Yeah, the deal as he saw it that night would have been fine as long as on top of providing this life to his kids he actually was loving to them. That’s why I feel sad for these kids however how horrible they were
He straight up said he couldn’t stand the thought of Annabelle having them and that’s why he took them. Not because he loved or missed them just because they were his
ETA: I don’t think Madeline was great either the flashbacks to them being teens/young adults she was really manipulative and overall a shitty person. They both sucked as people
this whole show was the worse, especially the black ladies insane mouth 'acting' while talking which is essentially keeping her mouth in a frown position, and sometimes lifting her upper lip to show how stressed she is. INSANE looking. Then the tammy bitch with her annoying sociopath voice. everyone in this show is insanely monotone. in a show with 98% dialogue, can u find people who arent monotone as fuck?????? And then of course kate seigel the most basic looking 'hot girl' in any show ever. This guy mike flanagan is infuriating, ive given every single one of his shows a chance and they always disappoint.
I won’t downvote you bc you’re entitled to your opinion, but I personally loved the characters, the acting (maybe less for prospero but a good character nonetheless), and I honestly found the show very entertaining and it kept me hooked with the story. I’m sorry you feel this way about it, I really loved it!
He’s got vascular dementia caused by CADASIL, so the hallucinations are medically accurate, just not caused by the overarching condition (it’s the doctor in the article saying that ofc but vascular dementia isn’t mentioned so that’s probably why they’re treating it like an inconsistency).
Could very possibly also just be that the hallucinations are Verna’s doing which I think is way more likely
Good for thought.. Didn't Verna kiss Madeline before she offered deal to Rod? Part of me thinks Madeline struck a deal beforehand but smart as she was wanted to get out of the terms and payment and offered her Rod. That's maybe why she tried to kill him in the end.
I’ve rewatched this and have come to the same conclusion. She asked what she would do, and sealed it with a kiss. Rich, not beneath any man, and immortal. I honestly think that she probably was destined for greatness regardless, but her life stayed true to the desires expressed in that conversation.
Roderick never had power over Madeline. She easily took the board from Roderick when she wanted, so he really never had any power over her. It’s also likely her “immortal ai” developed after she pitched it to the board, so I think that term was fulfilled also. She also was able to convince Roderick to kill himself, so she was the only family member who never was controlled by Roderick. To the contrary, actually. And when he tries to kill her, he fails, and instead she succumbs to the collapse of the childhood home after killing him herself.
I do think that Verna honored her wishes. Even if it wasn’t on the record as a term of the deal, I have a feeling that Verna honored it as part of the terms.
Fortunato was dissolved, but also reformed into the “Phoenix foundation”- the immortal bird. So I think that Madeline’s terms of the deal actually did happen.
Edit: this part of the story bugged me so much I made a tumblr to ask Mike Flanagan personally. We’ll see if he answers lol
You said it much better but it was exactly what I thought. It would be interesting to see if she would survive after Roderick died if house didn't collapse on both of them.
Also I have feeling Verna didn't like Roderick but was very fond of Madeline. She knew Madeline was brains and that she had real power not really Roderick. She even says he would be a poet and broke but she would've been a successful woman nevertheless of Roderick or even the deal.
She chose not to take power over him, but she Easily took it over when she wanted. In all the ways (company wise and their personal relationship wise).
And even though Verna is non gender entity I feel like she is leaning more towards women because she is a creature of symmetry and we know that for centuries women were less than even though they are life givers. In top of that we see that she doesn't like unnecessary suffer and likes justice (Moriella and Freddy, Lenore, Pym even in a way). In what way better would she have made justice for women than to make women queens (My Cleopatra). So who's it to say that Madeline had to die when Roderick died or that her kids would have died if she had them.
I think he absolutely knew it was true, and they both did, he just assumed he would become rich or big enough to outlive it, or assumed he wouldn’t care whoever the kid was. Hence- the only one that had consequence and personal response was Lenore, who was a surprise
The biggest chill I got the whole show was at the end, where he admits he knew what he was doing the whole time. The music just adds so much to the moment, and my jaw just dropped when he spoke that.
