298 "Goldbug" (The Fall of the House of Usher E6)

[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 6, Goldbug. Oh, I'm, I'm excited.

[00:00:28] I'm like bouncing up and down in my chair a little bit. Like I'm really excited to talk about this one. It's, it was great.

[00:00:35] I know you're probably gonna ask me, what did you think of the, I'm just like jumping into it because yeah, I, I thought last week's was like incredible and it was, but like, you're wondering, okay, how do they, how do they follow that up?

[00:00:47] And honestly, I think this episode was just as good and just as like impactful. Well, I love hearing that. I thought it was a great episode too. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh.

[00:01:01] And I know we've got so many details and things that we're probably going to talk about in all of our points, but wow. One of my main notes that I was just going to mention as we talk about how do we feel about this week's episode?

[00:01:13] Did we like it or not? One thing that I did love is, is their attention to detail, which Flanagan always does a really good job of anyway. And we've had examples of it in other episodes too, but there was some really great attention to detail.

[00:01:29] Did you notice when the show opened the sound of like glass breaking or being stepped on? What have you? I know it was the sound of glass. I can't tell you exactly what, and then it opens to like Tammy at her closet.

[00:01:43] I, I love those little details because it's like a little foreshadowing thing where I wouldn't have even really thought about it on first watch, but yeah. Second watch today while doing my prep, I was like, and there's the sound of the glass, like raining from the ceiling.

[00:01:55] Like there it is right there at the top. Yeah. Absolutely loved it. I didn't even think, I mean, I heard it, but I'm like, I don't really know what it meant until of course we got to the end of the episode. So I love things like that.

[00:02:09] Like it's kind of telling you, you know, what's going to happen or what's coming or like said a little foreshadowing there. So I love attention to detail like that. So, um, I also thought it was a really great episode, some really great, um, great acting. And I think.

[00:02:27] I think there's been a little humor sprinkled about a few other episodes too, but this episode, there was just a little bit special, extra special. I know we're going to talk. Oh man. All right. Well, with that being said, let's go ahead and let's not waste any time.

[00:02:43] Cause it sounds like we're both pretty enthusiastic to jump in. Uh, what's your first point of the night? Um, I'm going to start small, but I'm going to start with one that. I don't think we've done much talking about not in this entire series so far.

[00:02:58] A character that's been here the whole time, but we just don't talk about her too much. She seems to kind of just fall into the wayside as she does with most of the family in the show. But that is Juno. Um, and perfect.

[00:03:11] Just got to give some props to Ruth Codd first off. Just, I mean, as much as we fell in love with her in Midnight Club as kind of her debut acting, you know, project that really people saw.

[00:03:24] Uh, cause if I, if I remember correctly, just off the top of my head, I think she worked in like the makeup department for shows and stuff and just randomly got cast into that and like soared. And so we loved her in that.

[00:03:37] So I was excited to see her here and she is playing a much smaller role in this show. She's kind of in the background most of the time, but I think that's on purpose because that's what that character is. Yeah.

[00:03:47] Um, but she definitely shined a lot more in this episode and wanted to give some love to her for sure.

[00:03:56] But just a few little things that I noticed or, or things that happened first off, like really the first time we see her where she wakes up and she goes downstairs.

[00:04:04] I was like, damn, I knew that Juno was on a high dose of Ligodone, but that is insane because I remember like last week's episode we were talking about Roderick literally considering taking his own life by ingesting five pills.

[00:04:20] And yet look at how many she's got set up for the day. Absolutely nuts. I was there like 20 pills or something? I know it's like five is supposed to be like, what's way too much as the overdose number.

[00:04:34] And it's like, no, that's just a small start for her morning. Um, man. So just to see kind of that level is what's special about her. I don't know. I don't know if we'll ever get to that at all. Like why that's the case.

[00:04:49] But, but it's interesting about her. Uh, of course we see her talking with, with Tammy, with Tamerlane when she comes over looking for Roderick and you can tell which this is kind of a Tammy point as

[00:05:01] well as you see, like the fragile state that she's in, that she's actually listening to Juno talk either that or she's like blacked out right there and doesn't even register anything that's going on. I don't know. I couldn't really tell which one was happening.

[00:05:13] Uh, but she does kind of open up to her like the teeniest, tiniest little bit. You have that, like, I'm sorry that he doesn't call. He doesn't answer any of our calls. You know, like there's that little moment. Uh, it's like, that's how bad Tammy is right now.

[00:05:25] She's talking to Juno. Uh, well, and before she was what just called her it. Like wouldn't even acknowledge her as a person, much less say her name. Uh, so yeah, definitely a little change of pace here. Yeah.

[00:05:40] And then the fact that Tammy's allowing Juno to speak to her at all, she's just milks it for all it's worth and just rambles on and on and on and on. Uh, that poor woman. Uh, and then this is just a random side note.

[00:05:53] I couldn't get it a hundred percent confirmed because I'm too scared to go digging and I'm trying to avoid spoilers, but it seems highly likely from the little bit that I looked that the, uh, ushers home, the set that's used for Roderick and Juno's house might be the same house that they use for the Hargreaves mansion and umbrella Academy.

[00:06:11] Which, cause I was looking at it, I was looking at it and I was like, is it? And so I like did like the lightest digging I could do before you start getting like house of usher articles coming up.

[00:06:19] And I'm like, no, I'm not going to risk it. So I wouldn't take it as a hundred percent true, but a few people online and on Reddit had said that it was the same house.

[00:06:26] So it would be cool if it was, uh, it makes sense, I guess it's a Netflix cause I know it's built on a set. So I reuse the set. Why not? Uh, that's super cool. Yeah.

[00:06:40] So maybe, uh, but yeah, just Juno again, like that's really all we see of her until the gold bug presentation at the end, which I'll talk more about that.

[00:06:50] A whole presentation later, but, but Juno has some major moments in that of course, just trying to, you know, be supportive. That's what she's, she's doing her best. You know, what the fuck are you doing here? It's like, I'm just here. I'm so proud of you.

[00:07:06] Uh, you know, it's like, I agree. Like she's trying to like move things along and be the most supportive she can. And what does she get for it? Just an entire mic stand yeeted directly into her skull.

[00:07:17] It's man, this, this poor woman and probably one of the best lines. It's like a throwaway. You mentioned the comedy is, you know, when they have that check under your seat, Oprah moment, and just her deadpan reaction to the guy sitting next to her.

[00:07:33] She's just like, watch mine's full of poo. She really shined. This episode, Ruth Codd was amazing. We've praised her a lot when we covered the midnight club and you're right. We haven't gotten to see a lot of her, this series.

[00:07:59] I think just in passing, we've mentioned her and I think it definitely kind of calls like to her character. Cause like you said, she just kind of gets ignored. Uh, you know, everyone's just like, what?

[00:08:10] You're still here, you know, and not even really giving her a passing thought. Uh, which is sad, you know, to think that that yeah, is kind of representative of her character as well.

[00:08:21] But it, it was, I liked seeing her vulnerable side, which I think that she has, she has tried to be, but we haven't seen enough of her or she hasn't gotten enough camera time.

[00:08:33] And I think she was just so excited to have Tammy there for even just a few moments, not shushing her, being rude to her, pushing her away that I think Tammy in this moment, because she is so tired, stressed, exhausted that.

[00:08:49] She, her, her wall kind of comes down for a moment and Juno takes that as a moment to like, oh, we're connecting, you know, like she's actually listening to me and opens up to her.

[00:09:00] And it was, you know, would have, it was like, wow, this could be like an actual maybe breakthrough kind of moment or something, you know, for the family or something. And Juno might actually be able to make a friend in the family.

[00:09:12] Cause the only one that really pays any attention to her is Roderick and Roderick, I feel like just keeps her more like a trophy wife slash poster child for his ligadone.

[00:09:22] Cause I feel like that's, oh gosh, was it Augie or where did it come up in the conversation where he's like, hey, ligadone is perfectly fine. Look at my wife. She takes all of these pills, you know, she's got like the highest dose and she's perfectly fine.

[00:09:38] She's functioning. She's fine. Which we saw evidence of that, how many she actually takes. So it's like even Roderick, even though he pays attention to her, talks to her, it still feels kind of empty a little.

[00:09:53] And that that's the only reason he really kind of keeps her around. I don't know that, but that's how it feels. I'm hoping we get a little bit more into that in the next two episodes.

[00:10:01] Just a side note for me that we get a little bit more as to maybe why he really married her. Like, was that the reason? Did he really love her? You know, whatever. So it does feel like a very lonely life for Juno.

[00:10:15] Like she has, she's married to, you know, a very rich and powerful man. The family is very powerful. She's got all the money, you know, that she could ask for, but she just still seems with all of that to be very lonely.

[00:10:28] And just like she was saying, wants to connect, wants to like be surrounded by people, have a family. So it was just made it all the more heartbreaking, but also very funny at the launch party because, you know, I feel like she's still there.

[00:10:43] We haven't gotten to see her a whole lot, but I feel like she still shows up anytime there's these family things there. She's showing up. Right. And so she shows up to support Tammy. And I don't know if it was just because, hey, that's just what she does.

[00:10:55] She goes and supports everyone in the family regardless. Or if she was feeling, hey, Tammy and I had a moment. I'm going to make sure that I'm there to support her. And she just totally stole that whole launch party scene. Ruth Codd was just absolutely brilliant.

[00:11:10] You know, like you said, is she just meekly like, I'm just trying to support you. You know, like, why are you yelling at me, you know, and staring at me unbeknownst that, you know, Tammy's having these wacky vision of Verna right behind her.

[00:11:25] And then, like you said, she just absolutely ate that mic stand. And I it's if it happened in real life, I wouldn't laugh, but I can't help it. The way they shot right. Exact moment. It took me out.

[00:11:41] I just I laughed so hard and I had to pause because I just kept laughing. Um, it was just, it was hilarious. I can't help it. And not because I don't like Juno, but I can't help it.

[00:11:56] Just the way that it's just the absurdity and the insanity of the moment. It really is. Yeah, absolutely. Like Tammy actually did that. Like she just launched it and took her out. Um, so yeah, I Juno was also my first point as well.

[00:12:13] So I just want to kind of you. We have to, I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm a fan of the movie. We have to, I mean, yeah, she just was absolutely brilliant and I hope she's okay. Yeah, me too.

[00:12:27] I mean, let's let me make sure I say that because like, I hope she's okay. I, I think if I didn't go back and look, I just didn't have time for that.

[00:12:36] I didn't think about it until later, but wasn't she in the first episode at the second funeral? Yeah, she was. Okay. Okay. So we at least know she survived. She'll be okay. But still my gosh, I hope she's okay. Cause they just laid her out.

[00:12:54] She's got paid meds to take care of that headache. She'll be all right. Well, good point. Did she fill it? I don't know. I mean, she probably did. That's maybe dumb, but I'm like, how much Ligodon is she on? Is she, like, does she actually feel anything?

[00:13:11] It's a pain medication, right? So, oh my gosh. I don't know. But that was great. Ruth Codd. Just brilliant. Yes. Well, that was my first point too. I knew we were going to overlap tonight for some reason.

[00:13:24] I just had a feeling, but let's go ahead and move on to your next point. Okay. I'm going to talk Roderick and Madeline and some of their interactions. We kind of seem to be there at odds with like acknowledging or accepting the

[00:13:47] reality, even though it's the crazier version of reality versus denial. Which is great. Cause Roderick talks to Agia a lot about denial. He's like, oh, my kids were in denial and denial, but then we're seeing him fully in denial about everything that Madeline says, as she tells him

[00:14:03] he's hiding behind his diagnosis. He's like, well, I'm, I'm hallucinating. So that's all that this is. And whatever deal we made and whatever things that you keep trying to bring up, like, nope, that's not the case. It's just, I'm crazy.

