of snaps back to reality, the lights come back on. And then of course, later on in the episode near the end, we see that dark, dark

[00:12:59] orange again when she's really like the more that she's in that decline, the darker orange it gets. And I thought it was a really cool touch. Agreed. And then we see it again, that change in lighting in her home later, which I know

[00:13:15] we're going to talk about in more detail. But I think that kind of lends to in this episode anyway, the use of color and one color in particular for this sibling. Um, for Leo, I think we had a yellow as Leo's color.

[00:13:38] So Leo, he lied to his partner. He wasn't faithful in his relationship. Uh, and I, from what I'm reading, yellow can symbolize dishonesty, which ties into how he cheats on his partner. He, uh, you know, we see him hiding that girl on the balcony whenever he comes home.

[00:14:11] And when Verna, it's, it's weird. It's very subtle. But when Verna comes to Leo's apartment to confront Leo, there's a little bit of a, did you notice it like a little bit of a sepia tone? I don't know. To the, to the apartment. It was, it was weird.

[00:14:32] It felt, it felt like it kind of illuminated all of his lies. I don't know. The major yellow connection I think of when you mentioned Leo is just like beginning and end bookending again, the episode that's showing his like Lamborghini or whatever outside was a very yellow car.

[00:14:46] Yes, yes. Yeah. That was very unfortunate as he's lying there on the pavement. There's his yellow car right there behind him. Yeah. So that's my, you know, going along with my idea about the colors and Camille who I

[00:15:07] mentioned, I think I'd mentioned before that I think hers is white. I don't know how, I can't remember how much I talked about hers, but you know, her, her hair's white. Her, a lot of her clothes were white and that to me felt like it represented her sterile

[00:15:25] nature. Yeah. Well, even her apartment was very white. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's because she, she seemed very detached. Like she had a very transactional type relationship with her assistants. She didn't quite have the connection with her family. You know, it wasn't, you know, real meaningful.

[00:15:49] Her life, I mean, should have been a great life. I mean, she was born into this like an amazingly privileged family and would have had all kinds of doors opened up for her, but her life felt colorless.

[00:16:04] And that, that I think is what's behind the white color for Camille. And I think again, plays into a little bit of my theories about the color, use of color anyway, for each of the siblings.

[00:16:19] I don't really know if that means anything in the end, if you know what other colors for the other siblings I haven't watched ahead or anything like that, or what it means, or

[00:16:27] if it's just a nice way to kind of tell a story with the use of color. You know, Mike Flanagan likes his themes. This could just be another one of them. But I find it interesting.

[00:16:37] I like the play on that and I like the themes and the use of these kinds of themes, you know, much like music can be used or other things. So I think it's nice to give that call out. And I hadn't talked about in a couple of episodes.

[00:16:51] So I wanted to kind of bring it back because it was really interesting the way that they used it, like you said, how the hue changes on Victorine in a couple of these scenes.

[00:17:01] It's a really nice way to see that shift, like you said, with her shift in what's going on with her mentally anyway. Yeah. And I'm going to make like a weird prediction because it's in my head now. Perry was definitely a red, red kind of thing.

[00:17:15] For sure. Yeah. But because again, I promise I have not like Dorema said, I've not watched ahead. I've not seen these others, but we know like we have Tammy and Freddie as like the next two episodes going to be kind of theirs.

[00:17:27] And I'm going to make a prediction looking on colors, just kind of what we've seen on them. I'm going to say Tammy's probably a green. Oh, OK. Green, Envy, things like that. And then I feel like I want to go with a blue for Freddie.

[00:17:42] OK. Well, that's that's just kind of gut feelings, thoughts about their characters and kind of what we've seen so far. I feel like that could be. Yeah, you might be right. You know, I hadn't I hadn't looked beyond.

[00:17:58] But I'll have to look at least for the next episode and see see which one that that one's about. Interesting. I like it. Yeah, it may not mean much of anything, but I do I think it's nice as a storytelling device anyway. What's your next point?

[00:18:17] All right, so the next little scene that I want to talk about again, quick one, but the surviving Usher siblings, who's left sitting at their little private get together conversation at the bar. Again, just very short, very small scene, but a lot packed into it in like subtext.

[00:18:41] We see that the children that are surviving here now under like 24 seven security detail, which still doesn't do much good in a lot of ways. No other than just infuriate them. They're tired. But all they have to do is say, oh, no, don't pay attention to me.

[00:18:59] And they're not really great at what this was. Of course, they're not expecting what's going on from the inside. Right. But, you know, we see that Roderick and Madeline are really feeling like these are deliberate attacks somehow.

[00:19:13] I'll talk more about that later as far as more to figure out. But so they are. They put the security detail on the kids. So that's where we get introduced. That is why they're at the bar.

[00:19:25] And then I can talk about Victor Victorine, because this kind of ties in, I like that you talk about like the determination of Orange, because I think another big thing that her determination was that she was very, very determined to be seen and accepted

[00:19:39] on an equal level of her two older siblings. Yeah. She's the only one that wasn't Annabelle's daughter, like, and that's that's left here. But she still felt like because she was talking about the littles, the other ones, and then remember when they came and all this.

[00:19:55] But what we are the OGs, even though she also is. Yeah. But she seems very determined to be on that same level of acceptance from Roderick and even from them. And the way she talks about that, she's like, oh, yeah.

[00:20:13] And then us three versus those three, like she's very set in that, even though we see clearly Tammy doesn't see her in that light, very much still a bastard in Tammy's eyes, especially. I guess because Frederick and Tammy are the only children of Annabelle, as we see in

[00:20:30] those flashbacks. Right. She was the only woman that Roderick actually married other than now, Juno. But we don't talk about that, don't you dare. We don't talk about Juno. We don't talk about Juno. No, no, no. Oh, God.

[00:20:49] Yeah. Then that whole conversation about them talking about the younger siblings that have passed, which, yeah, fill his dad hole is not a pleasing phrase at all. I'm kind of with Freddie with him. I don't know why he needs to keep repeating it.

[00:21:02] You're not going to make it any better. It's just you're not going to make that whole happen, Tammy. Stop. And then, yeah, in a totally shocking and in no way completely expected turn of events, this little sibling get together has devolved into personal jabs between Vic

[00:21:20] and Tammy. Go figure. Right. Just wild. To where she kind of storms off mad at them, ending with the line of Frederick and Madeline, which I don't know if that's the best, maybe maybe workshop that one more,

[00:21:34] but I don't know. Maybe it's the best you can get out of that one. I don't have anything better. I thought about it. I was like. And I don't know if there's another name mix you can do, Frederick is just perfect, that's

[00:21:44] incredible, but that one is pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you can do better than Madeline. I don't know. It just doesn't roll off the same way. But, you know, she tried. Yeah, it's OK.

[00:22:00] But yeah, that's it. Just again, just quickly, because I've got like two big storylines, of course, I'll talk about next. But but I was like, I need more points than just two.

[00:22:09] So I was like, let me pick out some like early on the scenes that I feel held a lot of weight, even though they were really short. Well, no worries.

[00:22:17] I feel like a lot of what I have are a couple of big ones and then a bunch of little ones, too. But I think it's going to, I hope anyway, prompt some good conversation because it's more of I just want to kind of talk about it.

[00:22:29] I don't know that I have any insight or if anyone that is listening to us has a need for a whole lot of answers. I don't know if I got any, but I just have this need to like just talk about some of

[00:22:41] this stuff. Maybe we'll figure out things along the way if we're lucky. I don't know. You mentioned this scene. Of the three remaining siblings there at the bar and just really great quotes this

[00:22:56] episode and one of them at when Victorine leaves and Tammy says, do you think the 50 million is still on or the 50 mil still on the table? And Frederick goes, probably not. Not with all the dead people and stuff. Yeah. I don't.

[00:23:14] Oh, just so morbid, but also just tickled me. I definitely laughed at that one. And it was, I think, you know, I don't do it justice. The delivery from our BFF, Henry Thomas, I think really nailed that. So I think that was really good. Yeah. He is good.

[00:23:42] See, I don't have mine in any particular order, so I'm just going to jump in before I get into any really big ones. I want to kind of talk about a few of my smaller. These are probably more almost notes than anything.

[00:23:58] So we're getting a little bit more with Maury in the hospital and this urgency that Freddie has to get her home. She's playing this. It's not a game, but she's using her eyes to blink because she's not really able to

[00:24:21] move and the poor woman is just bandaged head to toe with her injuries. And she's blinking and it looks like she's blinking twice for yes. When he comes over and he's like, you know, oh, are you excited to come home?

[00:24:36] I'm going to be home soon. Isn't that going to be great? Her reaction doesn't seem very enthusiastic. So what you're picking up from that? Yeah, I kind of made note of that as well. I'm like, she's OK. I don't think which again talk about dark humor.

[00:24:50] The fact that this story line is somehow the comedic aspect only only Flanagan. Yes. Yeah. Again, we're a woman completely burned in and absolutely horrible type conditions and suffering, probably beyond belief. And we're laughing.

[00:25:08] But again, this is a delivery from our best friend in the world, Henry Thomas. You know, the she's not a magic eight ball, honey. Just I shouldn't laugh. But it was so funny.

[00:25:20] But yeah, but I made that note of them setting that up with the Lenore asking these yes or no questions and then it leading to like, aren't you ready to go home? And she's just like this kind of like kind of somber, like one little blink, like, oh,

[00:25:32] God. And I don't know if that has more to do with she's not wanting to deal with being confronted maybe about, hey, how'd you end up this way? I don't know. Like she's not going to be as protected maybe from, you know, the doctors

[00:25:52] and such. It seems like he's maybe going to grill her a little bit about what were you doing at this party about the burner phone? I don't know. They didn't seem to have like a I didn't pick up anyway on it anyway in

[00:26:05] the earlier episodes that they had like a bad relationship or anything. I mean, something must have been going on. However, for her to be able to leave the house like she was dishonest about.

[00:26:16] You know where she was going and who she was going to be with that night, not that she deserved or anything what happened to her, but that is a fact she did lie about where

[00:26:25] she was going. So it's interesting to know, like, was there a crack in their relationship or something that led her to do that? And is she concerned about being confronted or something? It's just interesting, you know, what what has her so frightened?

[00:26:43] Is she just worried about being the confrontation of how why are we at the party and what's up with this burner phone kind of questioning? Yeah, I feel I feel like the relationship was really good as far as what we saw.

[00:26:54] But there was this there's hints of it in this episode. But then even then, there's kind of hinges that like Freddie has this tendency. I don't know. I wouldn't say like violent or abusive.

[00:27:03] I don't know. But he does have this tendency to be pretty intense at some point. So like hyper focusing on things because it doesn't make me think back to episode two when Perry is inviting her to this this party.

[00:27:18] And, you know, he's going off on the whole fraudulent in your dickbag husband and all this, you know, and but we see the way she responds is not out of like, don't talk about him that way. But she's like.

[00:27:28] Well, I'm married to him and you're his brother, you know how he is like there was this very kind of understanding between them. She's like, yes, I know. But that's just how he is. And we just accept that we like.

