Given the circumstances, Roderick Usher should be distressed and grieving after the third death amidst his children, but instead, all he and Madeline worry about is the board and what happens next to the company. It’s almost as if this entire scenario is inevitable. The name of episode 5 is The Tell-Tale Heart, a murder mystery told by an unreliable narrator. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Maybe Roderick is paranoid, and all of what he’s saying is a big lie, a story his mind has made up to deal with the loss of his children, or maybe Verna is real, and she’s coming to get him next. Madeline has her own theories, so let’s quickly jump into The Fall of the House of Usher Episode 5.
Spoilers Ahead
Madeline’s Big Dreams
Of the twins, Madeline happens to be the more strong-willed. The one with the big ideas and bigger dreams. She’s a genius, as we know, so it makes sense that she’s ambitious too. Being a woman in the 70s who lost her parents early and had to take care of herself and her brother made her a force to be reckoned with. Madeline tells Verna on New Year’s Eve that she will be satisfied when she learns to be immortal. They kiss when the ball drops, and somehow, Madeline feels a connection with Verna.
The Bodyguards
Now that three of the kids are dead and the informant still hasn’t been found, the three remaining siblings are worried, but more importantly, Madeline thinks Verna and Roderick may have had a kid, and that kid is now trying to come for the others to become the sole inheritor. She hires bodyguards for the remaining kids, who follow them everywhere. Vic is the only illegitimate child remaining, and that’s a little bit frightening for her. She’s feeling her morale shake a little. On the other hand, Frederick has taken Morelle back home to get her “treated” there, but he’s more interested in figuring out what she was doing at Perry’s “party.”
Vic And Al’s Big Fight
Victorine tries to convince Al that the patient she’s found is the perfect candidate for the heart mesh. Al is completely against using the heart mesh on a human being because the chimpanzee died. Al doesn’t know Victorine’s secrets, but she’s completely against this unethical practice. Al finally has a meltdown and tells Vic that it’s true that none of the Ushers are good people. Al decides to leave Vic, and in a rage, Vic throws something at the door before she goes. At the hospital, Madeline visits Vic and has a similar conversation with her as her dad did (wondering if she’s the informant). Vic gets more paranoid as time passes because all she wants is for her heart mesh to work on a human.
Auggie’s Big Reveal
At this point in The Fall of the House of Usher, episode 5, we see Auggie have a conversation with the judge and Pym. He suggests that it’s really strange how the Ushers never get convicted for any of their crimes; even though the bodies and paperwork keep piling up. He’s worked really hard to try to catch them over the years, but it’s almost a supernatural force that protects him. In the old house in 2023, Rodericks finally asks Auggie who the informant was, and he replies that there never was one. It was a tactic he wanted to apply to get the kids to talk, to stir the pot, and to make one of them fall under pressure and break. It never worked, though.
Madeline And Rufus
In 1979, Madeline met Rufus with the offer of her new algorithm that would help track drug movement for Fortunato. Rufus is quick to understand exactly what this means: all the forged documents from Fortunato would be digitized for the police. He insults Madeline by making promiscuous advances at her, but she’s able to face him with pride. At this point, everyone in the office knows that Roderick and Madeline are actually Longfellow’s children. Rufus basically tells Madeline to stay in her lane and stand by his side if she wants anything to do with Fortunato. She tells Auggie and Roderick about what happened, making sure Auggie knows that they’re on his side (although something fishy seems to be going on).
Victorine’s Audio Hallucinations
Victorine begins to hear a strange chirping sound when she’s at the hospital. She’s talking to Verna about the operation and how Al will be the doctor to do it. Verna is uncertain about the situation, though, and just wants to hear from Al that this is safe for her. She compares the feeling to the intuition horses have about their rider, sensing their nervousness, implying that she knows something is going on with Vic.
Bill Is Leaving Tam
Tamerlane, in the middle of this whole mess, is still trying to launch her new product. Bill tells her to take it slow and get some sleep because he’s worried she hasn’t slept for days. Tamerlane has a huge argument with Bill because she couldn’t care less for sleep. She insults and disrespects him by talking about how he was just a pea in the pod who was methodically chosen for Tamerlane’s vision. He was never special; he just had the best viewership as a live fitness expert. Billt is the name that markets Tamerlane’s product, but she’s the one who has done all the work for it. She says she’s seen Verna in multiple videos with Bill, making it seem as if Bill and she have been seeing each other outside of the little arrangement at home. Bill argues that it was never his idea to get other women into their lives; it was all Tamerlane. She’s clearly imagining things because of the lack of sleep, but Bill is too hurt by her calling him an “asset” and decides to leave.
Roderick’s Suicide Attempt
Now, in The Fall of the House of Usher, Roderick has lost three of his children, and he’s tired of losing his mind (from the illness). He spends more time in that basement, and he’s also hearing bell sounds coming from the other side. Roderick thinks about taking too many Ligodone pills, then jumping off his building, and other ways of offing himself, but to no avail. He’s a coward, after all. He visits Victorine, apologizing for putting too much pressure on her. In truth, he was just worried about himself, so he took it all out on her. Vic has kept on some loud music because she could still hear that strange sound that other people were unable to hear. Now, when she turns off the music, Roderick can hear it too. It’s a strange, unknown sound, and Vic tries to go into the room to check up on Al.
What Did Vic Do?
In the conversation Vic had with Al, just before she left, we know she threw something hard at the door. It happened to have hit Al in the head, basically killing her. Vic had forgotten that that had happened, and now she remembers. She tells Roderick to come to see what she’s done because it’s a big achievement. She sees a scalpel in her hand, meaning she’s done something unimaginable. There’s a stench in the room when Roderick makes it there, and to his utter shock, Al sits on a bench, completely bloodied, with the heart device punctured into her chest. That’s where the sound is coming from, because Vic never closed her up. At the same time, Vic is having delusions and thinks she’s actually talking to Al, who is alive in her mind. She’s taken over by the guilt of lying to everybody, not only about the chimpanzees but about Al as well. Roderick tries to talk Vic into stepping out of the room to relax a little bit. He tells her that Al looks quite dead, but she doesn’t believe him.
Vic tells Roderick that she’ll fix everything; she moves from consciousness to delusions, finally putting a knife at her dad’s throat. At the end of The Fall of the House of Usher Episode 5, Vic reminds Roderick that success is everything and she will go to any lengths to achieve it. For a moment, Vic’s tone changes. She tells Roderick that it would’ve been better if he had actually jumped, but because he didn’t, Vic now plunges the knife into her own chest in front of her devastated father.