[00:14:15] Not, not the world, not what's happening to us. And, and so that's an interesting thing that we kind of see them against each other in that way, where she's just trying to be like, wake up, pull your head out of your ass, this is what's happening.

[00:14:31] And he's like, no, he will not accept it. Um, no matter what happens. Uh, I did like the reveal of like all the ghosts standing in his office with him listening to his story about the Egyptian artifact and his, you know, does that make me a God speech?

[00:14:49] It's just, I wasn't sure it took me a minute until we saw the ghosts of his children standing there. I thought, okay, Roderick is really losing it now. Like he is, he is losing it. He, and I mean, can you blame him? He's lost four of his children.

[00:15:10] It, you know, one after another and actually saw and witnessed one of his children shove a knife into their chest and he's covered in blood and apparently also removed that mesh heart. So yeah, maybe he is losing it a little bit.

[00:15:24] But then when I realized he wasn't like talking to himself, he was talking to, well, okay. So I realized what I'm getting ready to say out loud. Talking to his dead children. Yeah. Yeah. Which is much more normal. Right. Right. But you get what I'm saying?

[00:15:41] At least it's like, okay, well we know he's having like these visions of his, his dead children, which yep. Not, not normal or not what we're all, you know, I don't think that's typical. But, but still I was like, oh boy. Yeah.

[00:15:57] Uh, but yeah, you mentioned, cause he was there in the room and he even tells that to Madeline who says, I watched big Vic step her, step herself in the chest. Uh, which adds to his denial of the involvement of Verna that Madeline keeps

[00:16:09] alluding to like hardcore denial. Uh, which is funny. Cause like Madeline's somehow the more level headed of the two by accepting the more insane option as reality. Uh, she is. Uh, and Madeline says, you know, that family firewall you've always talked

[00:16:25] about as being dismantled one brick at a time. And I had to make note of that because they sure love their illusions to walls and bricks. Uh, I have it, I have it in my notes. Another mentioned the bricks. Mm hmm. Yep.

[00:16:38] Uh, and then just kind of a side thing with them. I am interested to see next episode, how heavily Tamerlan's death is going to hit Madeline and especially Roderick. Considering she is the first child of Annabelle to die in the show. So that might be different.

[00:16:56] We might see a different reaction from them, which will be interesting. Um, we do get a little bit more with Madeline as she's talking with Tammy in the little like green room backstage area before the thing where, uh, she does

[00:17:11] answer that question that you were mentioning a little bit. She mentions that she was married for a time briefly. Uh, it just wasn't really for her. Uh, she, you know, she did not want kids. He did.

[00:17:22] So it ended and then she's just kind of struck it out on her own after that. It was like, yeah, that's not for me. I'm better. Right. And solo. I love that we got that revelation that it was like, okay, okay.

[00:17:35] You know, now, now we know and got a little bit of history there. Yeah. Yeah. And then the last things again, with just like the Verna connection a little bit with Madeline, especially. Is since she's so like on that, you see her really like going after that even

[00:17:50] more, especially after their conversation with Arthur, but at the launch party speech, Madeline's picking up on how erratic and off kilter Tammy is behaving during her speech and she's the one like, she's like, well, this is Verna somehow.

[00:18:06] Like even what happened with Vic, like she's gotten into their heads, something's happening and you see her get up out of her seat and start glancing around the room and looking like she's looking for that specific thing.

[00:18:16] And she does find it once things get really chaotic, which then. Gets kind of that supernatural element that we've kind of been talking about is. She does see Verna after Mike stand gate and you know, she's making her way to her

[00:18:31] and she's yelling, you know, I'm right here, I'm right here and then reaches her and goes to grab her and she just banishes in this like puff of black soot.

[00:18:40] And like, at first I was like, it was like a mist or smoke or like a vapor, but I feel like it was like soot or like something because then it's on her hands. Like there's just like this, the ashes and like soot on her hands afterwards.

[00:18:54] It's just like, what is happening? It's gosh, two episodes to go. And I really need answers. I don't know if it's going to be the last episode where it all just finally comes spilling out and we get all of that. But. I was trying to figure out. Was.

[00:19:16] I know that Madeline saw what she saw, but I thought, well, is it really Verna standing there or is it like a projection of sorts? Because it seems like she can kind of project herself if she wants to in certain

[00:19:28] situations and make herself be seen, but maybe not really be there. I don't know. So I thought, oh, is she really there? But then when she went just poof in a smoke or whatever it was, I thought, oh, she wasn't really there until I saw Madeline's hands.

[00:19:46] And I thought, oh, well, it's pretty hard to say that she wasn't really there because it looks like there was evidence of her being there with whatever it was left on her hands. Yeah. So. There has.

[00:20:00] And I feel like with what we've learned or didn't really learn, but like discovered about Verna and what Pym dug up, there has to be something supernatural here, right? Feels like. I just feel like I kind of lean that way, which makes sense. It's Mike Flanagan.

[00:20:19] Like you say, he does deal with family dynamics and reality a lot, but. But I mean, look at Bly Manor without spoiling too much, I mean, ghosts are clearly real in that story. So. Yes. Like he definitely plays with the supernatural in a lot of cases. Yeah.

[00:20:39] Like what the hell is Verna? Who is she? How is she? I don't know. When is she? Uh, I like all that. I we're probably gonna have more to say. I think I've definitely got a lot of that in my notes for sure. Let's talk about Frederick.

[00:21:05] Frederick, I guess, as he is some of his siblings and people in the show tend to call him. Yeah. I'm glad you have this as a point because it's like a backup point for me.

[00:21:14] It didn't make my like main ones, but I was like, but I know we got to talk about it. So I'm glad you grabbed it. Definitely going to talk about it because wow.

[00:21:22] And we've talked a little bit in a couple of the other episodes is, you know, we get, you know, more in the hospital and him wanting to bring her home. And it's just like, wow, something is off here. Don't have good feelings about this, you know, at all.

[00:21:36] And I have to say, I think this dude is on my list of being like the second worst Usher sibling, in my opinion. Yeah. It's like he seemed super like chill and maybe one of the most just like humanized people at first.

[00:21:53] And now you're like, oh no, he's going on like a full super villain arc now. Like evil. Okay. Yeah, this he's I don't know if it's just this obsession that he has right now with

[00:22:08] what he thinks of as, you know, this affair that Maury had, which doesn't appear that that's what happened at all. But he doesn't know he doesn't know that, but he's that's what he's assuming doesn't

[00:22:22] even give Maury a chance to like explain or talk because well, one, he won't even let her heal. Like he doesn't even seem interested in letting her heal at all. And I'm like looking at her and all I can think to myself or ask myself, I guess, is

[00:22:40] he even changing or having anyone else? Which I think no, because I don't see anyone else there caring for her. But has her bandages been changed at all since the either she's left the hospital or since you know, she's left total like side note.

[00:22:58] But it has to be like just terrible. It's like she's rotting in that bed and to not have her bandages look dirty. They look like, you know, she's got this oozing and weeping coming from her.

[00:23:10] Her well, I guess what was left of her skin and it doesn't look like she's had them changed at all and that she's just lying in her own rot. And I don't I don't even know if even giving her the best of care would make any kind of

[00:23:24] difference for her. But either way, she deserves a fighting shot anyway and all the best treatment that can be provided to her. But we have her husband instead at home torturing her and drugging her and not like with the stuff she should be having.

[00:23:43] Like she probably should be having all kinds of medications to help treat her and to help manage her pain. But I wonder, was that drug that he was giving her? Was that that nightshade drug that they were talking about? That's how I read into that. Yeah. Okay.

[00:24:01] It had the big N on the canister because yeah, at first I was like, is he giving her some of his cocaine? I thought that too. But no, it's that N. It's the experimental nightshade that Victorine was using on her

[00:24:15] chimpanzee trials because they were talking about that, which is that paralytic. They're talking about it because she can hear, she can see, she can feel everything, but she can't move. She can't respond. Like he is, he's legitimately torturing her for information, which how he got his hands

[00:24:32] on that stuff, no clue. But yeah, that's how I read it. And I was like, that's exactly what's happening. Somehow it's a callback to that nightshade that they were talking about in early episodes. Details, like you mentioned. Yeah, yeah.

[00:24:46] Well, again, Mike Flanagan likes to drop those little things here and there. And at the time you're like, oh, that's interesting. Or maybe make note of it, but you don't think too much on it because it doesn't come up again.

[00:25:01] But it usually has a way, things like that has a way of coming back up again. But so I wondered, because it didn't have a specific label and remembering what they were, like you said, what Victorine was talking about with that drug. But I don't know.

[00:25:15] Frederick is acting so odd, which I already think he was kind of odd anyway. Like when all of that, like when we were first introduced, he seems to be a bit of an odd duck. But I thought, well, you know, whatever.

[00:25:26] He's come from a rich, eccentric family, you know, whatever. But he is turning out to be pretty freaking bad. I thought he was fairly harmless at first when we first met him anyway. But this goes deep. I don't know. He's got something really twisted.

[00:25:45] And I don't know if there's maybe we'll learn like why is he so obsessed about that or like, like, dude, I don't know. Maybe you should like let your wife heal and then I don't know, have a conversation.

[00:25:59] Because at the end of the day, it's his, you know, regardless of how angry he is at her, it's his daughter's mother. It's the mother of his child. You know, he should at least for her, you know, try to do what he can to help his wife

[00:26:14] get better and to heal if she is able to heal and, you know, recover from, you know, what happened to her. I just what he's doing is so freaking unforgivable. And can you imagine how terrible it would be to lie there and not be able to like move

[00:26:32] or speak and communicate, but you're completely aware? That sounds terrible to me. So Frederick, I don't know what's going to happen to him, but I feel like he might deserve it. Yeah, it's yeah, it's crazy how because it's like, you know, coked up Fred, he's kind of

[00:26:52] funny until he's not and then he's scary as hell. Yeah, like he's almost like lacking empathy. Like it makes you think of like a serial killer or something because it's just like there's like no there's like this emotional disconnect where he has no care about that.

[00:27:06] Yeah, he's just torturing her and kind of making jokes about it along the way or even early on when Vic's death is being announced on the news, whatever, when they find out

[00:27:16] Lenore talks about that and like his response to finding out about that is, oh God, I guess we're going to have to go to another funeral. That's his line. Like, yeah. Wow. Way to care about that. It was your sister. Yeah.

[00:27:31] Or even then going over to Maury in the bed and did you hear did you see that, you know, the victory instead and this and he goes, it just shows to go you, which is an interesting choice in line to purposely mix those words up.

[00:27:46] But he just shows to go you, you can never really know anyone like he's still poking at her and her dishonesty, taking that opportunity to like it's just. It is it's sociopathic and it's unsettling.

[00:28:00] It is it is really there was a I think we'll talk about it more. I know as we talk about the rest of our points in the episode, but a lot of unsettling images

[00:28:10] and things and you know that were said and talked about for sure that this was very unsettling. He seems very much like a psychopath. Maybe it was kind of just under the surface a little bit there, but and maybe it's the drugs.

[00:28:26] Maybe the the drugs he's on is kind of brought it to the forefront or something. I don't know. But yeah, like zero empathy at all. And maybe it's not okay. It's definitely not okay. But it feels like Frederick and Tamerlan definitely just viewed the siblings as annoyances

[00:28:50] and didn't ever really try to get to know them or have relationships with them or any in any way. So he's like, I don't care. But regardless, you know, that's still your family. It's still a human being.

