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She shapeshifts, and knows everything, always letting the Usher children know exactly what the universe needs them to know before their time is up. And who but Death could refuse death, like when Verna wouldn’t let Roderick die. Meanwhile, Verna can chose the nature of someone’s final moment. She can make their demise simple and pain free, ushering the dead across with a gentle and loving hand. Even when she does the latter, she offers words of wisdom, like with Freddie.
Who is Verna, Carla Gugino's character in 'Fall of the House of Usher?'
Therefore, she had three years of difficult and slow withdrawal process when she wanted to come off the drug. Verna enjoys watching humans selfishly gorge on their ambitions while actively putting the rest of humanity at harm. She seems to crave the knowledge of how far a person’s hubris is willing to take them. As a result, she has worked with numerous names throughout history and watched them destroy the world and its residents for their own benefit.
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The character seems to have a duality, bringing Roderick and his sister Madeline (Mary McDonnell) luck but the price is death. There are many hints about who Verna really is and her true identity - she even makes throwaway comments about her “job” and suggesting she is not human and is clearly immortal as she never ages or can be killed. It’s important to note that Verna doesn’t seem to do this for personal reasons. She gets a jolt out of punishing bad guys, but she’ll still snuff out someone nice, as we see when she sends good old Lenore to her eternal naptime. Swatting folks out of existence is her job, not her hobby, and while she might enjoy parts of it, she mostly goes where the work takes her. In contemporary terms, she’s Uber for death by poetic irony.
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Flanagan doesn't directly adapt Poe's work here, but he borrows widely from it and puts his own twist on things. One of his most clever references is the character Verna, played by Carla Gugino. Verna is the most enigmatic character in "Usher," and her true nature is never spelled out for viewers.
In this case, you do have to walk to the gate in order to see the house. One fateful New Year’s Eve in 1980, Roderick and Madeline Usher found themselves in a bar, unknowingly on the brink of a decision that would shape their family’s destiny for generations. Behind that bar was Verna, serving drinks and, as it turned out, offering deals that were too tempting to resist. With Verna on their side, the Ushers rose to run Fortunato Pharmaceuticals where they developed the drug Ligodone that has infiltrated the world to such a degree, it’s reminiscent of today’s opioid crisis. All of Roderick’s children, including the illegitimate ones, have enjoyed a life of luxury and no responsibility—a gilded life, you could argue—and the company has seen no legal repercussions, just as Verna promised. Verna knows the past and the future of every character in the show.
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She also kills Camille L’Espanaye by transforming from a security guard at her half-sister Victorine's research lab into a murderous chimpanzee. The show’s writers hint at Verna’s history and her true identity throughout the series. Arthur finds photographs of Verna that date back to the start of the 1900s. She is seen interacting with wealthy, influential people throughout history. Clearly, Verna has made many more deals in her past, shaping the planet, feeding man’s greed, and punishing the sinners in the process, which feels very much like the devil’s work to me. Verna’s identity is important to the series for a couple of reasons.
In Poe’s famous poem, the black bird is largely understood to represent death and loneliness, and Verna’s appearance at the end of all of the Usher kids' lives is the kiss of death. “The Raven” (season 1, episode 8) reveals that Roderick and Madeline made a deal with Verna/The Raven many years ago that traded their bloodline’s lives for success and riches during their lifetime. Throughout the limited series’ eight episodes, in which Roderick Usher’s (Bruce Greenwood) entire bloodline mysteriously dies one by one, a peculiar figure named Verna (Carla Gugino) hovers at each death. She’s a security guard, a potential patient, an employee at a pet adoption clinic, and more—shapeshifting as needed to drive each of Roderick’s kids into madness and their eventual death. As Roderick, his twin sister Madeline (Mary McDonnell), and their lawyer-slash-fixer Arthur Pym (Mark Hamill) investigate who she might be, they find her undoctored image throughout history. As one of the two surviving members of the Usher family in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Roderick is one of Poe’s character doubles, or doppelgangers.
After the murder, they go to a nearby bar so they can have an alibi, and Verna serves them. Of course, this raises a lot of questions about this otherworldly character and her role in controlling the fate of the Usher family. At the end of the show, with Roderick and Madeline dead in their childhood home, Verna appears atop the house wearing a black lace dress and then transforms into a raven before flying away. That night, she posed as a bartender who served Roderick and Madeline hours after they killed Roderick's boss.
And the same holds true for ‘The Fall of the House of Usher.’ Believe it or not, Verna told Madeline and Roderic exactly what she was the first time they met 40-something years ago. The content on this site is for entertainment and educational purposes only. All advice, including picks and predictions, is based on individual commentators’ opinions and not that of Minute Media or its related brands. No one should expect to make money from the picks and predictions discussed on this website.
Who Is Verna? 'The Fall Of The House Of Usher' Character Explained - Women's Health
Who Is Verna? 'The Fall Of The House Of Usher' Character Explained.
Posted: Thu, 19 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
And within moments, the Usher home was a pile of wood and rocks on a lot, as Dupin, barely able to process what he had just witnessed, looked on. That left only two Ushers—the ones who entered the world together, and had to go out as well. While Madeline tried to skirt the system by having Roderick overdose on his own Fortunato meds, Verna wasn't letting that happen. And so Roderick invited Madeline over to their childhood home, where their mother once died (and rose again, only to strangle a man to death before finally dying herself), to share a drink. Madeline, without children of her own, didn't have to think much. And while Roderick should have thought of it more, he didn't.
Verna looms large for Tamerlane, She ultimately destroys every mirror she sees; shards of glass fatally pierce her body. Even as the family awakens to Verna's presence, the woman doesn't stop wrecking havoc on the family. She agrees to be the first patient for a human trial for Victorine's cardiac medical device, which definitely isn't ready to hit the market.
She decides what would be a fitting death for each character. It is almost like Verna, whose name is an anagram of the word raven, is death. When Arthur is sent to kill Verna, he realizes that she is not a human being, so she cannot be killed. She will ensure that Camille’s file on Arthur is never found in exchange for something that he loves, but Arthur refuses to make a deal with her.
While the others all brought their demise upon themselves, Lenore was an innocent, the only good Usher. And so we learn of the horrific ways each of his children would go on to die, whether through an ape attack, melting in an acid shower or even by impaling their own "tell-tale" heart. After seven episodes of death and suffering and hilariously cruel one-liners, The House of Usher has finally fallen. Roderick Usher is the last man standing — or sitting, should we say? It seems like each of these business magnates and politicians got where they are today not through hard work or even luck, but through literal dealings with the devil. In Episode 8, “The Raven,” we finally get a glimpse of just what the connection between Roderick and Verna truly is.
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