[00:27:40] So you can tell that she does see this like intensity and kind of controlling thing that he has. Mm hmm. So that could play a part in why. Yeah, she doesn't want to be questioned about that night because we see him

[00:27:53] even in this episode, we saw that whole run with the phone in an earlier episode with him, and now he's still like very intense about it. He's still hung up on it. There's that scene where he's talking to Lenore about the dangers of being an usher

[00:28:07] and the importance of listening to him. But then he ends that little talk with this bit about, you know, don't trust anybody, never trust anybody, especially remember your mother. And he's very, you know, laying it on thick.

[00:28:19] This fact she looked us in the face and she lied to us and she did. And you can see he's like seething on the inside. Like he's still very hung up on this and very mad about it.

[00:28:30] And then that last bit when Lenore is walking out of the room and he just says, we've almost got her like it's almost foreboding. You're like, what does that mean? What are you? Thank you for bringing that up. The hell does that mean?

[00:28:42] And was he talking to himself? You know, was he did he like mean to say that out loud? I'm like, dude, sometimes you should squelch your intrusive thoughts. That when you probably shouldn't speak out loud. Yeah, it was it was a little disturbing.

[00:29:00] And I feel like or I wonder anyway, if because, yeah, he does seem to have this like need for control and it's coming out in these other ways. And I wonder if that has to do with because he has such a powerful father

[00:29:13] and he probably doesn't have as much control as maybe what he thinks he does or as much power as what he thinks he does, because he's still under his father and Madeline's and and through them.

[00:29:24] Pim's thumb, you know, so he's always being told what to do, how to do it. His father reprimanding him like he's still a child after Maury was discovered after after the death of Perry and she was discovered

[00:29:38] in the hospital and he's like, why the hell didn't you, you know, do as I told you to? And he is like all up in his face and roughing him up. And so he's I think he's got a complex around that, that, you know, he he's

[00:29:51] the eldest child. He seems to not 100 percent probably, you know, growing into taking control of the company, but it still seems very much run by his father and by Madeline, you know. So I wonder if if this lack of control that he has in his family life,

[00:30:08] his business life is kind of coming out in his personal life, you know. And that's why the intensity and this controlling nature of his Yeah, which is why we see he's so adamant that we're taking her home. We're bringing her whether it's to question her and grill her,

[00:30:24] which grill such a bad word for the birds. Oh, shit. But yeah, she's been grilled plenty. But no. But yeah. But so there's part of it. But also, yeah, just this control of like, why do I want to leave everything to my father?

[00:30:42] And I think that's a big part of it. Yeah. Just this control of like, why do I want to leave everything in the hands of these doctors and everything when I have the control, I have the power. Let me bring her home.

[00:30:53] Let me build this place for her. And I don't like he has this fear of leaving it in other people's hands. You know, he's not encouraged by the doctor to do this. Say it's too early. She still needs a lot of intensive care here.

[00:31:06] And he's dead set on, you know, he's pulling that. Don't you know who I am? You're how much money I am. You're like Leo was was like, I can handle it. I'm not a civilian, as he says, which, you know, is this power thing.

[00:31:20] But there is the flip side of it. I'm also like, I also can understand a little bit where he's coming from. Because hospitals in general, I guess even the super private luxury hospital suites are incredibly depressing and anxiety fueling.

[00:31:32] Like you do want to get out of that situation the quickest you can. I get that. But but it's definitely playing into that control thing that he has as well. Yeah, for sure. So I just thought that was an interesting reaction.

[00:31:47] I thought like you mentioned his conversation with Lenore when they were at home. I was like, what the hell is that about? What did he mean? I really think and I'm sure we're going to talk about the other siblings as well.

[00:32:01] But I'm really starting to think especially now that Verna we've seen Verna kind of impose herself on the lives of all of the siblings.

[00:32:09] And we've seen in other episodes the way she's kind of introduced herself, not really introduce herself, but gotten her weaseled her way into the lives of the other siblings. And I really think maybe that's playing a part too.

[00:32:24] I wonder if that's making Freddie like more intense or more controlling. Or with Tammy and her not sleeping and her reaction in this episode to her husband, has it intensified that in any way? I don't know, but I feel like she's.

[00:32:47] I didn't want to cut you off, but yeah, you're fine. Have we seen Verna interact with Freddie at all? I don't think so. Oh, wait, maybe, maybe not. Maybe I'm thinking more of Victorine.

[00:33:01] Yeah, because I think he's really the only one now that hasn't had any connection to her personally. So then that blows my theory out of the water then because that's right. We haven't seen Verna interact yet with Freddie.

[00:33:15] There was so much in this episode that it was hard to keep track. I just kept jotting all of these notes. But yeah, you're right, you're right. With the track record she has, I could see that.

[00:33:26] Obviously we know based off the first episode, we're getting an episode with the death of Frederick. So I assume that she will play a part in that and I could definitely see her being part of that.

[00:33:39] Doing just that and really exacerbating the things that already kind of, his faults that he already has. Like she's done with everyone else. Yeah, because it, I mean that seems to be the trend so far is, I mean, Leo just went off the rails about the cat.

[00:34:00] And maybe he, I think he already had some of that in him, but I think that her presence exacerbated it. I think the same with Victorine. And I think I'm seeing it in Tammy.

[00:34:16] It seems like when she comes into their lives in some way, then they start to spin out of control. Things just start to go out of control for them. But yeah, okay. But maybe, yeah, you're right, that hasn't happened with Freddie yet.

[00:34:34] I think it's interesting because she really inserted herself in all the other siblings already. Like in one episode, it was like boom, boom, boom. And it was like, oh wow, it's not even just focused on one sibling.

[00:34:44] She's already kind of infiltrated a little in the other siblings' lives. So okay, well, I take that back. Maybe I'm wrong. The ones that have taken more of a mental break to get them to that point.

[00:34:57] She's had to get in a little early and start sowing those seeds. Maybe seeing how he acted, Freddie I mean, acted this episode is going to be a little insight that it's just going to get worse. Because I mean, it has to happen, right?

[00:35:13] Eventually she's going to make an appearance in his life. And so we don't know how or anything like that. But it's going to happen, I feel. I don't think that's a spoiler to say because we know what happens to all the kids.

[00:35:28] We don't know the details, but we know that they all die. And I think it will definitely play off of his obsessive personality and his control. Which I actually have a really big theory on exactly how he's going to die.

[00:35:41] But I don't know if I want to say it because again, I haven't seen it. But just in case it seems too spoilery for people. Just based off of like, again, the newspaper clipping in the first episode and really thinking about things that were said in that.

[00:35:52] Which I mean, it was included in the episode for people to read. So I don't know. I'm on the fence of whether I should give that or not. Maybe at the end. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see.

[00:36:03] Maybe give a little spoiler-ish warning or something for folks if they want to hear it otherwise. But yeah, we will save that to the end. Okay, that was my long.

[00:36:16] I thought it was going to be short and ended up going into a little bit of a long ramble for me. So what's your next point? Alright, well the next point. Let's get into the bigger meat. Not the biggest one. Not the titular point I guess.

[00:36:31] But the other big one that I want to talk about is this Verna mystery and New Years. And the connections there from the past things we learned. And then also where Madeline and Roderick are now with the things that they're finding.

[00:36:51] We get a little bit more New Years. It's not a lot of new information. Roddy and Madeline are still there, setting up this alibi for whatever happened that night. Do have thoughts on that again on a different note, but we'll get there later.

[00:37:05] But then I like, yeah, Verna's conversation with Madeline is really interesting, where she's pointing out to her, I mean, she's the clear leader which we've talked about. She's seeing her as the powerhouse of this. I would say couple, but I mean sibling. The sibling team here, the twins.

[00:37:25] The queen without a crown as she calls her. All this potential and this power. She's definitely the one calling the shots, but she's always kind of in the background. Could you be more? Would you rather be rich or famous? This whole conversation with her.

[00:37:43] I like to say, thank God he's got you to call the shots. That's how she starts that conversation. Really sees her for what she is. And then there's the kiss between them at midnight. Which is ominous and interesting.

[00:37:57] It almost feels like before they even had that conversation that was alluded to or shown, that was almost the start of sealing a deal with a kiss, right? There's something definitely there. And of course talk about lighting again.

[00:38:14] It was very interesting in that we have Madeline in gold, well lit. And on the other side, Verna wearing all black shrouded in the shadow of Madeline's face. There's this very... You could really see the difference in lighting between the two as they meet in the middle.

[00:38:34] Which was really interesting. Wasn't that a beautiful shot? It was very beautiful. I mean it was spooky. It was beautiful. And hot. I'll say that. I'm not... But I mean, I got a little bit of a jump when Maddie turned and Verna was right there in her face.

[00:38:56] That was spooky to me. But continue. Yeah, so then going back into the current timeline but also flashbacks to the current timeline of the Confession. It's all time. But yeah, this new Verna picture that they have.

[00:39:14] Because they got pulled off of Leo's phone so now they've connected this to each person. So they're getting more of an idea of what's going on. Again, looking at the face. Now they have the security guard photo to this photo where they're like, that's who it is.

[00:39:30] And then they go down this rabbit hole a little bit of, well maybe it's... Madeline is saying, did you sleep with the bartender?

[00:39:36] And now it's another one of the siblings that has popped up and this one's psychotic and going for some kind of crazy attention grab to get to the top and off all her other siblings. That's what they're running with. But obviously I don't think that's the case.

[00:39:52] But man, that picture that Leo took is just creepy when you see it. What the hell?

[00:39:58] Because it's that picture that he took whenever she's like, oh yeah, hold the cat so I can send it to Julius or so I can compare them and see, wow, isn't it crazy?

[00:40:10] But yeah, in this picture, the actual picture that was taken, she's holding a rat, not a cat. And then her eyes are glowing like a cat's eyes would so you're already seeing that he was definitely enchanted from the time he met her.

[00:40:23] Which I assumed was definitely the case. It was definitely not a pet shelter that he thought he was walking into. There's a lot of mind things that are going on with anyone interacting with her.

[00:40:34] But it leads Madeline again to bring up the New Year's 1980, which Roderick is very upset about. He's stating, we swore we would never talk about it again. But Madeline doesn't really care because she's onto something. She's like, this is important, this means something.

[00:40:51] And I loved Arthur in that scene where they start talking about that creepy bartender, did you sleep with her? And now we have something. And then Arthur, who is clearly, because they swore to never talk about this, has never heard a single bit of this story.

[00:41:03] And I love the way he goes, tell me everything. I did too. He's like, there's something that they haven't told him because I feel like he probably knows every single little skeleton in their closet because he's probably put them there. Yeah. So yeah, I love that too.

[00:41:27] He's like, tell me everything. I could not do his voice. But yeah, I laughed. And then after they fill him in on what's going on, you see him giddy almost. As giddy as Arthur Pym can get. Where he's chomping at the bit to go after this new lead.

[00:41:43] Where he's like, can I go talk to this person? Can I find… I'm going to assume that unless you specifically tell me not to do something, I'm going to do it this way. And he's like, please, please. It's his favorite thing to do, clearly.