[00:29:04] And he has like zero empathy at all and just seems so like removed in distance like when his daughter's even like, you know, are the doctors coming? Someone's going to be caring for her right?

[00:29:16] And he's just like constantly brushing it off and then almost gets angry with her for like consistently questioning him. You know, I'm like, dude, you're he's a psychopath. There's something not right there. Yeah. Yeah, that is all messed up.

[00:29:33] So yeah, Frederick, he's he's my number two on the worst usher siblings list that I have. But he's doing it so well. Our BFF, Henry Thomas is. Yes, of course. Playing it so well. So good for him. What's your next point? All right.

[00:29:52] I'm going to talk about Mr. Arthur Gordon, him. Got some interesting stuff in here and I did a little more digging because I was curious about some stuff. So I found some fun stuff. Oh, good.

[00:30:06] So we get Pym at the crime scene at Vic's apartment, seizing everything that's Fortunato property, quote unquote, you know, just bossing the police around. You know, that's that's one Arthur Pym for you. And he finds the file for Pamela Glimm or as we would know her, Verna,

[00:30:25] which, yeah, definitely interesting. And then he has this line, you know, he's like, well, I'm going to, you know, cancel my plans for the afternoon. I've got something I need to look into. But then he says to his assistant, I assume that's his assistant there.

[00:30:36] I've never seen that guy before. He just kind of came out of nowhere. But he says to him, I'm having Richard Parker for dinner. It is a very hilarious and clever little joke that I will dig into in a second. I know where you're going with that one.

[00:30:52] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because I'll have some references from Poe, what the Richard Parker of everything is, the expedition that Augie and Roger talk about. There'll be a pinpoint. But yeah. Good one. But before that, yeah, Pam follows the address to that's on Pamela's ID,

[00:31:12] which happens to be Roderick and Madeline's childhood home, where this confession is happening all this time later. I say all this time. It's not that long later because it's just right after the funerals, but later.

[00:31:25] And that's where Roderick tells August that Pam was part of this trans globe expedition, which I had never heard of before. But I didn't either. I looked into it. It's a real thing. It's a thing. Yeah, it happened. Yep.

[00:31:40] But then of course, we add the fictional layer of it by including, oh, well, Arthur Pym was there, and there's this whole mystery of what he experienced on that journey. He even mentions rumors of cannibalism and stuff, which again ties into Poe's work into the real world.

[00:31:55] So I'll go ahead and pull up what I found. This actually comes from the narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, which is Poe's only complete novel that he did. And he relates the tale of a young Arthur Gordon Pym who stows away aboard a whaling ship

[00:32:15] called the Grampus, which is another reference that they made early on when they were doing boats, Lenore and Freddie together, and then she keeps calling Roderick Grampus. That was a reference to this. I didn't even realize. So that's fun. Various adventures and misadventures befall Pym, including shipwreck, mutiny,

[00:32:33] and cannibalism. And then I found another little section. So there is another member of his expedition team here named Richard Parker, which is that reference he makes. It says, as time passes, no sign of land or other ships.

[00:32:50] Richard Parker suggests that one of them should be killed as food for the others. That sounds familiar to a lot of stories. They draw straws following the customs of the sea, and Parker is the one that is sacrificed. Giving the others a reprieve.

[00:33:09] But yeah, so it's the tying in this cannibalism, having Richard Parker for dinner. It's such a funny little, if you know, you know. And I didn't until I did a little research because I'm like, that means something. And I'm like, oh, that's hilarious. I did not know.

[00:33:25] I have not. I'm not familiar with that story from Poe. That was one I have not read. But when he said that line, I'm having Richard Parker for dinner. That's not where I went, but where my mind did go was to Hannibal.

[00:33:43] It's very much a Hannibal Lecter line and where he says it exactly, I don't remember. But I know I love those movies so much. And I know I've heard him say something similar. And of course, we all know Hannibal Lecter, you know, and what he is.

[00:33:57] So I was like, gosh, that sounds like a Hannibal Lecter kind of line, just the way that he said, the way it's phrased. And so cannibalism automatically came to my mind. But I had to start digging as to the reference like you did and thought,

[00:34:10] oh, that's an amazing little, you know. That's so clever. Yeah. Nice little tie in. So yeah, so I just wanted to point that out because I was like, man, that's cool that we get like the Arthur Pym, like his name comes from that story.

[00:34:26] And they tie in the expedition, the cannibalism joke. It's just a throwaway line that like most people probably just goes right over their heads. But like, luckily, it was enough for me to look into it and go,

[00:34:37] that's so funny that they said, like, it's a really great writing. Mike Flanagan, just again, all the praise. Yeah. Then Roderick mentions that Pym had told Tammy when she was younger that from this expedition he learned he said the earth is hollow.

[00:34:55] He found an island on top of the world called Skull Island. Arthur Pym worked for Monarch. No, wait, that's the wrong franchise. It's wrong. Crossing the street somewhere. Yeah. Ultima Thule. But it's kind of the same concept if you're like familiar with the new like legendary monster

[00:35:10] verse and Monarch and all that stuff, which by the way, early plug for before the end of the episode, Ben and Mark are covering the new Monarch series on Apple TV right now. And it's great and they're doing great. So go give them some love. But yeah. Absolutely.

[00:35:26] Yeah, of course I thought of that when I'm thinking hollow earth and stuff like that. But I really love the line from Roderick that sums up Arthur Pym really well where he says,

[00:35:40] you know, because August asks him, oh, so he went to this house looking for this mystery woman. Did he find her? And that's what starts this conversation is like, do you know who Arthur Pym is? But he goes, we didn't send a private investigator to find that woman.

[00:35:53] We didn't send the police. We didn't send the hitman. We didn't send a mercenary. We sent Arthur Gordon Pym. Of course he found her. I love that. Absolutely love it. Like this dude is not the boring person that you call up when you've accidentally killed a prostitute. Right.

[00:36:12] Because anybody can handle that kind of situation. He's not that boring. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Yeah. I hope we get more. I don't know, two episodes, but how about a spinoff? Gonna put it out there in the universe.

[00:36:28] Come on, Mike Flanagan, give me an Arthur Pym spinoff because I want the history of this guy. And Mark Hamill again, he's one of those like, he's playing the character so well that he gets

[00:36:39] lost in the character that you forget that it's Mark Hamill while you're watching it on screen. He's that good at character work that we haven't been giving Mark Hamill the credit I think he deserves because he just

[00:36:52] melds right into that character and he just like plays his role in the background so well that you don't think about it. He's that good. Yeah, you're right. We haven't spoken enough about that.

[00:37:02] And it's funny when you if you go online and see comments or something where people it's not until like the between the third or fifth episode that people are like, holy shit, I just realized that's, you know, freaking Mark Hamill playing Arthur Pym.

[00:37:17] And and also because it's not he's like doing voice work there as well. Yeah. For a lot of people who maybe don't know Mark Hamill's, you know, is infamous for a lot of voice work as well.

[00:37:30] And including the Joker, like the voice that you put to the Joker, that's not like live action stuff. That's Mark Hamill always has been. Yeah, he's amazing. So yeah, the things he can do with that. So he's kind of using that also in this character as well.

[00:37:49] And I think that just kind of helps him also blend and meld into this character as well. So yeah, we're definitely not giving him enough kudos, but he's been amazing and was definitely amazing in this episode.

[00:38:02] And I would love to see more of a backstory or a little spin off or something with Arthur Pym, because sounds like this dude has led a very interesting life. Yeah, and just the capabilities that he has is the last little thing I have.

[00:38:19] You mentioned a little bit is like what he finds out about Verna, this mystery woman, like he has quite the bombshell for the usher elders here. Because he starts, you know, laying out the pictures, and then it just gets weirder and weirder and weirder.

[00:38:33] And we learned that Verna has been involved with all these powerful and influential people, many who may have some morally questionable motives over the years. And it just keeps going back and back and back, all the way back to 1901 with Queenie.

[00:38:48] And she looks exactly the same in all of them. And then of course there's that conversation of, oh, like deep fakes and Photoshop and all this. So then you get some weird technical mumbo jumbo that Ben throws out to reveal like,

[00:39:01] maybe we don't know exactly how this works, but let's just like in story, it's not Photoshopped or fake. We know that for sure. Just go with it. Which is kind of funny on like a meta level, because clearly these are photos of Carla

[00:39:15] Eugenio photoshopped. So it's like meta is kind of funny to be like, there's no way they're photoshopped. You're like, yeah, clearly. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting reveal. I think I mentioned, I think it was last episode

[00:39:36] because I mentioned the way Verna talks about history. She keeps throwing out just little pieces or talks about people in history or moments in history or something like that. And the way that she does that, it's almost like a familiarity that she was there, experienced it,

[00:39:53] saw it or something. And I don't know if maybe I was too far off considering the photographs that we saw this episode. She's been around for a while. I don't know if it goes back as far as

[00:40:08] what I was talking about, because she brings up like, you know, ancient Egypt and, you know, other like the Bible and things like that. So I don't know if it goes back that far, but, you know,

[00:40:24] that was, and that's probably just, you know, because there's photographic evidence, right? I mean, if you go before the camera was invented, well, then there would not be any photographic evidence. So there's nothing to state that she wasn't around before then. It's just

[00:40:41] there were no cameras. So I don't know. I've got to know more about her. Please, please just give me a little bit enough to satisfy me. I don't have to know everything, but give me something. Okay. Well, I have a lot of notes, so we're definitely going to,

[00:41:05] I think hopefully cover everything, but I'm just going to go ahead and go there and talk about Tammy. Yeah. I mean, it's the last note that I have as well. It's the last point

[00:41:14] that I have. So, okay. Well, feel free to either jump in or you can save your thoughts. It's totally fine. But that's where I'm going to go. I first want to just say that the way that they

[00:41:29] edited the whole no sleeping thing or sleep paralysis, I'm not sure what it's really called or defined as. I'm not an expert or anything like that, but it just kept going on and on. And I was,

[00:41:46] my anxiety was just spiking because it was just unsettling. And I thought, oh my gosh, it's just never going to stop. I was afraid she was going to wake up and she was nearly setting her house on fire. I mean, she put a freaking kettle on

[00:42:02] and had a gas stove. I thought, oh my gosh, she's going to burn something down. I thought she was going to spill her tea and burn herself. It felt like it was never going to stop.

[00:42:14] And it almost felt like, I think they did a good job of, or at least for me anyway, how I felt while I was watching it. It felt like it was happening to me almost. It felt very real.

[00:42:26] I was feeling almost as unsettled as what Tammy was feeling and just wanting to sleep. I'm like, yes, please go to sleep because this is nuts. You cannot keep going on like this. So whenever I was talking earlier about the attention to detail and how great the episode

[00:42:45] was, and I'll have more later in this point, was this beautiful editing that they did for this no sleep. I thought they did a great job of making it seem very real. And I thought it was interesting with Tammy, this episode. I mean, she's

[00:43:00] been, I thought, pretty rotten like the other siblings. We've talked about her treatment of Juno where she doesn't even treat her like a person or a human being most of the time. And she

[00:43:12] seems more concerned about herself and gold bug and doesn't seem to care much about her siblings that are dropping like flies. But this episode, and we talked about her interaction with Juno, seems like maybe there was a little bit of a good person somewhere. Somewhere deep down inside.

