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At least to this viewer, the overall sense of boredom I experienced could be compared to the crushing loneliness felt by most of Poe's characters. A good portion of the series takes place in the decaying Usher home on a cul-de-sac in Suburbia, USA, with much of it framed as a confession by the Usher patriarch Roderick to the longtime private investigator C. Augustine Dupin on a pair of oversized leather chairs facing across from one another. Are you still awake, or did even reading that sentence put you to sleep? In flashbacks as Roderick tells his tale, we see the downfall of his family which includes his five children of various mothers and one twin sister. I cannot say that anything surprising happens, in fact it's all very telegraphed from the start.
It was perhaps a clever idea to craft a Poe Cinematic Universe, but I do not think as a whole that the entire project panned out to anything worthwhile. The speeches each of the primary characters give are incredibly long-winded and vapid, and we're not given any reason to care for any of the Ushers. Frequently, the scenes linger on for far too long. This miniseries could have benefited from either having 42-minute episodes, or having 2 less episodes, to cut to the meat of the story. I also am not sure how well the many flashbacks worked for the series, and to be frank I did not believe the Young Roderick's arch to get to the Old Roderick. All of the Usher children had a holier-than-thou mentality and I don't think any of the actors played their power dynamic with any interesting flair or unique touch. Some of them are LGBTQ+, some of them are BIPOC, all of them are kinky, all of them are vile.
Some spoilers: I liked the character of Verna, but the speech she gave to Lenore in the last episode seemed so corny and out of character. Verna is a demon, or Death personified, and finds it so interesting to give a deal with eventual killers via their pharmaceuticals. She is impressed at how many millions the Ushers have killed through their pills. But then she tells Lenore how many millions of lives her mom will save. If she can see into the future, like she says, she knows that her deal with the Ushers would kill millions. Why would she give a crap about Lenore's mom saving lives? Why would she care at all about Lenore? Is this supposed to humanize Verna? Is the series trying to humanize Death? Verna doesn't care about anyone else, in fact she doesn't seem to care at all. Such a lame turn of events. Additionally, the big self-aggrandizing speech at the end from Madeline Usher made me roll my eyes -- lots of blame pointed at The Consumer in this series. "C'mon, Roddy, we're gonna go down swinging until the very end!" Aww, such go-getters! And I called it right when it happened in the first episode: when Augustine mentions he has an informant inside the family that he needs to protect the identity of, but has the judge/stenographer strike that from the record, OF COURSE it was a bluff!! I cannot believe THAT got the family to tear each other apart. We find out near the end that there was no informant. Wow, really?
You would think that me, a fan of Poe and someone that believes that being a billionaire is not only immoral but should be illegal, would love a show like this depicting the bloody downfall of the rich and powerful. But this attempted adaptation of these iconic horror works into a Poe Cinematic Universe falls flat.
6/10