[00:41:58] I'm going to be hostile. I'm going to be hostile, unless you say so. And then he's just like, okay, yay! And practically skips to the door.

[00:42:04] Yeah, because he has that conversation with August in an earlier scene where he's very much like, oh, you're such a great lawyer and you're good at this. Why do you work for these people? And it almost seems like out of necessity.

[00:42:17] But no, we see the real Arthur here where he loves what he does. He's good at it and he's happy to do it. And then the creepy kind of thing of the receipt that Madeline wants for him talking to this person. Her eyes. I want her eyes.

[00:42:34] Which then, just one of those clever little things is from that, the next scene that we get is Verna. And those eyes! She's in Vic's office talking to her and it kind of pulls out from there. Which is just a fun little editing choice.

[00:42:51] It's just, I like that a lot. They did some amazing things this episode. I mean, they always do. I mean, there's always something, I think for me anyway, to delight in with the direction, the lighting, you know, all their choices. I think have been really great.

[00:43:12] But this episode for sure definitely had some great direction and cinematography and such. Oh yeah. And I guess the last little part about this is, because we see Madeline is very much on track of like, this is connected to New Year's. 100%. That's where she's at.

[00:43:27] And Roderick seems to be like, no, that's crazy. What are you talking about? We're not going to go down that road. But then we do see that when it's just him, no, he's thought about it and he's probably on the same page.

[00:43:40] We see him down in the basement at Fortunato talking to the brick wall again. You must be enjoying this. Because clearly he remembers the bartender that Madeline mentioned. He just didn't want to talk about it because he goes, I never, I never touched her.

[00:43:53] You know, he's saying, I didn't sleep with her. But then that brings him to the realization of the truth is even more insane. Because it's like, because if that's not what happened, then it's the same person who's here today.

[00:44:05] And there's still pieces that we don't get about whatever deal was made or conversation was had between them. But you see those little gears ticking in his head where he's. Something is coming back like he's putting pieces together. Some of it we're still not seeing. I love that.

[00:44:21] Then you'll get the little clinging sounds from behind the wall where he just responds, fuck you too. It's like man's freaking bells. Those little jingles. Yeah.

[00:44:32] But then Roderick says to himself, he says, if what's happening is really the crazy thing that I think is happening, that, you know, that this bartender. This Verna is back. He says, well, I can end it by ending myself.

[00:44:47] And we have that little scene where he's in that office upstairs where he's kind of talk about, you know, overdose. That would look bad for the product. So Pukku, no, doesn't work out that way.

[00:45:00] You know, take a page from Leo's book, jump, which then leads to possibly the mostly visually stunning sequence. Not just this episode, but maybe this whole show so far is honestly like as dark and morbid as it is. It was gorgeous.

[00:45:17] Honestly, with him talking the whole 10 seconds and the whole, you know, where he pretends to smash the window with the sword and then, you know, the wind blowing as it's like, you know, open the window and then him leaning back and having like the cityscape coming down behind him.

[00:45:30] And then him. I thought it was just really cool. It's definitely dark, but beautiful. Like I was just like, man, what a really cool sequence.

[00:45:39] Of course, at side note, at this point on my first watch while I'm laying in bed on my phone watching this happen, that's when my shower to curtain in the bathroom decided to just fall, which was super fun for me while watching an intense horror show.

[00:45:55] You know, just I know there. Don't know why that happened. I was like, well, now that I've almost had a heart attack, let me fix that and then watch the rest of this episode. Oh, my gosh. That's terrible. Yeah.

[00:46:15] But yeah, but but aside from that terrifying moment when I was first watching it, then even again, watching it today on the second watch before this, it is it's just an incredible sequence. And then we see him again, like really contemplating it.

[00:46:28] And then he goes to smash the window. No, instead he just goes to visit Vic, which I don't know if that was a better choice or not. I don't know if it was or not. I agree. I'll just add to that.

[00:46:44] It is dark because what he's talking about doing to himself is very dark. But I feel like Mike Flanagan definitely has a way of mixing that dark and beautiful, like dark, dark subject matter.

[00:46:59] But it kind of being a beautiful kind of scene or beautiful in this moment to look at that visual of what it would be like as he's thinking about the best way to go about that.

[00:47:13] You know, as the floors like dropping, you know, it was it was stunning. It reminds me of some of the beautiful visuals we got in Dr. Sleep. Yeah. You know, there were some beautiful visuals in that movie.

[00:47:29] And I'm like, yep, we're seeing that same guy, you know, that that gave us some of that, you know, beautiful visions in this episode as well. Yeah, which pretty little tangent on that. I think we've mentioned it before.

[00:47:42] I think like Dr. Sleep might be my favorite King adaptation film. And it's because of that Flanagan touch where the things that you're watching are absolutely horrifying, but yet so beautiful visually. It's like it's a hard watch, but a visually beautiful watch at the same time. Yeah.

[00:48:00] I love that juxtaposition, you know, between that. So, yeah. Well, talking about the flashback from New Year's, I have a small point because I don't. There's so much mystery. So I feel like I'm not gaining a lot of insight.

[00:48:20] Like we're just getting these small little pieces and I still don't know how everything fits into the puzzle. I'm confident we're going to learn eventually. But I'm still confused about a lot of what happened and what were being shown.

[00:48:34] And it's got to be important for as little as what we're getting has to be important. Right? I keep telling myself that I'm like, because I keep I have this craving to get more information, but we're only getting like these little pieces.

[00:48:48] Because I remember it wasn't last week. I was like, I hope I see freaking New Year's again. Like, let's get back to that. Let's find out what the hell happened already. Well, we got back there, but we got just a teeny tiny little bit.

[00:49:00] And I'm like, okay, if he's only showing us just this little bit has to be for a reason. There has to be something we're supposed to learn from this. But I don't know what it is yet. I'm hoping that I would just get more pieces.

[00:49:12] But I found it interesting that Verna in this scene with Maddie, like she's done in other scenes with Leo. Pretty sure she did it with Perry too. I didn't go back and rewatch the scenes.

[00:49:28] I just I have not had the time to like go back and watch all of her interactions with the other siblings before they died. But she talks a lot about different times in history.

[00:49:40] And the way that she's talking about these times, she's referring to Cleopatra, talking about the Bible and the story behind the Ravens that Roderick mentioned.

[00:49:56] The way that she references these times in history, it's like instead of stories or just talking about history, she's almost talking about it like she was there. And I'm like, what the hell are you? Or who are you?

[00:50:14] It adds to the mystery of Verna and who or what is she? I mean, I feel like it's. I feel like this she has to be some kind of almost supernatural.

[00:50:27] I don't know. I don't I don't know if I how much I want this story to have a supernatural element. I don't think I mind it so much, but I don't know.

[00:50:36] We'll see how it ends up, you know, but I feel like especially like with this episode, there's a little bit of super supernatural happenings here. So I found that interesting about Verna. I was like, here she is again with more history references.

[00:50:49] And she's not just talking about it like, you know, it's like she's she was there and she lived it. We get more insight into Maddie's obsession with living forever. She's referring to it here again, basically saying that that's what she wants.

[00:51:08] You know, she chooses to be rich versus famous when Verna's prodding her and asking her the questions. She doesn't want to let a man have power over her. And when she's like, okay, so you're rich. What now?

[00:51:23] And she's like, you know, I want to figure out how to live forever. So we've heard about her idea for AI and algorithms. She collects all of these rare antiques and, you know, things that have to do with the afterlife or the thought of living forever.

[00:51:44] So and then when you mentioned the kiss, did that seal some kind of deal between them? Was that solidifying something? And then I wonder, does Maddie even know what that meant? You know, because she recalls New Year's Eve. She recalls something that her and Roderick did.

[00:52:04] She recalls Verna being this bartender. But does she not recall that or does she not think it was of any importance? I mean, they had a conversation with her. We saw it in the first episode. But is that something that they don't remember? Does she not remember?

[00:52:20] Is that something that she's choosing not to remember? I don't know. But I'm like, well, there was something there. We just haven't seen it yet. So I don't know. But it felt a little bit like a handshake with the devil. But in this scene, it was a kiss.

[00:52:38] Is what I was kind of getting the vibe of. I don't know if I'm right because, again, I feel like we're just getting these little bits, but they're important. Yeah, I want to see more. But I have full faith that we will.

[00:52:52] Because I mean, thinking, I mean, because there's three episodes left in the way that they've done it. I mean, it's perfectly fitting. Eight episodes and there's six kids where we had kind of a prologue. We got to see set up everything.

[00:53:02] We have the six episodes of the six kids, and then we'll have one final episode as kind of the bookend, the epilogue to really wrap everything up. And I think that it's going to get pulled off perfectly. I have faith in Flanagan. I do. I do.

[00:53:19] But, oh gosh, it just it's I'm just like, just give me a little bit more. It just he knows how to tease. That's for sure. Like, I'm going to give you a little a little bit here, but I'm not going to give you the whole thing.

[00:53:33] What's your next point? All right. Really, my last main point, big point. I've got a lot of notes on and then I'll have some extra notes and stuff that we've talked about. But. As I like to, I mean. The telltale heart.

[00:53:47] Let's talk about what's what makes this episode what it is. We talked about again, like the episode opening with the heart mesh sound and then again. The full credits, I did sit and soak in those this time, like the chimpanzee ones we had in Episode three.

[00:54:07] The entire credits are just this haunting, repetitive mechanical click of the heart mesh, which. Man, just really sets that tone and feeling of unease, right? But yeah, where this story really starts off is this argument between Victorine and Alessandra, her partner in business and romantic ways. Yeah.

[00:54:33] Where Alessandra hasn't even learned that she's doing this trial surgery on quote unquote Pamela until right now. And shocker, she's not okay with it. Which, you know, they're not ready for human trials. Allie knows that. And she's also pissed that she had no say in the ordeal whatsoever.

[00:54:52] So now that she has a say, she's saying no. And then where she gets really upset once she makes this connection while talking to Vic that, wait a minute, how did you get this passed?

[00:55:03] And it was like, you falsified the reports, you forged my signature, which there's a callback, right? See, there's a nice little callback to Roderick and Fortunato and his forged signature. Yeah. Through all generations, Fortunato's forging signatures for everything they want to get done.

[00:55:20] But yeah, once she realizes that's what's happened, they really have this big knockout, drag out verbal fight. Which all of it with a total eclipse of the heart by Bonnie Tyler playing in the background, which is just fitting. Oh wow. Yeah. Absolutely fitting. Man.

[00:55:38] Oh, Vic's pulling this whole, well you used my money card trying to guilt trip her. Oh, you wouldn't have been able to accomplish anything without my money, Fortunato money.

[00:55:47] So you're complicit in all the things we're doing as well because you knew that you could never get these things accomplished without us and without me. And then I think it kind of backfires because Allie agrees.

[00:56:00] She's like, you're right, which is why now I'm choosing to do the right thing and I'm going to leave you again, business and romantic wise. And then they talk about the NDA, it's like, well you signed that NDA so you're not going to talk.