[00:43:32] Yeah. Well, and I wonder, and I'm not saying it's okay. I'm not saying it's okay at all that she behaved the way that she did. But when you look at Madeline and Roderick and you see how they are and how

[00:43:46] these kids were probably raised and just how they put up this facade with the company, maybe she couldn't or maybe wouldn't let out this good person. This is who she felt she had to be

[00:44:04] to be an usher or something. I'm not sure. Again, doesn't justify her behavior at all, and it's not okay. But it was interesting because I feel like she was the only sibling that I saw just a little piece of that. I don't feel any of the other ushers

[00:44:22] or the siblings in those situations, even when they were getting ready to die, even when Verna was coming at them, they still acted terrible and very self-absorbed. But when she interacted with Juno, it's like she had a moment of vulnerability. And so that was

[00:44:42] interesting to see. But then at the end, when she was admitting, I fucked up, I fucked it all up. Yeah. She had a real... Now it was too late probably there, but she... None of the other siblings

[00:44:58] had that. So I thought that was interesting that she seemed to, I think, had something inside of her, but she couldn't let it out for whatever reason. And then when we get... Because I was

[00:45:12] like, okay, Goldbug, I get it. It's this whole brand thing and it's fitness and there's beauty, but what the heck is this anyway? So it wasn't until the launch, as she's describing it to

[00:45:24] the press and launching this whole thing that it's kind of like, oh, okay. And I thought it was really ironic that this whole Goldbug launch and the idea behind Goldbug is she's selling this

[00:45:38] lifestyle about self-care and all of this beauty. But then when you look at her life and how her life is, she's running herself ragged. She's so freaking stressed out that she's laying in bed at

[00:45:57] night completely awake. She's falling asleep at all of these random moments. It's almost like she's losing time. She doesn't remember what's going on. She starts something and doesn't remember doing those things. So it's interesting to see she's promoting something but doesn't

[00:46:17] embrace it or live it actually. And not only that, but it's like she doesn't even know, I think, and I think this is what kind of led to her downfall,

[00:46:33] is that she doesn't even know who she is. She's a shell of herself. This whole thing that was going on with her and Bill's marriage with the sex workers and such, no kink shaming here at all,

[00:46:52] but just trying to kind of find out what's behind that a little bit. Because it wasn't even about maintaining their marriage or that this is something that they're into. We know

[00:47:02] Bill hated it. He only did it for her. And it's like she has someone who pretends to be her, that she's keeping the intimacy in her life and with her husband at a distance.

[00:47:20] She just wants to watch. She doesn't want to actually participate or be involved. She just wants to have them play it out. And we got to see in that video clip, which I don't think was really

[00:47:34] playing at the launch party. I think that she's imagining that. But what we got to see, I assume that that's what happened there when Verna was showing up being the sex worker. And she even said

[00:47:47] as she's telling them what to do, she's like, I've been really stressed out. This is what I want you to do. This is what I would want you to do for me because I'm stressed

[00:47:57] out. But she wasn't asking him, this is what I need from you to help me feel relaxed. She wants him to do it to someone else so she can keep herself kind of removed. So it's like she didn't

[00:48:10] even know who she was. I felt like she... And I feel like that's kind of what led to this crumbling and this stress. And she also hates herself. I feel like that played a part in it too.

[00:48:27] I don't think Tammy liked herself at all. And I think Verna hinted at that because she has no self-worth. I think Tammy beat herself up so much, she's like, nobody can take that.

[00:48:40] Nobody can take what you do to yourself for that long. So it was just kind of interesting to see all of this kind of play out and get a little bit of insight into who... I don't know that I know

[00:48:52] who Tammy is, but kind of get a little bit of insight into her and how it seems like she wanted things. And she wanted to have emotion and stuff, but she just didn't know how to do that. She

[00:49:06] didn't know how to get these emotions and how to deal. And so she just kind of kept everything at a distance. I don't know. Very, very interesting. What do you think about that? Or do you have similar thoughts? Yeah, no, I agree that it's definitely

[00:49:22] her running herself ragged for sure. But I like a lot of the things you pointed out about that she just doesn't know who she is. Which adds more credibility, I guess, to what Vic called her,

[00:49:36] even though I don't think it was the greatest nickname. I mentioned that, but the whole Madeline. But yeah, as you see these older ones like Frodrick and Madeline, it was like, you're just carbon copies of the elders, that you've never given yourself the opportunity to

[00:49:50] have your own personality or be who you are. You're just so focused on, what can I do to be successful and be an usher that contributes to what we're doing? And she says, she's trying to

[00:50:01] do her own thing. It's like, I'm trying to show that the ushers are more than Fortunato and pharmaceuticals, that I can pave my own path. But it's all a sham because like you said, she's not,

[00:50:14] it's like, oh, it's health and beauty and this kind of stuff. But she's so unhealthy and she's viewing herself as completely unbeautiful. And there's all of these things that run completely against what she's trying to sell.

[00:50:28] Yeah, yeah. It was interesting insight, I think for sure. And I wondered when I first watched it, did Verna play any part in how she really lost it there at the end as she's breaking the mirrors?

[00:50:50] And I'm like, I don't think Verna had to help at all. I think Tammy was just spiraling all on her own with the stress that she was under and no sleeping. And I don't think that she needed it at

[00:51:03] all. But she kept smashing all of those mirrors every time she saw Verna until it finally, she smashed the last set of mirrors. And I'll tell you that, we talked last week about the,

[00:51:19] was it last week or maybe the week before? But Frodrick was like the ceiling or the floor was like falling and you get the scene behind him. It was just so beautiful. I mean, completely dark,

[00:51:31] absolutely dark, but beautiful. This is another example of that for me. I thought her, when she smashed that ceiling mirrors, that was so beautifully shot. That slow motion of her, she's lifted up off the bed when she's jumping and falling back down, the glass on the bed bounces

[00:51:55] from that. And then she's got the glass falling towards her. Just the slow motion of that was just, and then the look on her face as the glass, you see her face between the glass.

[00:52:06] I was like, oh wow. This is beautiful. Very dark, but beautiful at the same time. Yeah. I tried to somewhat poetically sum it up because I was like, Mike Flanagan, again, he's melding that abject horror and gore with gorgeous cinematography and visual.

[00:52:28] And so yeah, I tried to, like I said, kind of poetically paint this horrifying final scene. Yeah. So the room is bathed in green light, which called it green. You're right. I thought of you. I was like, they called it.

[00:52:44] You know, as Tamerlane leaps up, she smashes the mirror over the bed, shards showering down upon her as she falls, landing directly on these jagged pieces that launched up just the right time to

[00:52:54] pierce right into her back. And then the end comes as unceremoniously as possible. The motion speeds back up, the rest of the shards crash down, including one giant sharp one slicing directly through her neck, ending the story of Tamerlane Usher right then and there. Very well said. Yeah.

[00:53:14] Yeah. It was definitely a great shot. Yeah. The green, you called it. And after you said that, I was like, dang, it was right there the whole time. Her apartment's green, the green sign outside of

[00:53:28] their bedroom window, whatever. I don't know what it ever said, but there was definitely the green. Yeah. But I also noticed what was interesting because of this, trying to launch Goldbug, trying to make a name for herself. Like you said, she was trying to

[00:53:44] make herself unique among the ushers. And Madeline had told her, she's like, it's time for people to start seeing you stand up there and be a face for the company.

[00:53:55] You know, the time's to kind of start passing the torch a little bit and kind of get her out there. She was wanting to really distinguish herself and especially something outside of

[00:54:05] what she says pill pushers, right? And you see her struggle to do that throughout this whole episode and you see how it's driven her to this end where she just loses herself and ends up meeting her end

[00:54:24] and she, with this visual of breaking that glass, she broke the glass ceiling in her home in what she couldn't do in business. She could not quite do that, but she did it at home and then killed herself in the process. Literally all came crashing down on her.

[00:54:49] Yeah. I don't know. Tamerlane, she, Samantha Sloyan, we've talked so much about her, especially when we were covering Midnight Mass. She's just a Flanagan MVP for sure. For sure. She really killed it this episode and I just love her speech cadence.

[00:55:14] Mm-hmm. I just, I love hearing her talk. I feel like her speech is very well fit for the Flanagan monologues and such. So I feel the more that she talks, I'm just like perking up and listening because I just love hearing her talk. Despite

[00:55:36] her playing Bev Keen from Midnight Mass. Right. And Penny from Grey's Anatomy, those who know, know. But yeah, she's really fantastic and was really great and what a hell of an end for her. So that's all I have to say about that. Did you

[00:55:57] have anything else you want to say about Tammy or the end there? Yeah. So again, that was my number one big point I want to talk about is Goldbug, aka the fall of Tamerlane Usher. Of course I did find again the source material kind of synopsis

[00:56:14] and stuff that I thought was interesting. I mentioned that last week. I was like, I bet I can find this one, Goldbug. This one, I'll try to read the synopsis and make it make

[00:56:24] sense. But even then I was like, I feel like I would have to read it for it to really click. So maybe those who have will kind of know what's going on. But it's interesting because it doesn't

[00:56:34] seem to be a horror story. So here's what I got. It's like, the plot follows William Legrand, who becomes fixated on an unusual gold colored bug he has discovered, which he believes is somehow linked to a treasure hunt. Legrand's conviction that the Goldbug is connected to the treasure

[00:56:54] hunt that he's on is reinforced when he notices the bug's peculiar behavior. It appears to be attracted to a particular spot on a tree where it consistently buries itself. Intrigued, Legrand interprets this behavior as a clue and believes that the bug's actions are somehow

[00:57:06] related to the treasure's location. Later when Legrand discovers a piece of parchment with the cipher, he becomes convinced that the Goldbug's involvement is not coincidental. He speculates that the bug's behavior and the cipher are interrelated and that the cipher must hold

[00:57:22] the key for uncovering the treasure's whereabouts. His servant, Jupiter, fears that Legrand is going insane and goes to Legrand's friend, an unnamed narrator, who agrees to visit his old friend. With the help of the narrator, Legrand deciphers the cryptogram, which reveals the location of

[00:57:36] the buried treasure. They travel to the location, a deserted island, and follow the directions indicated by the cipher. Along the way they encounter various challenges and dangers, but eventually they locate the treasure consisting of a horde of golden jewels.

[00:57:48] The Goldbug is known for an engaging plot, inclusion of cryptography, and an exploration of themes such as obsession, adventure, and the lore of hidden treasure. Second, there is another poem from Edgar Allan Poe titled Tamerlane.

[00:58:30] Tamerlane is a poem about the regrets of a conqueror who is looking back on his life and wondering what might have been if he had made other choices. Specifically, he regrets giving

[00:58:41] up love in favor of ambition. That makes sense with her name, but as far as how Goldbug ties in is really, I'm not sure. But it's another allusion to a Poe work, so at least that is tied in.

[00:58:54] I think that, because I thought the same, and I think the story leans more towards a different work from Poe, and that is called William Wilson. CBT Okay. AG And I was not familiar with this one either, so I had to look it up.

[00:59:25] I tried to find a really, really quick summary, but here's why I think part of it's related is because Tammy's husband was Bill T. Wilson. CBT Uh-huh. AG So I feel like that is what gives the hint or clue that it has to do with William Wilson,

[00:59:46] and the story of William Wilson has to do with a doppelganger. CBT Okay, yeah. AG Which I feel like kind of ties in with all the mirrors in Tammy's house and how she keeps looking in the mirror seeing herself,

[01:00:05] but then Verna kind of giving that doppelganger kind of feel. I've tried to find a very quick summary. There's one, but it's not super, super short, but I'll try and get through this at least

[01:00:20] to give the high levels. So a brief summary of William Wilson. The narrator tells us that although the path to evil is commonly assumed to be a slippery slope for him, it was more of a steep

[01:00:32] and rapid decline. Very suddenly, he found himself capable of acts of extreme depravity. This narrator who assumes the name William Wilson to conceal his real name is recounting the events of the story from his deathbed. He recalls his childhood and school days in England and how he

[01:00:48] commanded respect from his peers with the exception of one boy who though no relation bore the same Christian name and surname as him and joined the school on the same day as the narrator.

