‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ Episode 3 Recap: Monkey Business

You had to know “eat the rich” would get literal on this show eventually. Titled “Murder in the Rue Morgue” — a nod to the series’ nature as a lowkey anthology, riffing primarily on one Edgar Allan Poe story at a time — this episode of The Fall of the House of Usher sees Kate Siegel’s very sexy, extremely awful PR-guru character Camille fall victim to her own pettiness. In her zeal to ruin the life of her hated half-sister Victorine, she winds up ending her own, at the hands of an enraged chimpanzee. Not the way I’d like to go, frankly.

Indeed, Verna, if that is her real name, seems almost apologetic just prior to unleashing primate hell upon Camille’s glamorous ass. It seems clear now that her purpose is not just to kill the Usher heirs, but to offer them one last warning, one last chance to get the hell out of wherever they are, stop doing whatever venal bullshit they’re doing, and die peacefully in their beds someday. But Usher children are not ones to heed warnings, or be diverted from their chosen course of action. Prospero was always gonna go through with that party. Camille, who Verna says hates Victorine because she picked a better job to disguise their shared true nature as sociopaths, was always gonna try to snap damning photos to stick it to Vic. They made their beds, and now they’re lying in them. Well, what’s left of them is.

And they’re continuing to make their own beds across the family. Throwing caution to the wind the night before Camille has scheduled him to do a round of press, Napoleon throws a big drug-fueled party. He remembers nothing, and we ourselves see nothing, until he wakes up covered in blood from having butchered his cat during his blackout state. 

Leo covers up the crime, but it’s a dark turn of events — in and of itself, yes, but also because he seemed to be the most decent of the Ushers. His job is harmless, comparatively speaking: he funds video games. His vices are ordinary: He likes to game and do drugs and get his dick sucked. (Whom amongst us?) He’s the only sibling who seemed to care about Perry at all, both before and after his horrific death. If he’s out there slaughtering animals in a fugue state? In an episode that hinges on people’s moral culpability for cruelty to animals? Not a great sign.

Things are even worse for Freddie — or “Froderick” as he’s called by his siblings, who loathe him for his “bad cover band” version of their father — and his daughter Lenore. They’re reeling from the discovery that Morelle was one of the victims of the chemical bath at the orgy; Freddie in particular is shouldering blame direct from Roderick for not having demolished the location months earlier. Lenore is left to watch in screaming horror as her panicked mother, in agonizing pain, regains consciousness and beings stripping away her bandages and pawing at the ruined flesh of her face. (Both here and with the makeup effects for Camille’s mangled corpse, this show goes hard.)

Even the kink stuff the kids are into hit speed bumps this episode. Before her unfortunate demise, Camille has her sexual relationship with her personal assistants Toby and Beth (“Tina” is just a name Camille assigned her for shits and giggles — “My name isn’t Tina, you know it’s Beth.” “I don’t give a shit, Beth!!!” Amazing stuff.). The two have fallen in love and want to be exclusive. In the middle of a hilarious, profane rant that begins wit Camille lying face down on her bed, legs spread, proclaiming her wish to “starfish” until she’s been given at least two orgasms, she fires them for their intransigence.

Tammy and BillT’s routine is disrupted when Verna shows up instead of their usual sex worker. Speaking in a British accent and calling herself Candy, she morphs seamlessly into a caring American wife who seems to know and value BillT’s work better than Tammy does herself. This gets Tammy in the mood, but of course she doesn’t know she’s about to jerk off to her husband flirting with death incarnate.

Smooshed in there are a couple of crackerjack monologues in which a pair of rich assholes, Roderick Usher and his old boss Rufus Griswold (Michael Trucco in full Alec Baldwin in Glengarry mode), lay out the way of the world for Auggie Dupin and young Roderick respectively. The older Roderick riffs on the old saw “if life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” spinning out a capitalist wet-dream nightmare about the absolute killing he could make on lemons if you were creative, ambitious, and ruthless enough. 

Griswold explains that he stole Roderick’s idea to sell Ligadone — via buying up both the chemist who designed it and the company he designed it for — because “an idea is just a fart your brain makes.” It’s what you do with the idea that matters. (This is actually advice I’ve heard from many successful writers and cartoonists, who point out that having an idea for a novel and having a novel are two very different things.)

And so we continue with the recipe that’s worked so far: Graphic violence, sexual fetishism, actors having fun playing heel, and the unwavering belief that the ultrawealthy should be brutally punished for their crimes. What, honestly, is not to like here?

This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, after the victory of the WGA in their own strike over similar issues. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the show being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.