[00:56:14] And Allie says, no, I'm gonna talk. I love that, well it doesn't cover illegal activity so, and she goes, yes it most certainly fucking does. That's a PIM special. That dude thinks of everything. Yeah.

[00:56:29] And then the wording, again warning her, if you go against it, if you speak out. And she's talking about legally, the lawyers, they will rip you apart. It's like, well, maybe they won't but uh. Someone will. Someone might.

[00:56:42] And then again that line comes up when Allie says, I don't care if you sue me or rip me apart. You know, fuck I should have seen it, you ushers, you're all fucking monsters. It's like, eh, it's a bad choice.

[00:56:55] Which even on first watch, I mean obviously Vic picks up that bookend and throws it at her and then it cuts to black and I'm like, well. Yeah, I know that's gonna end in tragedy, like you know exactly what's happening. Yeah, that was not what shocked me. No.

[00:57:12] No. Right, which then immediately the next scene Vic is hearing that sound in her head as she's sitting in the office. Which, so you know what's happened, cause like I said, if you're familiar with the Telltale Heart, which I feel most people are, we know what's going on.

[00:57:28] As soon as that clicking starts happening and Victorine is distracted and bothered by it, you're like, you put those pieces together, you're like, well then obviously she killed Allie and is covering it up in some way.

[00:57:41] But what's unique about this version of the story is that even Vic has blocked it out completely. Cause she's calling and leaving voice messages for Allie, she's, you know, wondering where's her girlfriend, what's, you know, oh call me back.

[00:57:55] So it's kind of the clicking leading her to discover her own crime.

[00:58:00] So I've got another one of these if you're interested, I know this one is a big, most people know this story, but again cause I found it on a lot of these other ones, is this quick synopsis. Cause they're fun to kind of look at.

[00:58:12] So the Telltale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe of course, the story begins with the narrator defending his sanity, explaining that he's not mad, but rather has heightened senses.

[00:58:20] He claims that his ability to hear sounds from heaven and hell lead him to develop an obsession with an old man's eye. The old man, eyes again, little references to the eyes in this one. There's the old man with whom the narrator lives, yeah, roommates, they were roommates.

[00:58:39] Yeah, but this man has a clouded, pale blue vulture-like eye which distresses and manipulates the narrator so much. So he's driven to madness by the eye and the narrator decides to kill the old man.

[00:58:51] And each night for seven consecutive nights, he stealthily enters the old man's room but the eye remains closed, preventing him from acting. So on the eighth night however, the old man awakens and senses a presence in the room.

[00:59:02] Despite the narrator's efforts to remain hidden, he accidentally makes a noise causing the old man to wake fully. Terrified, the narrator waits in the dark until the old man's fear subsides.

[00:59:11] When a single ray of light shines on the eye, the narrator's obsession reaches its peak and he lunges at the old man, suffocating him with his bed and dismembering the body.

[00:59:20] After concealing the corpse beneath the floorboards, the narrator hears a persistent thumping sound which he believes is the old man's heartbeat. The sound intensifies, tormenting him and driving him to confess his crime to the police.

[00:59:31] So he invites the officers to search the premises, confident that they won't discover any evidence. As the investigation progresses, the narrator becomes increasingly agitated, tormented by the incessant sound of the heartbeat, which he believes is growing louder.

[00:59:44] Consumed by guilt, he finally breaks down and confesses to the officers, revealing the location of the body. To his surprise, the police officers claim they haven't heard any sound.

[00:59:51] The narrator's guilt overwhelms him and he becomes convinced that the beating heart he hears is his own, and the relentless tension and psychological torment brought on by the guilt ultimately lead to his mental collapse and descent into madness.

[01:00:04] So again, they change the story in a lot of little ways, but leaving the kind of spirit of it. I think it was beautifully done. This was a really great, I think, adaptation, and a little twist on the original story. Because yeah, you're right.

[01:00:26] Like you said, even if you haven't read everything Poe has done, most people know the Telltale Heart.

[01:00:33] I mean, at some point, if you've ever taken any type of middle school or early high school lit class or something, you've definitely studied a little bit of Poe and had to read something.

[01:00:44] This is definitely one of his more popular works, and I thought it was a really nice adaptation. There's a couple of moments where Vic almost learns about her father's diagnosis.

[01:00:59] The first one being Madeline coming in with her own vested interest in the human trials, because she's worried about her brother after learning about his diagnosis. And she's trying to relay the importance to Vic, but of course she's distracted by this mysterious ticking noise.

[01:01:13] And no, it's not Potter Puppet Pals. It's a different one. It's a different one. And then later, you know, Carla Gugino with her master class beginning again as Pamela, again, is talking to Vic about the concerns. And Vic is still distracted by the ticking, clicking mechanical heart.

[01:01:33] And I noticed, you know, Pamela slips back into full Verna while Vic is distracted. It's kind of messing with Victorine's head even more. She's going to change the accent, the body language, her affectation, everything. And it's like, what's more important to you? Being famous or saving lives?

[01:01:55] Like the accent changes the whole thing. You're just like, whoa, you've always dreamed about one of those, not so much the other. Again, it's incredible what she does. We talked about the orange lighting and stuff, that's where we really first see it.

[01:02:10] A random note that I kind of picked up on is when Vic is calling Allie again after that, she starts to say I love you and then ends it with, you know, she changes it there. I'll give you anything you want, name your price.

[01:02:22] It's like kind of the mask is off. She's accepting who she really is. Too late though, because she has already killed Allie, just doesn't remember it at this point. It's interesting because last episode, I wasn't sure where Roderick was going with it.

[01:02:38] But in his conversations with Augie during last week's episode, he talked a lot about denial. And I was like, okay, it makes sense. I feel like that probably does play a lot into the story and probably a lot in Roderick's story as well.

[01:02:53] I'm sure there's a lot of denial that we're going to learn about from him too. But I feel like that really played a part in this episode with, you know, Vic not being able to really accept what she did. And this is how it played out.

[01:03:12] It affected her mentally and what she was able to kind of understand what was real and what was not. Yeah, which it gets, it goes to a whole other level. Way off the rails, which is really interesting. I get Tania Miller just... She's a wonderful actress.

[01:03:31] That entire truck of awards that we were backing up to Carla Gugino's house, we might want to share that with Tania Miller a little bit too. Like, hang on, I think, like, holy crap.

[01:03:43] Cause yeah, just to break down that last bit of the episode, which I'm sure you probably have thoughts and notes on this. So jump in whenever as well.

[01:03:54] But yeah, cause I mentioned Roderick going over there to visit her and Vic Dreen's blasting music to try to just drown out this insufferable sound that's constantly clicking on and on and on.

[01:04:05] And Roderick's trying to have this apology heart to heart with her about, you know, he's about to, again, it's the second time where she's about to learn. He's about to come clean, I feel like, about this diagnosis.

[01:04:16] He's trying to build it up and have her understand the importance and weight of her project. But that music and he's just like, can you turn it down? And then she's like, no, I can't.

[01:04:27] But then she does decide, she's like, actually, now that my father is here, maybe you can help me with this incessant noise. And for the first time, someone else can hear it. You know, almost made you wonder if she, she shared in some of his diagnosis.

[01:04:48] Cause I think we, or maybe I'll speak for myself. Leo, you know, wondered if maybe he shared in some of that, you know, as well, the same affliction that Roderick suffers from. If maybe Vic Dreen also suffered because then he's like, oh, I can hear it too.

[01:05:07] And I was like, oh, what? Yeah. She's like, everybody else has told me they can't hear it, but then he can hear it. And say, you wonder about that, but then it's like, no, he can hear it because this time for real. Yeah.

[01:05:17] The click is coming from inside the house. Oh my gosh, so twisted. Yeah. And then Allie walks by in the background, which then just like all within Vic's head, it leads her to remember exactly what happened.

[01:05:33] But it's still this like weird version of it because she's like, oh, I remember, but she seems happy. And she's like, dad, I remember where she is. And then going in and oh, don't take that tone with me.

[01:05:44] And it's just very like she is completely lost it in the orange lighting.

[01:05:49] But yeah, I mean, we see what happened is, yeah, the bookend, obviously when she chunked it at her, hit her in the head with it, this blunt force trauma that leads Allie to just bleed out and die right there on the floor.

[01:06:00] And then you see her like panicking and about to call the police and then like full psychotic break mode where instead she's like, what if I just cut her open and install the heart mesh and to this lifeless corpse?

[01:06:12] And then we learn that's what this sound is, is that mechanism that's just forcing a dry, dead heart to endlessly beat for nothing. And that's what we're hearing. And.

[01:06:24] She just keeps the body propped up in the other room, she goes and talks to it, and it's just like, yeah, this is horror, this is fucking dark. This might be the darkest.

[01:06:32] We melted a whole building full of people in the second episode, and this might be the darkest moment of the show. Yeah, dark and hard to watch. And I think as we were talking about in the beginning of the episode really stuck.

[01:06:49] Like it took like, I'm yeah, I'm glad we can sit with this one for a little longer, couple extra days because a lot of this was really, it was uncomfortable, but also interesting and so well done and well acted.

[01:07:10] Yeah, just Tania Miller does a great job of like, you can see just in her eyes. You can tell where she is mentally, just the way that her eyes look. So let's talk about that.

[01:07:24] You've you've brought, you know, talked to obviously this is one of my points as well, obviously, because we're both we're going to talk about it for sure. It's the main point of this episode and hugely impactful, obviously.

[01:07:37] And you've said a lot of things that I was going to say as well. But what I want to really talk about is after. Allie is discovered in the room. And you see these shifts.

[01:07:53] With Vic and yes, we get that orange hue and it seems like she's kind of back in kind of like what she was in her office with Pamela slash Verna. This shift in her mentally a little bit that she seems a little I'm not sure what's real.

[01:08:10] I don't quite, you know, like I'm a little in denial about what's going on. You know, she's kind of having that what's real, what's not kind of thing. There is a moment.

[01:08:23] When she's looking at Allie and she grabs the knife and when she turns her head and she looks at Roderick. Now.

[01:08:33] I feel like just for a moment and it could just be maybe I was sleep deprived when I watched this episode, but I feel like for just a split second. It's almost like she breaks the fourth wall.

[01:08:46] And stares into the camera before she can keep talking to Roderick. And I wonder if that has anything to do with you know, you gave that lovely summary of the telltale heart.

[01:08:57] There's a line one of the opening lines. It says observe how healthily how calmly I can tell you the whole story and I feel like her if that's true that she's doing that when she looks at us as you know, telling us the story and we then become the judge of the story kind of like is what happens in pose story is how it feels a little bit.

[01:09:26] Yeah. Sorry, go on. Do you have thought? Yeah, because it does it leads us to even wonder what exactly is real in this moment. I mean, I feel like I mean, yeah, definitely. Vic ended up stabbing herself in front of her father like I think that did happen.

[01:09:44] But like some of the interactions like the way things went down because there is a line. When Vic has the knife at Roderick and she says, maybe if you just jumped, I wouldn't have to do this. It how she wouldn't have known.