[01:00:59] The narrator later learns that his other William Wilson was also spookily born on the exact same day as him. They're also the same height. As he gets to know this other William Wilson better, the narrator comes to dislike him more and more because of their resemblance and because

[01:01:15] his doppelganger is fond of offering the narrator advice and patronage in an insinuating and arrogant manner. He even feels he must have known his double at some point in the past, though he cannot remember having made his acquaintance before. The narrator later moves to Eton, having left

[01:01:30] his previous school following an unsuccessful attempt to inflict pain and torment upon his rival, which ended with him being disturbed by the appearance of his sleeping double and frightened of the idea. But his double shows up at Eton just as the narrator is getting drunk on wine. Soon

[01:01:45] after, the narrator goes up to Oxford to study but proceeds to spend most of his time involved in dissolute activities, spending money extravagantly and foolishly. Goes on to talk more about some cheating at cards. I'm going to skip through that part

[01:02:01] just to get through this. The narrator flees. It's no good. In Rome, while attending a masked ball during the carnival, his double turns up once again and a confrontation ensues. They're dressed in the same costume. The narrator drags William Wilson into a private room and stabs him

[01:02:16] in a fit of rage. But suddenly, the room transforms and the body of his double has turned into a mirror in which the narrator sees that he is the one who has actually been stabbed.

[01:02:28] Then he hears his double speaking as in the narrator's own voice, telling him that the narrator only existed through his double, and now that he has killed his double, he has murdered himself. CBT Interesting. Yeah. So I was like, okay.

[01:02:46] Yeah, so this story, this plot with Cameron and everything, there's layers. There's several different stories that were pulled from on this, which is really cool. It was not direct at all. So yeah, because it was like, why isn't this one a little bit more of a

[01:03:02] tie? I mean, last week with the Telltale Heart, it was like, oh, I mean, it definitely was not any mistaking that this is what it was based off of, even though obviously there were some

[01:03:13] differences there. It was pretty obvious. But yeah, with Goldbug, it's like, that doesn't sound right. What are we missing? So yeah, this one seemed to be a little bit of a different one

[01:03:28] than the other ones that we have. So I think that's what he was leaning towards, or Mike Flanagan and his writing partners was towards this story a little. Yeah. All right. Let's see if I had other notes and stuff aside from that, talking about Sweet.

[01:03:53] Tammy. Let's see. A lot of them you've talked about, which is great. There was a little, again, foreshadowing of when after this series of blackout things is what I was calling them,

[01:04:07] where she would just not even realize that she was doing something, and then she'd wake up later and be like, oh, I drank my tea, and I've edited my notes. But it's after she sees this doppelganger

[01:04:21] kind of thing in her house. Yeah, that's where she tells herself, I need some sleep. And there's this little foreshadowing of she's laying in bed, and you see her reflection in that mirror above her telling herself, go to sleep, just go to sleep, just go to sleep.

[01:04:34] Yes. A little foreshadowing moment for sure. Yeah. I was gonna say, again, Bill, feel bad for him, but at least he seems to have gotten away safely. It's for the best. I don't think he knows how lucky he was that maybe he got, I mean, yeah,

[01:04:50] he's probably gonna hurt for a little while, but I think he's better off. Yeah, and then we've talked about mostly, I mean, the speech, just kind of talking about it a little bit, it starts off really rocky, thanks to Verna's kind of mindfuckery. She does

[01:05:05] her best to steer the what-the-fuck-are-you-doing-here back onto the tracks a little bit. Which she does a pretty good job, all things considered. I had to laugh at the awkward little self-clap, like, yeah, I totally nailed that! But yeah, she keeps seeing Verna sitting in the crowd,

[01:05:24] and then later replacing her on the screens. Talk about that doppelganger thing, that was interesting. And then everything just kind of unravels further and further, to the point, yeah, I think she imagines this video of her and Bill and Candy, quote-unquote,

[01:05:39] which leads to her screaming at her assistant and smashing the TV screens all over the stage, then chucking the mic stand at Juno, which, okay, Ronnie Radke, and that is a joke for maybe one

[01:05:50] person listening to this. And then, yeah, I love that one of the people that's at the event just like, Tamerlane Escher is over! And I'm like, yeah, canceled, done! And yeah, definitely. Goldbug is dead on arrival, that's the end of that.

[01:06:11] And then yeah, she gets back home, that unraveling continues, I thought, we've talked a lot about the mirrors, all 700 mirrors she has in her home. That's a lot of mirrors. God, just the reflections, and then she keeps smashing them over and over, because again,

[01:06:25] you think when you learn, it's like, you're not doing anything, it's a reflection, why do you keep smashing different ones? But like you had mentioned, I think at that point, Verna really

[01:06:35] didn't need to do much, her mental unraveling had taken toll. And as much as this fear or anger towards Verna or Candy, it's also just her distress and everything building up, and there's almost this reprieve and just smashing these mirrors and letting this anger out. So I think

[01:06:51] a lot of that played part in that too, because you would think she should know better than to jump up and smash this big mirror above her, but at that point, she's just getting that frustration

[01:06:59] and that stress and that anger and everything that's been building up out of her. Maybe a word of caution for anyone thinking about getting mirrors above your bed? Yeah! Yeah, it was, yeah. And then she's stepping on the glass shards on the floor,

[01:07:16] and when she's smashing into the mirrors, they're flying back into her face, the shards and stuff, and it just kind of builds, and then it all escalates further to that last moment, which

[01:07:24] I talked about. I painted a nice little picture of what happens. But honestly, again, they've been stepping it up where as much as Telltale Heart was really gruesome and disturbing, this one might be the more gruesome and unsettling death scene than that. They've stepped it up again. Because

[01:07:44] literally, this episode ended and you just see her laying there writhing with the big, jagged piece in her throat and everything, and it just sits on it for a little bit,

[01:07:53] and then the credits start. I swear, I was sitting there just staring at my TV screen with my mouth wide open for probably a full two minutes, just like, ah! Yeah, that darn title card there,

[01:08:05] and it was just like, whoa. I was like, what the hell just happened? So many thoughts in my head after that first watch. And then Verna having some great dark lines again while messing with

[01:08:18] her and her head. She jokes about, oh, you absorbed your twin in the womb, which I don't think we'd heard that before! Yeah, where did that come from? That was very random.

[01:08:28] But then she kind of makes this joke, and she's like, well, that's actually what it is. You absorbed your twin in the womb, and now I'm her, and I've actually been alive this whole time,

[01:08:36] and I've gained enough sentience to overtake your brain! And she's like, no, I'm just kidding. That's not what's happening. I'm you. And of course, in great Verna fashion, one of the last

[01:08:46] things she says to her is that, sweetie, you might not believe it, but this part has nothing to do with you. Which, ooh! Haha. Do you… did you take when Verna was telling Tammy, she's like, you still have time, you know?

[01:09:05] You can still call him and tell him that you're sorry. Sorry that you used him. Sorry I treated you that way. Was that her offering to go out peacefully? Because I feel like… It could have been, yeah.

[01:09:22] I mean, I feel like we've talked about that it's like, they don't have – like, they're going to die. These Usher children are going to die regardless. Whatever it was that happened between Madeline Roderick and Verna all those years ago, this was going to inevitably

[01:09:45] happen. But like Camille, she's like, well, this is going to happen, but it doesn't have to be this way. You could just go peacefully in your sleep. So it wasn't explicit when she was talking

[01:09:58] to Tammy, and it wasn't quite an offer. Like with Camille, it was very much she tried to multiple times stop her, tell her to turn around. She tried to talk Perry into like, hey, let's just drop everything right now. Let's just – you can end the party.

[01:10:13] It's like she was pretty blatant, I felt, about her offer of it's not too late. You can turn things around or you can make this happen differently. Is that what you took from that? Or…

[01:10:28] A little bit, yeah. Where it did seem like she's on the phone with Bill, or at least kind of mimicking that. She's like, you can call him, you can do it, you can set things right.

[01:10:40] Or yeah, I don't know, it's kind of left open-ended, but it feels like if she would have done that, then maybe things wouldn't have gone the way they did. I think, yeah, because she says

[01:10:49] this part has nothing to do with you, it's something to do with Roderick and Madeline, that the Usher children need to die. It's part of some kind of deal or some kind of punishment for something. But the way that they're going out is also, she's like,

[01:11:04] I can also make – this has to do with the way that they are and their actions, that they can kind of choose how this goes. That's what I can't figure out. It's like,

[01:11:16] only two episodes to go and I still just don't have a freaking clue as to what the hell happened, because Madeline's like, remember what she said that night. She's so frustrated with Roderick.

[01:11:30] And I'm like, is it his diagnosis? Is he just in denial? Does he really just not remember? Is he just thinking, I don't even know, because he says to Madeline, I don't even know for sure

[01:11:41] that you're standing in front of me right now. He's so consumed, he's seeing his dead children, and so we know he's seeing things, hallucinating things. So I'm not even sure what he – do you

[01:11:57] really not remember? Are you just in denial? Did you really forget? I can't quite figure that out, but it's like she's saying, I know you know what she said. I know that you remember that.

[01:12:09] I'm like, well, what the frick was it then? Tell me. Tell me, I want to know. But it's like, it had to be pretty impactful. So what did she say? Did they somehow trade

[01:12:25] his children's lives for either his or maybe to be rich and famous and get where they were? Was that the deal that they made? We talked, I think, first episode or second episode,

[01:12:37] Deal with the Devil kind of thing. There's so many missing pieces and I have no idea what it is, but it's like when she says that was key to me. I don't know how it plays into

[01:12:48] what the hell happened, but when Verna says this next part has nothing to do with you, like you said, it's like, well, then it has all to do with Roderick and sounds like Madeline too.

[01:13:00] So was that the sacrifice? And then with everything that Roderick has been talking to Augie about, like their deaths are my fault. This is all my fault. And Augie keeps saying, well, how can it be your fault? We know Victorine did this to herself and Tammy,

[01:13:16] there was no one in the house and it was just some freak accident that happened, but he keeps saying this was all my fault. I'm responsible. So is that what happened? I don't freaking know. I'm just... Tell me. I think I interrupted you. Did you have more

[01:13:36] of your point or notes? No, I was done anyway. No. Did you have any other notes? Yeah, I've got some just other notes about a couple other little things. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. So talking about, again, the confession session, we get a little bit in there again,

[01:13:56] which was interesting because I guess it makes sense, but I hadn't really thought about it. That Augie asked like, oh, well, the way that you said, here's what happened to Perry, because he interrupts the story when Tammy's at home alone trying to sleep. And he's like,

[01:14:08] okay, you told me what happened to Perry, you told me what happened to Camille, you told me what happened with this. It was like, we realize that the stories we've been seeing are what Roderick is telling Augie. These private moments of each character is what Roderick is

[01:14:20] saying. So then there's that moment as an unreliable narrator, but then I was like, probably not. I'm choosing to take it at face value that this is exactly what happened. But that's what Augie's just, yeah. But that's what Augie's at least thinking is like,

[01:14:33] there was nobody else in their houses or in these locations at the time, how would you know this is exactly how it went down? And of course Roderick tells him, well, that's because they

[01:14:42] told me that after they died, basically. He's saying the ghosts of my children came to me and told me this is exactly what happened. This is a little interesting. Yeah. And Augie's just staring at him like, dude. Like, oh, well, okay. Yeah. If you say so.