[01:09:59] Yeah, she she wouldn't have known about that. So it's definitely something in his head to yeah. Yeah, like who whose viewpoint I guess are we are we getting? What are we seeing? What are we what are we being shown?

[01:10:14] This episode goes a little bit further because we've seen Verna shape shift or I don't know if that's the accurate explanation or if that's truly what happened. But whatever it was, it happened with Camille.

[01:10:27] And that chimpanzee and Verna, whether she's a shape shifter, whether she can make her believe she's seeing something that's not really there. I'm not sure. Same thing with Leo. She was able to make him think he was seeing something. She's holding a rat, not a cat.

[01:10:45] This cat did not exist. You know, whatever. Did she somehow embody a little bit Vic for a moment? Because I don't think she Vic didn't really come to until after she had the scalpel plunged into her heart.

[01:11:08] Yeah, it was because you almost see like if she's possessed because that she turns it on herself that like those eyes that she's looking at. She stabs herself.

[01:11:18] And then there's this moment where she almost wakes up and like realizes where she is and has a daddy and is like, yeah, where it's like now Vic is back, but she wasn't there before. No, no. And how much of it was Vic and her?

[01:11:36] Because I do think something mentally happened to her after that incident with Ali. I think, you know, in this heat of the moment, anger, this argument and she throws that bookend at Ali and kills her.

[01:11:50] And then when she realizes what she's done, she's not able to accept that. Right. So she goes into full denial, can't accept it. Still calling Ali like she's going to answer the phone. She's thinking, oh, we're just having a moment.

[01:12:04] We've had this really bad argument and she's not answering me. Right. She's ignoring my calls or texts or whatever. She can't accept what she's done. That makes sense.

[01:12:11] But there was something and today Miller just really knocked it out of the park in her performance where she is shifting in and out. But there was something about when she turned around after she looked at Ali and then she turned around and looked at Roderick.

[01:12:29] It was almost like she embodied. Verna a little bit like what we saw from Verna. Now, she still had like her accent. It wasn't like she was speaking in like a different accent or something.

[01:12:41] But there was something about her movement, something about how she spoke that sounded a lot like Verna and that smile. Her frickin smile looked like Verna's did. Yeah. Even to a point. And I don't think that Vic would have been able to do that.

[01:12:59] And I don't think that Vic would have really done that to herself if not somehow compelled. If Verna wasn't some in some way channeling her a little. I don't believe that in that and for those few seconds there that that was really Vic.

[01:13:15] I think Verna had something to do with that because yeah, she when she came to and she had the scalpel in her heart or knife, whatever it was. And she was like, Daddy, there was like a light switch went off or something. She was back. I don't know.

[01:13:33] That was all the things everything happening here was so intense. Yeah. I mean from yeah, the that act like, you know, being just impressed with like watching her in and out the horror of what's going on.

[01:13:46] And then in Flanagan style, he still managed to slip a joke in there, at least something that's that dark, dark comedy where I was like, I shouldn't find it funny.

[01:13:57] But I did and I like kind of giggled a little bit, even as awful and like dark as it is. But it was that moment where, you know, Roderick is like, how do I get out of this situation? He's like, you're fully funded.

[01:14:10] Let's just let's go and talk about, you know, he's trying to just like extract her from the situation. And she has that moment. Well, not until she apologizes, not until she promises to be a team player.

[01:14:20] And the way he just goes, well, she's she's quite dead, isn't she? Just the way he says that I couldn't help but laugh. I couldn't either. I'm questioning everything about myself is laughing at these truly morbid scenes and lines and such.

[01:14:39] I'm like, oh, there's clearly I need to look a little bit at myself. But I don't know. But I can't help it. I did, too. I can't imagine it had to be completely shocking to Roderick.

[01:14:54] I mean, he's probably seen and done extremely dirty, underhanded things over the years. You know, and especially in his business and such. But I can't imagine walking in on something like that, that, you know, you're one of your children is responsible for.

[01:15:14] Like, what the hell did you do? Yeah. And not even like, oh, no, you found the body. But then for Vic to walk in behind him and go, oh, there she is. Like, oh, something is very wrong. Yeah. Something really bad happened here.

[01:15:28] Yeah. It was interesting to see Roderick, too, as you were talking about earlier in this vulnerable kind of state where he really just kind of decided it seemed like he was getting ready to kind of confess to Victorine a little bit because they've gotten pretty close to, you know, revealing, oh, there's this very special patient.

[01:15:53] You know, that it's going to need this. So it's really important that we get this right. And she's under all this pressure. And I feel like Roderick was maybe, maybe that's where he was going.

[01:16:03] I don't know if he was actually going to because we got interrupted, you know, with what happened next. But, you know, he found that he couldn't carry out what he was talking about in the previous episode.

[01:16:16] And I think feeling pretty guilty for pushing Victorine as much and putting her under so much stress and feeling like maybe if he hadn't done that, she wouldn't have actually done what she done. But I don't I don't think maybe that did play a part.

[01:16:33] But I think it I think all of this somehow ties back to Verna in some way. What do you think he meant?

[01:16:39] Do you think when he was talking to himself and, you know, he's talking about either overdosing on pills or something like that, that or, you know, how he was going to handle handle that when he said.

[01:16:51] If if he's able to do that, it saves the rest of them. Like, is that part of I don't know. That's another one of those. Like, is that supposed to be part of it? Was there something like it's all he's supposed to pay some kind of price and.

[01:17:10] Yeah, but then again, there's that moment with with Vic. As Verna possibly, whoever has that line, if you know, maybe if you would have jumped, this wouldn't happen because then she follows that up with, of course, it would. So, yeah. What is all of this?

[01:17:28] I don't know these little pieces. So much mystery. Well, let's see. I have one one more and then I think notes and this kind of ties maybe a little bit more into what we were already talking about.

[01:17:48] But it's kind of just looking at all the episodes so far with Roderick and the siblings and their relationships. I'm like, I don't know that any of them. Are capable of love. It's like they're so obsessed with power and money.

[01:18:05] And I and I feel like that's how so much of this started. Like, that's where our story kind of started seeing them as children who their father was. The flashbacks that we're getting the desire to take back what they felt is their birthright.

[01:18:22] Madeline saying she would rather be rich than famous wants to live forever. Roderick in the flashbacks isn't doesn't seem to be super greedy, but he is now anyway.

[01:18:36] And it seems to have trickled down to his children as well because it feels like again, this is like the root of everything. Roderick and Madeline, which is this is one of my notes as well, but I'll include it in in my point here.

[01:18:52] You know, where did they come from? Their mom had an affair with her boss. So that was probably more out of lust than love, which everyone apparently knows. Side note, that's yeah, that was part of my note was this little reveal that we got from.

[01:19:12] Oh, shoot, what's his name? Roderick's boss. Thank you, Griswold. Too many freaking names. There's a lot and all the flashbacks and present day and going back and forth. Griswold, thank you. Has revealed like everybody knows everybody knows about you.

[01:19:30] We don't we still don't know what happened to Roderick and Annabelle. Like I feel like he loved her deeply. They had a true loving relationship. So what happened to her?

[01:19:42] Because then he goes through these other women and they they're kind of referenced as like these one night stands. You know, not any love or feelings really behind them.

[01:19:56] Like so much so that when their moms are at the funeral, he gives them just like a barely a glance like, you know, and just moves on.

[01:20:06] And I'm like, holy crap, you have children with these women and you barely acknowledge their presence and and their loss as well. Perry and Camille, they only had transactional type relationships didn't seem to be a lot of like love, you know, in those relationships.

[01:20:26] Napoleon with Julius, I mean, he had a partner, but it was very much like, well, Julius had to kind of toe the line a little bit. Right. Like, hey, you know, you and I can be in this relationship and it can be kind of a good thing.

[01:20:38] But I, I have to be able to do all the drugs that I want to do and you can't complain or say anything. And I have to be able to sleep with other people or whatever. And that that just has to be OK.

[01:20:51] Like Julius has to be OK with all of those things in order to be with Napoleon, which sounds awful. We'll talk about dishonesty with with Leo, not even just to Julius. But I mean, in a way, he's dishonest with himself.

[01:21:07] That's his whole relationship was him lying to himself that he could have a normal committed relationship when clearly it was just, you know, he was it was a cover up for himself to be like, see, look, I can have a normal relationship. I can love a person.

[01:21:20] But no, I mean, clearly he's lying to himself. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And we talked about Freddie and Maury, which, you know, I thought that like, oh, they're like a normal relationship or something. You know, they're they're married, have a child. But I feel like there's something deeper there.

[01:21:37] You know, you mentioned earlier about like back in like what was episode one or whatever, a little bit about things that, you know, little things that we heard.

[01:21:45] And then in like this episode, he's he's so obsessed with this lie that that Maury told that now he's like just yanking her right out of the hospital. And it's like, what is this gonna be like a misery type situation?

[01:21:58] You know, so he goes on about not telling Lenore about not being able to trust people. So it's like, OK, that doesn't seem very healthy or loving. And we're reminded, you know, they're doing with the cockadoody phone.

[01:22:20] Oh, my God. If that came out, I would absolutely die if that's a line. Oh, my gosh. I don't know if I if I would like that or not. But that was absolutely hilarious.

[01:22:34] And what was scary, like you mentioned, you know, when the argument between Victorine and and Ali, there's an NDA that all of these partners have to sign.

[01:22:45] That can be used against them to prevent them from talking or to kind of make sure that they toe the line a little bit doesn't sound super loving there. And then look, Tammy's a terrible person. I've never. Oh, my God. Defended her or anything.

[01:23:02] I've always said all the siblings in their own way, even Leo, who was the least worst, I guess, if you want to say that out of the siblings. I thought, well, Tammy's Tammy's Tammy sucks for sure. But wow. You know, even her and her relationship and.

[01:23:21] I guess true relationship with her husband was revealed here because by the by the end, she just totally went off on him and said that she just chose him not because she loved him, but because his whole persona, his influencer, like sound like he was a bit of a fitness influencer on his own.

[01:23:43] And she chose him to not only be like a face for her brand and expand it and grow it, but also he could bring his own followers.

[01:23:53] Like if he had a good following, it's like, oh, we're just going to include yours with mine and have this huge empire. Right. So I'm like, gosh, none of these kids and Roderick and Madeline seem to really because I don't even think Roderick really loves Juno.

[01:24:07] I'm still. Yeah, it's like he married her out of it's all publicity is like, look at what my drug can do. And then I met my wife because she her life was saved by my drug. Look how amazing I am. It's yeah.

[01:24:21] Yeah. So, yeah, I don't think he loved her out of, you know, or married her sorry out of love or anything. So I'm just like none of these people can really.

[01:24:32] No, or have have experienced love and it's like they and in Victorine, you know, you mentioned like she was telling Ali getting ready to say I love you, but instead she's like, you know, just name your price.

[01:24:45] I'll give you anything that you want. They all seem to just value this money and power over over love. And I don't know if that's part of.

[01:24:55] Some sort of curse or something that's on them brought on by whatever Maddie and Roderick did or something, or if that's just what greed and power has done just completely rotted this this entire family.