[01:14:59] Well, then that makes sense. That checks out then. Yeah. I was speaking of the ghost children appearing, my God, the window shattering behind Roderick mid-sentence takes the Leo falling and landing on the floor between them

[01:15:14] to a whole nother level. I was like, first watch, I swear to God that scared the ever living shit out of me. My dog was so mad at me. She got super spooked because that when Oh my God. Got me big time.

[01:15:27] Just most effective jump scare possible. I was so tuned into what Roderick is saying and then bam. And I was like, damn it, Flanagan. I say, oh my God. Flanagan knows what he's doing. And you know,

[01:15:39] Peg, we should know better. We should know better. But do we? No, because I like you was so caught up in Roderick and what he was saying that, oh my gosh, I almost peed myself.

[01:15:52] Got me. It was, oh man. And then of course, Tammy's ghost walking across the glass with a slashed open neck and the cuts everywhere is just Bravo, which and then of course the neck sliding to the side gives me a little bent neck lady vibes a little bit.

[01:16:09] Ah, man, I don't know. I don't think have I told my like, bit like a big net lady story. I can't say that correctly right now. Bent neck lady story on this podcast. I probably have, but I don't know. It's one of my favorite stories

[01:16:21] from Chicago. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about. I feel like I've told that story a million times to different people, but I don't know who told it on this one. So quick little

[01:16:30] tangent speaking of because we like to reference our best friend in the world, Henry Thomas. And of course, that joke coming from because we moderated a Haunting of Hill House panel together in Chicago at a convention to where the panel that we moderated was Henry Thomas

[01:16:45] and then the two young actors that played the young versions of Luke and Nell from that show. Which Violet McGraw and Julian Hilliard. And so part of that is like those kids, because I think they're like six at the time it was right after Hill House.

[01:17:01] So it was their first convention. They'd never done like interviews before, like panels. So like it was very, so I kind of made it my mission to like during times over the weekend before that

[01:17:10] panel on Sunday to just kind of pop over and hang out with the kids a little bit and talk to them so that they felt comfortable with us by the time we did our panel, they knew who we were and they

[01:17:20] felt comfortable talking to us. So I'd try to spend some time. I remember we were like playing catch with them and stuff at one point. We're just like hanging out with them. No, we're just coloring. We're playing catch. Yeah.

[01:17:28] It was so cool. But the reason because there's this moment where I did that and I think Julian was dealing with some like ad fans and stuff over and doing stuff but like Violet was over there by

[01:17:38] herself and she's just drawing and coloring sitting at her table. And so I just walked over and I said, Hey, Vi, what are you working on? What are you drawing there? And I swear to you,

[01:17:47] she looks up at me just like the most absolute sincerity and just goes, Bit Neck Lady? And I look at what she's drawing and like, yeah, she is legitimately drawing this like kind of like what you see in horror movies where kids are drawing this like ghastly creepy

[01:18:03] thing and they're like, da da da da da. And you're like, Oh my God, something's wrong. She's literally drawing like Bit Neck Lady and it's like, adorable but also kind of unsettling

[01:18:11] and creepy. And I was like, clearly this role has set with her in some way. But it was just like, but she was so sweet and nonchalant about it. And so I love telling that story because it's

[01:18:22] crazy. Then I was like, Oh, that's great. I'm not terrified at all a little bit. Lovely. Great depiction. Yeah. Such a great time. Those kids are just absolutely amazing. It was such a fun time. I will never forget that.

[01:18:42] I'll really treasure that like weekend forever and like hanging out with them because it was really cool. Great kids. And then to see them continue on, they've been doing a lot of stuff

[01:18:50] like Julian's in freaking MCU now and Violet's been getting a lot of different like roles and like series and shows. She's also MCU. She was in Black Widow. So yeah, like... Amazing. Yeah. But again, weird tangent. But when I think Bedneck Lady, I was like, man,

[01:19:08] I don't know if I've told that story on this podcast before. I've told it before. I was like, in case. I was like, yeah, throw that out there because it's a fun one that I love telling. Good story.

[01:19:15] Yeah. Let's see. We talked about Frederick. Lenore, I didn't talk about her too much. She's getting to this place where she doesn't trust her own father, I think. It's not very explicit, but like you see her questioning things and kind of... She's uncomfortable with the things

[01:19:33] that he says to her about her mom or to her mom. And he's lying about the medical care she's getting. And I think she's seeing that. She's like, oh, the specialists are coming today? Oh, yeah, sure, honey. Did the specialists come today? I didn't see them. Oh, no,

[01:19:48] we don't need them right now. Are they coming tomorrow? Oh, yeah, I'm sure they... She's kind of seeing through that. I think she's getting worried about her own father's motives a little bit. Because then she goes to Grandpa Roderick,

[01:20:02] because she's worried about her father's mental state, only to realize that maybe he's a little off too. I was gonna say, some throw a grandpa too. This girl has no hope or support whatsoever. The family has checked out.

[01:20:16] Oh, God. And then lastly, Lenore, a scene with her that I wanted to call out is fun. She's sitting there watching movies with her mother on Netflix. Ah, yeah. And the first movie that they finish is The Pit and the Pendulum, which is a Poe short story that

[01:20:33] was made into a movie in 1961, starring Vincent Price. And the fact that they're watching that specific story, that specific movie right now, we'll talk about a little later, I'm sure, but it's quite apropo. Sorry. Um, yeah. And then after they finish The Pit and the Pendulum, of course,

[01:20:55] they're surfing Netflix on the homepage looking for another movie to watch. And as she starts talking to her, so then she stops on one. And what movie are they? Is it stopped on right there? But Gerald's Game, which yes, the Stephen King adaptation

[01:21:09] directed by Mike Flanagan and stars Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, and Henry Thomas, which maybe it's good that they didn't watch that or she might be worried even more about her dad and the things he does. Um, yeah, no kidding. No kidding. I loved that. I love when

[01:21:25] Mike Flanagan kind of like puts his own stuff in there. I mean, it was definitely, he puts in a lot of Easter eggs, but it was almost like a little like, yeah, that's me. You know, I did

[01:21:35] that. Yeah. So freaking good. Yeah. And then lastly, I had kind of some thoughts in like a theory that's probably absolutely wrong, but it was in my head and I was like, I want to talk about it anyway. Let's talk about it. Who cares?

[01:21:50] Yeah. You're wrong. So August mentions that, you know, he lost his job due to whatever happened in the basement of Fortunato and how that went. And clearly Roderick screwed over him in some way,

[01:22:02] aside from, you know, whatever the thing in him and Madeline did that night to get where they are. Um, so then it gave me, I had a thought that might be purposely like misleading probably is,

[01:22:13] I don't know, but I want to talk about it. Instead of being secretive because we've hinted at it this entire like series, I'm just going to come out and say it. What do we think happened?

[01:22:25] You know, theory clearly is that Roderick and Madeline sealed Rufus Griswold up in the basement wall a la Cascavant Montiato. Like that's what we've kind of been hinting at. I think most people get that. Um, I hope so. I don't know that that's what happened, but

[01:22:40] damn it, if that brick wall doesn't look sus. I mean, you can kind of tell the pattern of the brick. There's something off. Yeah. But there was something in this episode that

[01:22:53] made me wonder if that was wrong, that there's a twist on that. And I'm probably wrong, but you see there's the janitor that almost catches Roderick in the basement while he's down there.

[01:23:06] And they seem to kind of focus on this set of keys that are jangling from his pocket or from his hip and the way they jangle whenever he's like picking them up and unlocking the door.

[01:23:16] And we see Roderick keeps hearing these kind of like clinging sounds behind that wall. He does say bells later on, so I could be wrong. That's what he says he's hearing. But it just, it was

[01:23:25] just enough for me to go, what if, you know, that instead of the terrible crime and secret that they're holding, isn't that they sealed up the evil boss, but the innocent bystander who showed

[01:23:38] up at the wrong time, like the janitor. Wow. That would be a really interesting twist. Right. Because I feel like it's been kind of, for me and what we've talked about off and on,

[01:23:52] even off recording and during our sessions, feels like it's been very much in our face about what they did and the story, like post story that they're referring to and what happened in that story. But it would be a really interesting twist for it to be something

[01:24:11] completely different and kind of throw us off. It would be very Flanagan-esque for him to do that. So that's an interesting theory. I did not go there. Yeah, it's enough for me to kind of question and wonder about it with those keys. But then

[01:24:26] later in the episode, Roderick even says, do you hear that? And it's like, I'm hearing bells. And so I was like, my theory is probably incorrect, but I still like it. I want to

[01:24:34] talk about it. I want to bring it up just in case. Yeah, got to put it out in the universe because you never know. That's interesting. Well, we'll find out, I hope soon. Damn it. Two episodes to go. Yeah. But that is all that's all I've got.

[01:24:55] I love that. Speaking of that janitor and Roderick in the basement, I just want to call out because we're talking about some beautiful imagery and cinematography in this episode and many others as well. But I love that scene of Roderick printing

[01:25:15] and making those copies when he's completely in the dark and just the light from that scanner printer, just how it kind of highlighted him in his silhouette. I was like, oh, that's a really

[01:25:31] interesting and beautiful shot. I just, I loved that. I thought it was super cool. So call out to that. That was another really great direction. Some of my notes, and there's probably, I'll have to scroll through here and see what we've already talked about so we're not repeating,

[01:25:50] but I did want to mention the color theory. And as you accurately called out last week, Tammy has connected to the color green, which I think we all know it's a pretty obvious correlation

[01:26:08] to envy, which is also a deadly sin by the way. If that's how this is playing out, I don't know if it is or not, but I find it interesting. So the color green we know is shown throughout this

[01:26:26] episode with the lighting. We definitely see that green cast of lighting. There's the green light outside the window, the clothing that Tamerlan wears, her walls in her apartment are this sage green. And it seems that this envy part comes in, this green representing envy,

[01:26:49] seems like it might kind of symbolize this envy for life that she can't have. We were talking about how she hires sex workers to kind of carry out what should be an idea of a loving marriage,

[01:27:04] but she has someone else do it for her. She can't seem to have genuine connections, like she's envious of having a real connection. She's jealous of people I think that can. So yeah, I think that is what that represents. And I found it interesting. I'm like,

[01:27:25] is she in her closet? Because when she pulls out that green dress that she's going to wear to the launch, it looked like her whole closet. Everything was off-white beige

[01:27:36] color, but she has this one green dress. I don't know if that's... I was like, what? I don't know if I saw that correctly or not, but that was a quick note that I took. We've talked about

[01:27:48] Perry and red that has an association with death, disease, and hell, like the fires of hell. CBT Lost even? JG Well, but also, and this is why I don't know because I feel like I'm not sure if I can apply

[01:28:03] all of these to the kids with this theory, this color theory, and also applying what we've talked about before with some of their deadly sins, it can also represent wrath, which I thought Perry

[01:28:17] also had some motivation by. So I don't know. With Camille, I thought it was white, but when I went back and looked at some of the pictures, I didn't go back and watch the episode, but I went back and

[01:28:32] Google imaged her. Oh, there's that one shot of her standing with her assistants behind her, and everything's kind of white, but she's also wearing this baby blue as well. There's some

[01:28:46] blue tint to some of her scenes as well. And I didn't realize this, but the deadly sins have colors associated with them, and baby blue is associated with sloth, which I thought was interesting for Camille, but the definition of that is someone with an absence of interest or

[01:29:08] habitual disinclination to exertion. And that seemed to kind of fit Camille. We talked about Leo in yellow and then orange with Victorine, so that covers that. But yep, you were spot on with Tamerlan in the green. Couldn't miss it, especially in that end.