[01:25:08] And maybe that's their curse. I don't know, but if it is some type of like a curse or something on them, but just I'm just like gosh, they're all rotten. And it's infected their relationships and it sounds just awful. I think.

[01:25:28] But that was just kind of like my last little note just observing all of these relationships and especially getting that insight with knew there was something between Tammy and Bill T there, you know, with this arrangement that they have but wow, she she didn't hold back.

[01:25:44] Do you have do you have thoughts about that? I know I have just a note about her in general.

[01:25:49] Yeah, I've just got notes left. But yeah, no one of hers is I mean, you know, one of the little bits of notes I have is definitely about her with also the mental degradation a little bit with Tammy.

[01:26:00] With Yeah, again, is it the effects of Verna mixed with her own anxiety, lack of sleep, these things where she's kind of imagining candy in the hallway with the bodyguard.

[01:26:12] But then that's not happening and she wakes up while Bill is in the middle of trying to have this conversation with her. What was that? That was was that real or. Is this again? It's like making you question like really what's real because then in that conversation.

[01:26:28] You know, she's accusing him of you're cheating on me with this this whore and then it was like, you know, she keeps appearing in all these streams and the bodyguard saw you walking with her in the park and he goes, That was you, you psycho. I was walking with you.

[01:26:41] I'm like, Oh, it's like she is like going off the deep end, you know, herself. And we saw how well that ended for Leo and Vic. So she's imagining things and seeing things and it's not even directly connected with like Verna necessarily right now, but kind of is.

[01:27:02] But yeah, she's just you know, he's Bill's trying to get her to postpone this brand launch because she's he's seeing that she's not in a good mental state and she hasn't been sleeping and she's refusing.

[01:27:14] And yes, we talked about she just becomes the worst person imaginable with, you know, Oh, you're just a pretty face and a body for the brand and it's all for all for optics and I don't actually need you. You're just an up an accessory and a product.

[01:27:26] An asset. Can you she is a real see you next Tuesday in this episode.

[01:27:34] Man, which I mean good for him. He grows some balls and walks away because get away from her before you get hurt because we see how things went for Allie and Perry's friends and you know run Bill don't stop just keep keep walking.

[01:27:50] It was it was refreshing. I mean, it sucked because Allie ended up dying, you know for trying to do the right thing, but it was at least good to see that that she hadn't let that infect her. She's like absolutely not as soon as she understood that her signature had been forged and what Vic had done.

[01:28:09] She's like, that's it. I'm out and she didn't care what the consequences were. Maybe if she knew what was really going to happen, maybe it'd been different or she'd found another way to get out. But it was refreshing to see from the both of them that they were like, wow. Okay. Well, I'm done. You know, not not gonna stick around for that. So at least at least there's some folks that are, you know, capable of doing the right thing.

[01:28:34] As much as I really like Matt Bedell as an actor for the character of Bill, I hope we don't see him again. I hope he just leaves and he goes and he's free and he doesn't have to get out.

[01:28:44] You don't know how lucky you were if you're able to get out from this point on. Yeah. Yeah, that was and how much of that is everything that's going on in their family. Siblings are dying. She's under a lot of stress trying to launch this her her her company, her brand, whatever.

[01:29:06] She's not getting any sleep that affects you. But then how much of that is also because Verna has infiltrated their their life, you know, and you know, is that also playing a part? Is it all the things? Is it just that it's hard to tell, you know, and I was confused. I was like, what? What happened there from the time that she opened and closed her apartment door to all of a sudden she's kind of waking up from, you know, I don't know from that or from something else when she's in bed and her husband's talking to her.

[01:29:36] I'm like, what is that all about? Where did time go? It's like a time loss kind of thing. Or did it even really happen? Right. So bizarre. I can't wait to see what happens next. Did you have any other notes? Because that's about what I'm down to. I was just scrolling through seeing what I got here.

[01:29:57] Yeah, because we've talked about a lot of them. Because yeah, we just kind of broke them down a lot of the other little characters with Freddie we've talked about. There's just a little scene I mentioned with Arthur and August sitting together, where and I mentioned August asking him, why do you do this? You're capable of much more. And I like his response. He says, I wouldn't be where I am today without Roger Gusher. Neither would you, by the way, like that is quite poignant.

[01:30:27] So true.

[01:30:58] I was like, Okay, what exactly is a continuance? Because I want to make sure I'm on the right page. And it's like, it's the exact opposite of what the word sounds like it should be. Because continuance, you would think continuing and it's like, no, it actually means to postpone or even adjourn the trial.

[01:31:14] I didn't realize that. Okay. Yeah.

[01:32:09] Yeah, that's really what he's pushing for. That's why Augie's so upset. But then you see from Arthur's perspective, where he's saying this, like, well, you're the one that brought up this informant and there's now a possible link between that. And so the safety of the ushers needs to be addressed. So that's why it's important. So yeah, Dupin gets very furious about that. And then he kind of goes on that rant, you know, where he's like, this is bullshit. You see him really just cracking under everything that's happening.

[01:32:37] And that judge, like you just like see it's like, you can't like 100% say, Oh, he's in the pocket of the ushers. But like the way that he like responds to things, you can see how August is like, clearly he is. But I can't tell him he is because then I'm in contempt of court for insinuating that he is. He constantly has to be like, I'm not insinuating anything, Your Honor.

[01:32:57] Clearly, like he's having to tiptoe this line with him. And he's furious with the judge too. Well, we know Alex Krychek. He plays both sides of the fence. So yeah.

[01:33:07] But yeah, with August speaking about you know, the ushers keep getting away with everything and everything. And I like the line where he's like, it's almost supernatural. And it's like, if you only knew which I thought about when you mentioned that earlier with even you got to get that feeling. It's like, yeah, that vibes there. But only if you knew what was going on.

[01:33:25] You have no idea, dude. We didn't talk too much about the confession at the house, which ties into that a little bit. Ties into that. Yeah.

[01:33:36] Because now it's time for August to make a confession of his own that yeah, as we kind of worried like wondered about even in early episodes, there never was an informant. He does confess that.

[01:33:46] It's right. Or at least I think, unless it was like a no, maybe it still is a thing. But I feel like I'm right. Yeah.

[01:33:53] Yeah. Where he says, you know, he did in fact stoop to a lower level just to shake up the ushers to cause discord. But he didn't expect the ushers to start dropping dead afterwards. Which then Roderick absolves August of that lingering guilt or worry it wasn't his fault. Roderick is taking full blame. How exactly? We'll get to that. Stop saying that, Roderick! I'm tired of you doing that! We want to know! We're waiting!

[01:34:23] But yeah, and then with that we get the ghost spotting in the house during the confession. This time with Tania Miller being just the most horrifying, you know, the pained and anguished moaning scream which again, she's so good at that kind of stuff. Like man, bravo.

[01:34:39] And then it leads to when Roderick is absolving August of that guilt, leads to this little tiny, I don't even know if I'd call it a monologue, but this couple sentences from Roderick that I thought was really interesting. He says,

[01:34:56] The mind of guilt is full of scorpions, and I wouldn't wish their sting on anyone. Never waste your time on guilt or shame. Is there alchemy a savage cross to bear? Which I did do some googling to try to figure out what these references were because I really definitely felt that like, is there alchemy a savage cross to bear? I couldn't find anything. The only thing it gave me was running around back to the fall of the house of Usher, but I didn't want to click on anything and get anything spoiled.

[01:35:24] So that's all it would lead me to because I was like, that sounds like a direct reference to something, but I couldn't find anything. Just beautiful Flanagan poetry, damn it.

[01:35:33] Now of course the first part of that, the mind of guilt is full of scorpions, that was a direct reference, but not Poe, which I was like, huh, they're not using a Poe reference. That is actually a Shakespeare quote from Macbeth. Ooh, interesting.

[01:35:51] It was really interesting, but this speech itself kind of summed up the series because I think people, Lindsay maybe? She's listening. But not to call her out on anything, it's just like there are people that are like, what is this show?

[01:36:02] It's not the heartwarming tragedy, which is a weird thing to think about, but that kind of sums up what Flanagan is, is heartwarming tragedy. That's kind of what he's good at.

[01:36:12] I was like, well that's not what's going on here, because it's usually grief is a big part of his stories and we're not really seeing that. Like, oh, the family's not grieving, they don't care.

[01:36:22] And so then it makes me think this is not a story about grief, but it's a story about guilt, at least from Roderick's perspective, but then also you mentioned another G word, greed.

[01:36:36] Because then he starts with this guilt speech, but then what line does he throw right there in the middle of it is never waste your time on guilt, shame.

[01:36:44] Where he's almost burying that right away, going, you know, it's this, the saying, what the love of money is the root of all evil, almost feels like a theme of this show as well. Yeah.

[01:36:58] But, you know, I would, I would almost argue that maybe in the scenes that we get between Roderick and Augie that he is grieving now. Like maybe, maybe not even when we see him at the funerals for his kids in the short, short clips that we got there.

[01:37:17] But I think at this point we are seeing him in grief because it seems like everything is stripped away because he's like, like he's telling Augie, he's like, dude, it doesn't even matter anymore. Like it's all over. You know, just, just tell me to say it.

[01:37:33] It's, you know, you know, so I feel like he's, he's kind of laid bare. And I think we're seeing the true Roderick a little bit anyway, evolved. But seeing, seeing not the young Roderick who was maybe a little naive, maybe a little vulnerable.

[01:37:52] And then the Roderick that we see more in a present day with his kids and how awful and greedy and just all about capitalism. You know, here I think we're seeing a combination of the two, but also a more honest version of himself.

[01:38:08] And I do think we're seeing him because he does seem to be grieving the loss of his children and the guilt, like you said, that does play into that at their death because at their deaths, because I think he is responsible in some form.

[01:38:24] And then I have one last little thing. Yeah. Is the flashback. There's not a lot of it again, but just to talk about some of the stuff that's revealed there with that, some of the meat of that.

[01:38:36] Where it looks like Madeline's trying to get her foot in the door at Fortunato. Yeah. Like that's what it seems is like, she's like, well, let me get a piece of this action. Let me become part of the company.

[01:38:46] And she's pitching this, you know, the algorithms and computers and all this stuff. She's, we're going to slingshot this company into the future. We're going to make some serious profit.

[01:38:53] It seems like that's what she's doing, which clearly she does do and is successful with later down the road. But I don't think, you know, as we learned, that's not really what she was doing is it was all gathering information on what can I pull out of Griswold?

[01:39:08] What kind of man is he? What are we dealing with? But then she manages to get a couple of little useful tidbits and secrets out of him in that conversation. And I think that's really what she was trying to do.

[01:39:21] Of course, she's just met with a lot of disgusting sexism from him. Oh my gosh, he's gross. Man, just terrible.

[01:39:28] But then, you know, following up with these hurtful words about their mother and, you know, the way that he's talking to her, I couldn't help to feel like he was just digging his grave one shovel full at a time as he's every word he says.

[01:39:40] I'm like, man, you don't know what you're messing with. I wasn't thinking shovel, but yeah, I was like, you don't. More of a trowel. Yeah.

[01:39:56] But yeah, and then we see after that, she was learning that because the Usher twins with Annabelle there in the room too are meeting with August DuPan. And they've learned that valuable information.

[01:40:09] And so they're going to have to move all of these still physical copies of things because he's not yet willing to move into the computer age.

[01:40:18] So there is hard physical copies that they can get lost in the move, as August says, you know, as they're moving from one building to the other. Maybe some things come up missing, which is interesting that that sounds highly illegal to me.

[01:40:32] Like maybe DuPan's been willing to play in the dirt a little bit longer than we think he has. For quite some time. It's interesting to see how he was a part of that and what that scene was all about.

[01:40:45] Yeah, because maybe this ties into the New Year's thing a little bit that like, well, we know Roderick and Madeline were up to something that night.

[01:40:52] And part of it is they're the ones that are being put up to task to go in and steal those records in the basement of Fortunato. I think I see where this is going. I won't say much more, but I think I see.

[01:41:06] I'm hearing what you're laying down. I don't know. But I'm like, we're just getting all of these things thrown in hints and things are being implied. And I feel like I know where you're going with that. And I agree.

[01:41:25] But it certainly shows, yeah, like you said, oh, it looks like he's not so above, you know, rolling around in the mud. You know, there with Roderick, like they were talking about in the scene in the old house.

[01:41:36] But yeah, a little bit back in the day that he's willing to use Roderick and Madeline to kind of, you know, like, well, we're going to forget about your little part that you were unaware of about the forgery on the, you know, of his signature and such.

[01:41:50] But, you know, I'm not above using you to try and, you know, get some more information because he's got something to prove. Right? Like he's got a boss that hates him.

[01:41:59] You know, he's trying to make a name for himself and get, you know, if he can do something with this investigation, then that puts him ahead too. So he's a little complicit in some of that too. Right. Very interesting. That scene was gross with Griswold and Madeline. Yeah.

[01:42:21] Yeah. So that's, I think I finally run out of notes on this episode. I had a lot. It's a big one.

[01:42:28] There was a lot, little small things, you know, giving us a little bit of insight into what could be happening next and for the other siblings and some more story. But, yeah, small things.

[01:42:45] In talking about Madeline and what she had said to Verna about not letting men have any power over her and her wanting to live forever. And I made a comment last week.

[01:42:57] I made a note about this because something I said last week and it really bothered me after I said it. So I made a note. You know, this is just me. No one wrote anything about what I said.

[01:43:08] But it bothered me that I said it because I said something about Maddie not having been married or having any children because I mentioned something about like, well, Roderick has went and had all of these children. And there's something behind that.

[01:43:19] There was like he had this, I think, loving relationship with Annabelle and he had two children from that marriage. But then he had all of these like cold, it seems anyway, being implied anyway, cold one night stands with these other women and had illegitimate children and such.

[01:43:34] And then he seems to have this strange kind of marriage with Juno that I'm not quite sure about what's going on there. But then Madeline, you know, has not been married or have any children.

[01:43:45] I made a comment about that and I was like, that was wrong of me because it's a perfectly valid choice to not want to have or to want children or to be married or have a partner.

[01:43:59] And I don't know if her outcome in life where she is today and not having any children or not having a partner or anyone in her life in that way, or at least that we know of anyway.

[01:44:12] You know, we see a lot about Roderick, but we don't get as much with Maddie. So I don't know. Maybe there's parts of her that we haven't seen in her personal life. I don't know. But maybe it was a choice for herself and that's OK.

[01:44:24] So I don't know if it had anything to do with this deal or whatever happened with Verna or if that was just like, yeah, no. Because she told Griswold, he's like, well, how do you like your morning coffee? And she's like, in solitude, just slow clap.

[01:44:38] Thank you very much. It's a great response. Oh, my God. I loved it so much.

[01:44:46] I mean, I think there are some really great parts of her as a young young person that she's so ahead of her time as far as feminism and such and wanting to be a very strong or she is a very strong, powerful woman, but definitely ahead of her time anyway.

[01:45:04] So I didn't like that. I said that because it's definitely valid. I just want to say it's no one needs me to tell them that or anything like that. But I was just like, I don't feel OK with what I said.

[01:45:15] And it's OK that Madeline, if she's made that choice and whatever. So I didn't want that to come across as like, like judgmental or anything, because, you know, it's not odd to make that life choice is perfectly valid and in fact, good for a lot of people.

[01:45:30] So I wanted to say that about Madeline and some things that she had said in this episode.

[01:45:35] So I don't know if maybe, you know, that that played a part with a little bit more insight that we got into this episode, but just wanted to kind of mention that in one of my notes.

[01:45:44] One note that I also made, I don't know if it's just me, but in the scenes with Roderick and Augie in this old house. I can't stop looking at that frickin basement door behind Japan. Yeah, I'm still curious. What the hell? It just sits there open, ominous, dark.

[01:46:07] And Flanagan has trained me since Hill House to look for hidden ghosts or noises. I was distracted behind Roderick because that like the little like white, like window, like the little can't think of the word for curtains.

[01:46:24] The curtains on the window would kind of blow in the wind a little bit behind that lamp. And I was just constantly catch my eye and be like, what is that? Oh, it's still the curtains. What is that? Still the curtains again.

[01:46:36] It was almost like in this episode. Do you hear that? Do you hear that noise? You saw that too? Because I was like, am I just because I'm like, I'm pretty sure I've got my glasses on and I'm seeing that clearly. I thought it was just me.

[01:46:50] I was like, no, you're just seeing things. But OK, I can't stop looking at that frickin basement door the way that it just stays open and it's dark and we'll hear noises that come from that direction. It's just Madeline. What does that mean? I can't frickin stop.

[01:47:08] It's so distracting. All I can look at instead of looking at Dupin, I'm looking at that frickin basement door. Like it's just creepy as shit. The way that it's just open like that, it bothers me. Let's see other notes.

[01:47:23] Oh, I wanted to just mention because we've talked a lot about Verna's when she's talking with each of the siblings before before they die. She kind of gives them an opportunity. And I think that Verna kind of did that a little bit in a previous episode.

[01:47:45] But I think she did it again here, too. But I don't mean maybe she didn't because I think never mind. Maybe I'm going back on that. Maybe she already did it in the previous episode when she was signing the papers. Isn't it that?

[01:47:59] It seemed like she was saying something else to her, too, because it seemed like she gave her an opportunity to at least come clean about what she did and face what she did when she was in her office.

[01:48:11] And she said, what's more important to you, saving lives or being famous? And it really echoed what she said to Madeline in the flashback to New Year's Eve. What would you rather be famous or rich? And without hesitation, Madeline said rich.

[01:48:26] And Vic never really gave a response to that, but it seemed like we know what was more important to her. And again, Carla Gugino kind of doing that slipping between characters is amazing.

[01:48:40] Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the opportunity that she gave Vic to to change her mind came last episode where. Yeah, it was very much like signing papers. Yeah. Talking about like, you know, here's my concerns. Are you sure this is a good idea? And she's like, yeah.

[01:48:57] I think that was her moment there. And it felt like even and maybe it felt like also like she had already done what she done. And by the time we see her in this episode, like she'd already killed Ali.

[01:49:13] But she still had an opportunity to like, I guess, well, maybe she didn't have the opportunity, but maybe if she'd been able to face what she did, maybe she was trying to bring her because she kept talking about Dr. Ruiz.

[01:49:23] I'd really love to talk to Dr. Ruiz. And it kind of kept playing with Vic. She kept hearing Ali's name, you know, kind of like making her even spin even more.

[01:49:31] But she was just like, you know. It was like she was almost kind of trying to make her at least face like you need to like realize or understand what you did.

[01:49:42] Like Vic just couldn't get there. And it's almost like she was trying to force her into that because then she was like slipping in and out of, you know, is this more important to you?

[01:49:50] But then she's like, OK, great. Just, you know, tell her, tell her to call me. And if she says it's a go, then I'm all good. So it was just interesting. That interaction. Yeah.

[01:50:01] You called out Total Eclipse of the Heart, but the song that Victorine was playing when Roderick came over that was drowning out the noise of the heart pumping was Hard on the Heart by Kingsborough. Great. Very tongue in cheek, but I love it.

[01:50:22] Yeah. Some great bookended songs for the episode. A lot of bookends in this episode, real and metaphorical. Yeah. I mean, when Ali is laying there on the floor, wasn't that just like, oh, my God, this is horrible.

[01:50:43] I mean, her like weird gurgling noises as she's like twitching and bleeding out was like horrifying. I mean, there were so many things that were hard and disturbing to watch. And kudos to that actress.

[01:51:00] I don't unfortunately know her name, but she played that really well, maybe too well. That was disturbing.

[01:51:07] And it was very weird and in an almost beautiful way, the way that she was bleeding out the back of her head where she'd gotten hit, but her hair was flowing in the blood. Was kind of beautifully grotesque at the same time.

[01:51:26] One other quote that I pulled from this episode that I thought was interesting was from Annabelle when she says, don't have to be smart to be dangerous. I mean, I'm not scared of rattlesnakes because they're smart. But that was a good quote.

[01:51:42] I'm interested to see how the rest of that story goes with those flashbacks. I want to know what happens between or either happens to Annabelle, what happened between her and Roderick, and what happens with Griswold and Roderick and Maddie.

[01:52:04] What happened at New Year's because that brick wall that he kept staring at looked very interesting is all I'll say. I'm definitely going to be watching episode six after this.

[01:52:21] I think that's all the notes that I've got. I think I'm, I finished that out. I think that's a good place to wrap. What do you think?

[01:52:29] I think so. Like I mentioned my prediction on the death of Freddie, but I'm going to just keep that in my head.

[01:52:35] But I'm going to circle back around in case somebody who's been listening to this is going, he mentioned that, why isn't he going to mention it again?

[01:52:40] So I will mention it again, but I think I've made the decision to hold on to it. And then just when we get to that in a future episode, I'll just honor system.

[01:52:51] I'll have to tell you if I nailed it or not, but I'm going to keep it for now. If our listeners were paying attention, when you called out those newspaper clippings, we'll know. It's recorded, we have that.

[01:53:07] But yeah, but like I have like kind of like a image in my head of like, well, what would, what would he do that would lead to the situation that's in that article?

[01:53:20] And I have an idea of why he winds up in the situation that it says he was in. And I, yeah. Oh, I don't have any of that. Yeah. I've got like a little story of like, well, how do we get from A to B?

[01:53:31] And I think based on what we learned about him in this episode, I think I see how it's going to go, but we'll see. We'll see.

[01:53:36] Oh, I can't wait. Well, you're probably right because you're good at analyzing that stuff and predicting. So, but we'll see. I can't, I can't wait.

[01:53:47] I don't know. I'm really excited to get to the, I just, I've got to get some answers. This is, it's making me crazy to not know.

[01:53:56] So, all right. Well, I think that's a good place to wrap it. Let's go ahead and jump into our listener feedback. We got some great feedback this week. Do you want to take the first one? Sure.

[01:54:08] Go ahead and take this one from Lindsay Schlicht. It says, well, geez, that was a crazy episode. So why do we think Frodrick is so desperate to get Maury home?