[01:29:31] Yeah. I said Frederick would be blue, but then if we're going back and Camille was a blue, then maybe not. So maybe purple with Fred, but then yeah, I don't know. Again, my guess was kind of blue because hers was, there's a lot of whites and stuff too.

[01:29:45] Yeah. Hers was kind of hard to call. So I don't know if that's right or not. We talked about Arthur Pym and that Lost Island thing, that really, I don't know if there's more to that or not. So I don't know.

[01:30:03] I liked seeing the flashbacks and getting to see Augie and Roderick, how they were kind of working together because we get, I like how we're getting information and kind of being told what happens

[01:30:14] before we actually see it happening. So he's like, oh yeah, I remember that time. I was unemployed, thanks to you. And I'm like, what? And then we get the flashback of how they're cooking up the

[01:30:26] scheme for Roderick to go and copy these records and find anything that has a signature on it or anything that mentions those clinical trials, kind of getting a hint of what's to come there.

[01:30:41] Like you mentioned, we were getting more callbacks to Bricks again, which something about the damn wall. Eyes being gouged out, Madeline talked about that when she told Pym when she finds Verne, which they're not calling her Verna, but we call her Verna. I want her eyes.

[01:31:05] And then with Roderick and those Sapphire eyes, more callouts to being immortal. I think Roderick says that, like I'm immortal. Tammy brings up in her speech, eternal youth. I just keep hearing these things over and over again, wanting to live forever, being immortal,

[01:31:31] eternal youth, the eyes thing. I don't know what it is. Pieces out here, like this huge jigsaw puzzle that I just cannot figure out. Let's see, we talked about Dran's global expedition. That

[01:31:45] was really interesting. I didn't know that was a thing. So it was cool to look that up and like that. I was like, oh, they didn't just make that up. He drew from that. I mean, obviously Pym's part

[01:31:55] is fiction, but I was like, I've never heard of that. So that was really cool. It was interesting because when you were reading about it, did you see that there was some relation of like Rafe and Joseph? Is it Fines? Yes. Yes.

[01:32:09] There like relation, he like headed it or something. I don't know, what the heck? I wrote all other book on it and stuff like author that you kind of, I was looking at that.

[01:32:19] It was like, you can go in and read like all of his writings and stuff about it. Yeah. I was like, dang, that's interesting. We're talking about the humor in this episode,

[01:32:29] and so much of that is owed to Ruth Codd and her performance and just being absolutely amazing. But a little small part that I found really funny was when Roderick was dismissing the pictures that Pym

[01:32:42] had presented and, well, hell, I can Photoshop some pictures. And he mentions being able to like, if he wanted to, he could Photoshop Pym blowing musk or whatever. And the look on Pym's face was like, excuse me? It was so subtle that it was just, it was wonderful.

[01:33:04] Yeah. I liked the scene and what Maddie said. I don't know why I just... Madeline is a mystery to me. Maybe she's not to other people. I feel like she's a little bit psychopathic herself,

[01:33:23] but also in some way I respect her. The scene where she smacks Roderick when they're in the basement and says, shut your mouth, get your shit together, fuck is wrong with you?

[01:33:37] I'm just like, oh my God, I just love that so much. How many times have we all just wanted to do that? Or maybe I've needed it myself. I don't know. Maybe I need sometimes just

[01:33:51] do that to me, like snap out of it, damn it, get your shit together. But I loved that. I just, I don't know, in some ways respect Maddie and parts of her, but I do think she's

[01:34:03] a little psychopathic. But she had some really good lines. I thought that was a good line. I liked when she was talking to Tamerlane and she's like, not Bill, the fitness dork. That's really great. The revelation that she was married,

[01:34:22] liked hearing that bit. And then when she says, oh, well, that was not going anywhere and that was a mistake, but he was fun to ride. I'm loving Maddie this episode. She was really great.

[01:34:39] And seeing again in the flashbacks, I keep asking this question. I don't know if we're, I hope we get the answer with what we have left in the series, but seeing Roderick, the flashbacks and how a good person he was and then seeing who he is today.

[01:35:00] You know, Augie, I think has even asked like, what the hell happened to you? Like he knew Roderick back in that day and knew that he was in, he was a good person stuck in a really bad situation and he tried to help him and something happened

[01:35:18] that he just completely flipped. Like he went from that version of himself to who we see today. And when he asks that question, like Roderick has this way of when they're having these conversations, like he just stares at him and he doesn't answer the question

[01:35:34] or he just brushes things off. And that's what he keeps, that's what he's done when, when Augie asks. So I feel like it has to kind of be important. Like something really happened,

[01:35:44] I think to make Roderick turn from that nice guy that we see Zach Guilford portraying him, that younger version to Bruce Greenwood's version, the older version. And I feel like something important happened and I don't know what that was. A little shout out to Zach Guilford.

[01:36:05] I found out he's on Cameo by the way. So if anybody's thinking of what should I get Rima for her birthday or Christmas? You know, just saying, you know, I almost got one for myself

[01:36:16] and I thought that would be really pathetic. Anyway, I was like, oh my gosh. Anyway, we talked about the photographic evidence that Pim found. Interesting to see the whole collage of people that she was photographed with just saying that Mike Flanagan

[01:36:38] can be not so subtle sometimes and I'm going to leave it at that. Roderick talks about Tusaret, the Egyptian queen, kind of calls her a goddess. She was a real person. So he describes all these things that he did and how much he had, well not dollar amount,

[01:37:05] but like hoops he had to jump through and people he had to pay off in order to get these sapphires that sat in her eyes when she was entombed for Madeline's birthday. She was an actual pharaoh

[01:37:19] whose reign ended in a civil war. I don't know if it means anything, but I don't know. I feel like we get these things that are dropped every now and again and there's a lot of

[01:37:36] references to ancient Egypt. We know Madeline got one of those, I can't remember what the thing was called, but whatever they used to yank the brains out of people when they're mummifying them. Roderick's sword, I know that's not what it's really called, but that sword that he's playing

[01:37:51] with and he was playing with it in this episode as well. And then we've got these sapphires that they placed on this ancient female pharaoh who was a real person, but yeah,

[01:38:03] there's ties to that, I feel. And then a callback to, or not callback, but maybe an Easter egg. Roderick quotes from two different works from Poe and one of them was Dream Within a Dream

[01:38:21] and then the short story Eleonora. He quotes them in this episode, so little shout out to Poe. And I think we talked, that was a lot of notes, but there was some really good stuff in here and

[01:38:34] the others we've already talked about. There was a lot that happened and even though it was like Tammy's episode and what happened to her, there was still just so much more that dropped and

[01:38:46] kind of building up to I guess what's coming next. There was a lot. Anything else that you want to say about this episode? Okay. I think I've got it. Yeah. Well, yeah. I say, I don't know what else. I don't know. Probably more we could sit here and

[01:39:06] dissect and just talk about because I thought it was a really great episode, but let's move on to listener feedback. Do you want to take the first one? All right. Yeah. The first one comes from

[01:39:16] Derek O'Neill from TV Podcast Industries. Awesome. Good to hear from Derek in a little bit. Yes. Says, one of the things I've really enjoyed about this season is how fucking horrible the

[01:39:25] family is. It's like watching Succession, but you know each member of the family will get a well deserved death. It makes it easy just to watch the show for fun. But then again, you know Mike

[01:39:34] Flanagan is going to get you in the end. Yeah. I love that. That's a really good point, Derek, because this, I don't know if he drew from that, but I wonder if Mike Flanagan was inspired a

[01:39:48] little by Succession, a little. Mm-hmm. Dawn Elizabeth says, I find myself wondering why Tammy isn't sleeping. Did I miss something? Is it that she is so driven that she doesn't make time for it? Watching her decline into madness and then death was sadly satisfying for me as she

[01:40:05] was a horrible person. She had a few redemptive seconds with Bill and with Juno, but too little, too late. All the glass in the wounds made me squirm, but I thought the slow motion shot of

[01:40:16] the mirrored ceiling come down was really good. All these deaths of the kid have to be tied with whatever deal Roderick and Madeline made back on New Year's Eve with Verna. Madeline seems to

[01:40:26] have remembered all about meeting Verna while Roderick is doing his best to deny it. Madeline is the most intelligent person in what we've seen so far, and maybe the best decision she made was

[01:40:37] to not have children, at least as far as we know up to now. Frederick is turning out to be just as horrible as the rest. For a while I thought he was a pretty upstanding guy, but now his actions to

[01:40:47] his wife show how wrong I was. What does cocaine do when injected into your IV? And I had not been sure of Lenore, but I now think she is the one good person in the entire show. I did get a kick

[01:40:59] out of the bowling alley and the kitchen. What is the tie-in with Pym's ultimate dual, I'm not pronouncing that right, sorry, discovery? Is he nuts? I'm really looking forward to seeing where

[01:41:10] all of this will take us. Oh, and for a while I wonder if Roderick had hallucinated Victorine's death, but nope, he was really there. Alright, this one comes from Lindsey Schlicht. So as the first time I watched this episode, I thought it was kind of overall pretty boring.

[01:41:28] On second watch, I was able to appreciate the terror more, that slow descent into madness she experienced. It's so subtle at first that you can almost relate, being so tired you do odd things

[01:41:37] and feel like you're going crazy. Her struggles with insomnia, just begging herself to go to sleep is so uncomfortable, I've been there way too many times. It was strange to actually start

[01:41:46] to feel a little bad for Tammy. In my opinion she's been the most distasteful of the Usher kids, but when I knew it was her episode, I didn't care at all. But her vulnerability with Bill,

[01:41:55] who'd already left the room, and then that brief moment of kindness with Juno made me feel a little bad for her. I can't wait to find out who or what Verna will end up being. All these photos of her

[01:42:05] throughout history, I hope the reveal lives up to the buildup just because I cannot figure out who she's supposed to be. Love the little Netflix scroll stop at Gerald's game. So Frodrick is

[01:42:15] drugging Mori, why? Just to torture her? Remind me of what lies beneath. That was a pretty badass slow motion death Tammy got, very cool effects and look to it. Not a bad episode, especially

[01:42:27] on second watch. Awesome. Yeah. Marine Favo says, even though this episode is named for Goldbug, it is about William Wilson's story. Once I caught on to Doppelganger's situation, story had so much more depth. Oh, so she picked up on that. Again, Carla transformed herself.

[01:42:49] Really hard to watch Tamerlane self-destruct her launch presentation was really tough to watch. Cringe. Poor Juno. Madeline watching Tamerlane self-destruct was intense. What does black residue on Madeline's hands mean? Best death scene yet, even visually better than Roderick's tower fall. Highlights, more eye removal reference. Roderick God complex.

[01:43:17] Bodyguard reference Costner. I forgot to mention that. Yeah. It's funny. Costner? Costner. She goes on, Pym backstory. Madeline talking men with Tamerlane also was good pep talk. Juno hit by mic stand. What a mic drop.

[01:43:37] Can't wait for Pym, Verna meet. Will Pym survive? What is behind wall and how crazy Frederick becomes? Was he always a sadist? I don't know. A lot of good thoughts. Yeah. A lot of good thoughts. Thank you. We also have an email coming in from Lara says,

[01:44:00] hi, Rima and Peck. I finally found the time to binge through the first five episodes and just finished episode five telltale heart. And I'm so happy to say that I am fully on board now.