[01:54:16] And am I wrong or did Maury answer no with her blinks when she asked if she wanted to go, when he asked if she wanted to go home? Does she know something's up?

[01:54:23] And you were right, Rima, no informant. What would be an even more interesting twist as we find out later that there actually was an informant. Indeed.

[01:54:32] This scene between Rufus and Madeline was hard to watch. I'm going to enjoy watching his demise. I hope he is stuffed in a wall. That's great. I agree, just alone for what he said, Madeline, is enough, in my opinion, for him to be stuffed into a wall, 100%.

[01:54:54] She goes on to say, well, Arthur is probably not long for this world since they've sent him after Verna. Speaking of Verna, has it been mentioned yet that Verna is an anagram for Raven? Yeah, I think you brought that up in the first episode, didn't you, Rima?

[01:55:07] I don't think I even got that then. That was really cool. She says, I'm sure it has, I'm forgetting, but my slow ass only just realized.

[01:55:15] This actress who plays Tammy, I don't know which character is worse, this one or her character on Midnight Mass. She is so good at being so terrible. Yes, Samantha Sloyan.

[01:55:28] The final scene with Vic and her partner was fucking nuts. What was Vic talking about? How did she know Roderick didn't jump? Why did she wish he had? Like, why did it mean she had to kill herself? I'm so confused.

[01:55:40] Thank you for your kind words last week on the pod. This still isn't my favorite show, but I'm determined to finish just because of you guys. I've missed the podcast and you guys so much. Aww, thanks. Thanks, Lindsay. So kind of you.

[01:55:56] Next one is from Dawn Elizabeth. She says, I think of all the actors in this show are doing such a great job. Okay. I think this is because of Auggie saying there was an informant. Joke is on them.

[01:56:51] Now he and the ushers go way back as well. I'm curious to see more of that relationship. The scene that showed Roderick talking to the brick wall, that being in an episode titled the Telltale Heart is revealing.

[01:57:02] I think it is Madeline who was in there, but then again, we don't know what has happened to his first wife or Rufus. Al's last breath death scene was really gruesome to me. I had to look away.

[01:57:14] Lastly, when Roderick was at Vic's house at the end, she said something about how he didn't jump out of the building. How did she know that? I watched this one twice and wonder if I missed something. I'm sure you can let me know.

[01:57:26] Hopefully we had thoughts on that. So yeah, hopefully this will help her. Yeah, we had thoughts. I don't know that I'm right, but I feel pretty good about what we said. So hope that helps.

[01:57:37] All right. And then this one comes from Maureen Favo says, sorry, short on time. So quick takes. Finally back to Verna's bar, but we're still missing some answers. What do you think of the terms of deal? Obviously the kids lives. How great is that? How many ways to refer to bodyguards? Ray-Bans?

[01:57:57] That was funny. The tense conversations in this episode all well done and gut punches.

[01:58:02] How did Arthur Pym not know what Vic was up to, especially after Camille's death? Which way was Roderick's children, with the way that Roderick's children turn up, I'm wondering if we will see the death of an heir he wasn't aware of.

[01:58:22] Not a black cat in the animal shelter photo. So much of Poe is about self-destruction and this episode was full of ushers destroying themselves. Greenwood is amazing, and it's a great telling of the Telltale Heart. I agree. Thank you so much. Yeah.

[01:59:07] I'm glad that Roderick set him straight though. The ghosts seem to influence Roderick to be honest at times. The usher bloodline is ceasing. I wonder, why did Madeline not marry and have kids?

[01:59:27] Madeline pushing back against Griswold's chauvinism was great. Women have come so far since then, but we still have so far to go. It was hard to watch him throwing all of those things in her face, but I'm sure it gave her the ammunition and fire to fight back and take him down.

[01:59:41] And she can also see how and why her mother went through everything and was destroyed at the end. I don't think it's a good thing to bring Maury home. Lenore is the only good usher.

[01:59:49] Roderick contemplates suicide. Is this how the deaths can stop? Or is he thinking if he dies, the deaths stop and he doesn't have to deal with this illness? Why was he talking to a brick wall?

[02:00:04] So much in this episode and we didn't get any Carla Gugino except for a photograph, although I do think she has possessed Victorine at her last moments. Daphne. I think she did too. Yeah.

[02:00:21] Yeah, those are really, really great thoughts. Thank you, Daphne, as always. We also have a voicemail this week from our friend Steve Brown. Let's see what he has to say. Hello, Strange Indeed. This is Steve and this is For Folly House of Usher episode 5, The Telltale Heart.

[02:00:41] Oh, we're back to the New Year's Eve party and I don't remember what year it was. Madeline and Roderick twins. I forget. Oh, Verna and Madeline. Him coaching up Perry's, Leo's boyfriend, live in whatever. Now we meet the mothers.

[02:00:58] Dad hole. Henry Thomas just keeps repeating it. Dad hole. Conversation between Vic and her doctor partner with Bonnie Tyler playing in the background is great. But I had a question. Does the doctor not know that Vic has been falsifying the data?

[02:01:13] Oh, so now who's she going to get to do the surgery now that her partner is left? Just like in the Poe story, The Telltale Heart, one of the few Poe short stories that I have read, she's hearing the heart beating, the chirping in the walls or somewhere.

[02:01:26] So there never was an informant. It was just a bluff. What is this? Now he's seeing a vision of blood coming out of DuPan. Just accused. He said to DuPan if he hadn't have bluffed, they would be alive today.

[02:01:36] Children. And now what is this vision he's seeing? Oh, it's Victoria. Terrine, I mean. And he's seen each of them how they died. So now Roderick walking it back and saying that they didn't die because of the lie.

[02:01:46] Madeline was way ahead of her time knowing that computers were going to get smaller. Yeah, underestimating people never is good. Got the picture from Leo's phone. So now they know for sure that it was Verna. Oh, Madeline. You want her eyes.

[02:02:01] This is creepy. This I don't remember the woman's name, the patient's name, but her switching back and forth between Verna and this this woman is just creepy. But great acting by Carla Gugino. You haven't slept in a horror movie like Time.

[02:02:17] I love this conversation with Bill and Tammy. Oh, even Tammy is seeing things now. I can't wait to see what is going to be her death episode. Oh, who's behind the wall? I think we don't know yet. Right.

[02:02:28] Oh, she's still hearing the mechanical chirp and she was trying to get the music to drown out. You gotta be imagining this right. Both her dad and now she sees her partner and their dad is hearing them.

[02:02:39] Oh, she hit her in the back of the head when she threw that thing. Oh, she cut her up and put her in the bedroom. She put one of the devices in her chest and. Oh, OK. I didn't see that coming.

[02:02:52] She just stabbed herself in the heart and that's it. Oh, and this one was directed by Mike Flanagan. Wow. Talk to you next week. Thanks, Steve. Yeah. Great as always.

[02:03:07] Yeah, that it's like, you know, with if the title of the episode with that is like you're like, yeah, you probably have a feeling what some of that's going to be about. But still, he can deliver that twist. Did not see that coming. So good.

[02:03:21] Thank you, everyone, so much for your feedback. I really love y'all continuing to write in, leave your Facebook feedback or emails or voicemails. Keep them coming. We still have three more episodes to go.

[02:03:34] Next up for us, we're going to be covering episode six of the fall of the House of Usher titled Gold Bug. Yeah. Which, again, knowing kind of things like I have a feeling I know where we're going with that. I think I can talk about that.

[02:03:52] I mean, we know there's there's two kids left. So at least his story is going to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because Gold Bug is the the name of the company or brand that Tammy is running. So I feel like it's it's the Tammy episode.

[02:04:04] Also, I looked into it a little bit. It's, you know, at Gralinpo story, the Gold Bug, which is one that I am not familiar with and I have not looked into, have not read because I feel like I'm just going to go in blind on this.

[02:04:19] I'm sure I might have a little synopsis or something maybe for next week. Again, I can find another one of those that I like, but I look forward to it. But it's one that I'm not familiar with, so I don't know where it's going to go.

[02:04:29] And I'm excited to see what happens. I don't have a clue. I feel like the title's obvious.

[02:04:34] At least as far as which sibling it's going to focus on, but that's pretty much all I know, because I can't say that I'm familiar with this particular work from from Poe. So I can't wait, though. Yeah. It'll be fun. So hope you all come back and listen.

[02:04:53] Enjoy this journey with us. And we'd love to hear your thoughts as well. So, of course, keep that feedback going, like Rima said, and you can find all those ways to contact us and leave us that feedback at podcastica.com.

[02:05:05] And while you're there, be sure to check out our other shows at podcastica.com. So Jason and Lucy have been covering The Walking Dead rewatch on the cast of us. That is so much fun revisiting going way back. Yeah.

[02:05:23] On those early episodes that we all some of us probably have not watched in many a year, you know, such a great first season. So fun, fun to revisit that show. A lot of great offerings right now from podcastica. Everyone's pretty busy, that's for sure.

[02:05:37] Speaking of revisiting, yeah. Ben posted on the Revisited podcast going through Ted Lasso. Yes. Which is great. Oh my gosh, yes. I'm obsessed with that show. I can't ever get enough. Yeah, they're really knocking it out of the park with their rewatch.

[02:05:52] And of course, you and Daphne, you guys are you're are you on your official break right now? Yeah, we're on our break for now. Before your next season. We'll be back in December. So definitely come back then.

[02:06:04] But yeah, in the meantime, there's a lot of other episodes and stuff that you haven't checked out or haven't listened to yet. Definitely recommend going back and checking some stuff out.

[02:06:14] Say in this last season, one of the more recent ones, because I don't know if I plugged it on here or not, because it might have been during our kind of little off before we started this.

[02:06:22] But we did a movie called Little Evil, which was really interesting, kind of a horror comedy stars Adam Scott. So it's really, it's really interesting. So I'll just recommend that one if you haven't checked that out and watch that movie and maybe listen to our episode.

[02:06:41] It's a good one to check out while we're away for a little bit. Love that. Love that. Lots of good content that you guys have that, you know, if you're anything like me and you're behind on your podcast, you know, episodes go out there and get caught up.

[02:06:58] There's a lot of great stuff. Yeah. So definitely check that out. Check out all of them.

[02:07:03] And when you're checking out these shows, whether it's right here with Strange Indeed or Run for Your Lives or Revisited, Walking Nidcast or, you know, a cast of us, all of those go give them some love if you're enjoying them.

[02:07:14] Of course, rate, review, subscribe, follow on your podcast players of choice.

[02:07:18] All of those things really help us out, not just to kind of boost our own spirits, but really get us out there to other listeners that more people can find us and build this community a little bit more. Because every new listener, every new friend is always awesome.

[02:07:31] So we appreciate that. Yeah, we love getting new listeners and getting that exposure. We'd love for you to spread that around to our friends as well. You know, go spread some love, make someone's day. All right. For now, that is it for this week. Thanks, everyone, for listening.

[02:07:50] Until next time, I'm Rima. And I'm Pei. And Ian Davis is Strange Indeed. Indeed.