[01:44:09] I may not be getting the atmospheric Gothic feels of an original post story, but I am enjoying the ways Mike Flanagan is mixing in so many elements of his short stories and poetry into each episode. And though familiarity with the source material makes the episode endings somewhat predictable,

[01:44:23] I appreciate the modern day twists created to get to that ending. Once I accepted that this wasn't going to be the emotional gut wrench of the haunting of Hill House, Bly Manor or Midnight Mass,

[01:44:33] but more of a social commentary centered around this absolutely wretched family of morally bankrupt humans, I started to love it for the storytelling and the cautionary tales of lust, envy, let me pride, greed, sloth and wrath. Maybe some oppose recurring themes of guilt and descents into madness,

[01:44:49] which is heavily explored with the various ushers. And similar to how Flanagan mapped each of the siblings in Hill House to the five stages of grief, I'm wondering, I haven't looked into it, whether each of the usher siblings are being mapped to the seven deadly sins,

[01:45:02] as you mentioned on one of the podcasts. Is Perry lost? Camille wrath? Leo gluttony? I'm certain that Victorine was pride and that leaves only two children and three sins, but I think the last sin of greed might be left for our old Roderick and Madeline themselves. Hmm.

[01:45:17] Even though all of these characters are so irredeemable, I love seeing the range of these great actors, some of whom have played such beloved characters in the Flanniverse, performing as these absolutely terrible people. My favorite moment? Seeing Raoul Coley,

[01:45:30] who is lovably adorkable in Bly Manor, manically demoing his condo with Thor's hammer. Meow. Now that I'm up to speed, I cannot wait to watch and listen to the next one. Cheers, Lara. That was great.

[01:45:43] That was great. I'm so happy you wrote in, Lara. I've been waiting to get your thoughts because I know you love Poe as well and the theme. So really happy to hear that you're caught up and keep

[01:45:58] writing in. All right. This next one comes from Sarah. She says, hey y'all, some double episode thoughts again from episode five. Freddie's total nonchalance about everyone's deaths is kind of amusing to me. The way he introduced his bodyguard to Tami and Vic, this is Tony. Tony,

[01:46:18] this is who's left. And then when he says, not with all the dead people and stuff, this man has not felt an ounce of compassion in his life. Total eclipse of the heart was a nice touch.

[01:46:30] I really liked Alessandra, but I would have expected her to know better than to threaten to expose everything, at least not until she makes sure she could be safe. I'm sure she loved,

[01:46:40] trusted Vic up until that point, but she's also definitely aware of how dangerous her family would be if crossed. Taneya Miller's final scene was epic. I was so tripped out with her conversation

[01:46:50] with Roderick. I was like, wait, whose hallucination are we in right now? The way it flipped on Roderick when she was like, maybe you should have just jumped. I thought at that point that

[01:46:59] it was Rod imagining her, but you guys made more sense that it could have been Berna possessing her somehow. So we finally found the source of the mysterious ticking noise that Vic was hearing, but I'm still determined to figure out the source of the mysterious jingling noise.

[01:47:14] Since we saw another glimpse of that Joker jester looking dude, it occurred to me that it could be related to him as in the bells on his hat. We'll see soon, I guess. And then thoughts on episode

[01:47:25] six, a fun little coincidental kind of thing. The piano piece playing in this episode is a sonata by Beethoven called The Tempest, which was believed to be named after Shakespeare's play of the same

[01:47:36] name, The Tempest. And in that play, the main character's name is Prospero. So if this song had played during Perry's episode, I would have thought it was an intentional Easter egg, but I

[01:47:48] think it was genuinely just a cool coincidence. Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. She goes on, I loved Roderick's dream within a dream scene. From what I could find, it uses a little bit of

[01:48:00] the a dream within a dream poem mixed with another poet, Poe quote about dreams. I think they work so well together. And in this context, very cool. So in inception, Sandman coded. Oh dear. Freddie is really spiraling, drugging his wife, gaslighting his daughter. Yikes. I'm

[01:48:21] actually really excited to see how Varna taunts him. I hope it somehow incorporates his stupid at home bowling alley. That's funny. More brick references. Mads says something about one brick at a time. And I was like, Ooh, interesting choice of words. I gotta be honest

[01:48:46] up until now, I thought I hated Tammy the most, but I almost feel kind of bad for her throughout this episode. Her final Varna showdown death scene was actually visually stunning and so green. Also, why the fuck does she have like a gazillion mirrors in one room?

[01:49:03] I think it's the light to watch thing. Listen in that room. She goes on, I loved hearing you guys go over all the colors for each siblings episode. I went back to check the previous episodes and it

[01:49:15] was so subtle on the original watch, but so noticeable when you have the colors in mind, Perry red, Camille white, gray, Leo, yellow, Vic orange, and now Tammy with the green.

[01:49:25] As soon as she wore the green dress, I was like, okay, here we go. Love it. I think picks right that Freddie's would be blue. He always seems to wear something blue. And for some scenes in

[01:49:34] his house, there's a big aquarium in the background. So I'm already feeling all the blue imagery. PS the bent neck lady, insert the Leo DiCaprio pointing at the screen meme. Also is Juno okay? On to the next episode. Thanks guys. Sarah.

[01:49:54] Thank you. That was delightful. Thank you, Sarah. All right. And we have one more email from our good friend, my other cohost Daphne, always coming through with the emails says hi, Rima and Peck. This episode shares its name with

[01:50:12] the gold bug. One of those stories in 43, the connection is really that the protagonist is convinced a scrap of parchment will help him regain his fortune. Tammy was driven with regard to gold bug bringing some positive focus to the ushers while everything else was falling apart.

[01:50:27] There's one saying after this episode, I think I'm okay with Frederick's end, drugging his wife so she will stay silent while he taunts her and blames her for something she didn't do. I hope Lenore can save her mother. I still think she's the only good usher and I

[01:50:39] hope she can move on from all of this. We did learn that Madeline had had a first husband and it's interesting how similar that she and Tammy are. Too bad that Tammy pushed Bill away. He genuinely

[01:50:49] seemed to care for her but is over her prioritization of the company over all the losses her family has endured. I loved seeing Gerald's game flash on the screen as Mirella

[01:50:58] and Lenore were looking for a movie to watch. I hope Juno is okay. During the gold bug presentation all I could think was that I was watching another usher losing their fucking mind.

[01:51:12] Maybe Roderick should have forced them all to move into his house. Would it have saved anyone? What is the deal with the Ravel? I hope that we get answers soon as time is running out. How can there be just two episodes left of Flanagan's final Netflix series?

[01:51:28] Overall, I've really enjoyed it and can't wait to see how it ends. I don't know how there's only two episodes left and kind of being the final series that we get from Flanagan and Netflix collaboration. I've got faith. I mean,

[01:51:44] I'm always questioning. That's my nature, but I know you've said, in Flanagan we trust. Right. I don't think he's never not landed an ending other than Midnight Club, but that was with other situations going on. There's supposed to be a second season that didn't happen.

[01:52:06] That's not Flanagan's fault. But everything else I think he's managed to package up really neatly. I have no complaints about how anything has ended. So I feel like we'll be okay.

[01:52:18] I need to just keep my faith, but I'm impatient. I'm just impatient and I want to know right now. I know I'm going to go watch the next episode after we wrap this up, but it's still knowing

[01:52:31] that there's a final episode out there that I still have to wait for. It's just I want to know already. I know. I'm just no patience. Speaking of, next episode we're going to be

[01:52:42] covering episode seven of The Fall of the House of Usher titled The Pit and the Pendulum. Which ties into what, Peg? Yeah, that's what I mentioned. That's the movie that Lenore and Morello were watching

[01:53:00] that ended before the Gerald's Game little Easter egg. We saw a little bit there at the end of that movie. I'm interested to see how that ties into the next episode. And we know that's Frederick's episode. He's the only one left now.

[01:53:16] I feel like we're getting some foreshadowing here. They're dropping some hints. I don't know, but it seems pretty obvious. I guess we'll see, but we hope everyone joins us for that. Keep writing in and leaving all of that feedback because this

[01:53:35] week was amazing. We got some really great responses, so keep it coming. Lots of great feedback. We always love that. Of course, if you want to leave us feedback, if you didn't this week and want to be part of that next time, because we'd love to hear from

[01:53:48] you, you can reach out to us on Facebook, through email, wherever. And you can find all of that contact information and those links over at podcastica.com. And while you're there, make sure to check out all of our other shows.

[01:54:03] So like you mentioned, Peg, our friends Ben and Mark, and I'm hoping to join them, hopefully with the schedules work out. Yeah, I'd like to pop on once or twice this season because I've watched the first two.

[01:54:15] I haven't watched episode three yet, but I'm really intrigued by it, where it's going. Yeah, I'm very excited. I think I've said it multiple times over the different podcast episodes that I'm a big Godzilla fan. So I would definitely love to

[01:54:33] jump on and help cover some of that with them. So they're covering Monarch Legacy of Monsters that is on Apple TV. So be sure to check them out, give them a little love if you enjoy that show.

[01:54:50] And then you and Daphne also have a new episode coming out. Is it this week? No, we're still on break until December. Yeah, we're still on break till December, but we're still recording stuff. So we're back logging and kind of making up some.

[01:55:08] Yeah, so we're recording, but we just kind of get some episodes because with the holidays and stuff coming up, even though we'll be back releasing episodes in December with holidays and all that stuff, it's nice to have a backlog of episodes already recorded because holidays get crazy.

[01:55:22] You guys are smart. You guys are smart. I don't ever think that far ahead. So we don't do that here and we probably should. So yeah, you guys are smart to do that.

[01:55:36] And yeah, but if you want to go check out those, we've covered a lot of stuff. We've got a good six seasons worth of which are seasons like 25 episodes each. We kind of do little blocks like

[01:55:46] that. So lots of stuff to go check out or maybe five seasons worth. I don't know. It's been long enough to I'm like, I don't know what season we're on. We're just we're doing a lot of movies

[01:55:56] and it's been fun. We did Tucker. No, let's see. No, we haven't released that one yet. Never mind. I almost started something. Let's see. I'm just going to roll back and just see,

[01:56:07] oh, what's an old episode from two seasons ago? Cocaine Bear with Alex. That was a fun one. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. That's a fun one. Check that one out. Yeah. You talk about all

[01:56:18] the episodes and stuff and how it's easy to get them all confused. And I noticed and our good friend Derek also brought it to my attention as well. We're creeping up on 300

[01:56:28] episodes. Very strange indeed. Talk about a lot of coverage. So yeah, a lot of great stuff. Check them out. All of our friends and us at podcastica.com. Yeah. You can go check out all those

[01:56:46] where there's lots of rewatches Ted Lasso rewatch with Revisited. There's a Walking Dead rewatch over on the cast of us. Lots of great stuff going on. Squid Game just started with Podcastica. Jason has

[01:57:01] been getting that going with covering the first season of Squid Game, getting ready for second season coming soon. So lots of good stuff to check out. Go give all of them love. Make sure you rate,

[01:57:11] review, subscribe, follow whatever you can do to all of these podcasts that you love to kind of help continue to share that love. We always appreciate it. Yeah. Click all the buttons. Please and thank you. Yes. All right. That is our show. Thanks for listening, everyone.

[01:57:27] Until next time, I'm Rima. And I'm Pete. And Michelle Jenkins is strange indeed.