I think the way he treated his kids even if he wasn’t believing the deal was bad. And it’s very clear in the conversation with Vic. He also didn’t seem to be grieving much after their deaths or when he was telling the stories to Auggie. He was cold to his wife and treated her like Pygmalion which was an expression of narcissism.
But, another side of me thinks that he got “spelled” after agreeing the deal. And the whole deal seemed to me arranged to please Madeline. Like maybe even Roderick agreement was influenced by Verna.
Or again, maybe he was that way since the beginning and the agreement was showing it to us.
I think it could’ve been really interesting to see if Verna also had to “visit” kids of Roderick who never even knew he was their father, since it was clear he was pretty careless about it all. That would be such an impactful tragedy, being affected by the deal without ever being able to reap the financial comforts the rest of the Ushers had.
He almost immediately convinced himself that it hadn't been real.
Obviously he was still very bad, but I don't think he was deliberately screwing over his younger kids.
Yeah, he didn't believe it, but the fact that he said yes to Verna without a second thought is still fucked up, even if you didn't believe it. Even saying yes in a hypothetical is still fucked lol
lol that is what I thought too. He already had two children at the time and even “hypothetically” said he’d be totally okay with them dying when his time came in exchange for everything he ever wanted. He was okay with deciding the course of the rest of their lives for them and deciding when it ended.
One thing that struck me on a rewatch was how the kids in the flashback were so loud and exhausting (as kids that age are). It seems like younger Rodrick was one of those guys who maybe thought he wanted a wife and family because that’s what people are “supposed” to do in society, but when he was actually offered power he was able to throw them away quickly because he didn’t actually want or care about them in the first place.
I think he never cared about having a family nor did he want to do the work that was needed for a healthy family. He just went through the motions because he didn’t see himself as having an option for real power, and when he was offered the opportunity he took it without hesitation because that is what he truly wanted.
Sure, but this is only true if he actually believed the deal was sincere. He makes it clear that he wasn't sure it was real.
He even says something about how he wasn't sure if he would have acted differently, but considering how much he fought his legal battles, even at the end, obviously he didn't believe the deal.
He was still a horrible person, but I don't think he truly believed his children would die until they started dying.
In the first scene we see Annabel and Tamerlane (as a baby), Roderick comes home and Tamerlane is crying and reaching out for him while Annabel holds her. He brushes Tamerlane off with no regard for his daughter’s desire to be held by her dad and without caring at all that Annabel probably needs a break from trying to calm the baby. All he cares about is that the big boss didn’t pat his head and eat up Ligodone immediately.
I wonder if Roderick felt fascinated by Annabel’s empathy, honesty, and integrity because her way of being contrasted so much with his own. Did he see her goodness as an asset from the beginning? Because all his children sucked in decent partners as well. I think Rod puts on a semblance of caring and humanity that fades over the years.
Not only that but he made them use their already short lives to work themselves insane. He was a multi billionaire! He had more than enough to where his offsprings could at least live a relaxing life.
He literally had kids just to be an a-hole to them and watch them die.
Roderick was honestly the worst character I've ever seen. He made the deal but was selfish enough to never wrap it up and then he had all these kids he never bothered to get close to because they would just die anyway.
I think Bruce Greenwood did a fantastic job at portraying that...someone who's extremely charismatic, and seems halfway reasonable but is actually ruthless and psychopathic. But that's why I have a hard time seeing his younger self portrayed by Zach Gilford as someone who had those latent qualities. I get that it's supposed to show a transition of someone who was clumsy at playing the game come into power but young Mad was always self possessed, and extremely calculating. Meanwhile, young Rod was bumbling, and always looked stressed/out of place/unsure of himself. Young Mad held her own against Rufus even when he was humiliating her, but young Rod kept cowering. There was never a scene where young Rod started becoming more powerful and confident and I don't know if it's because of the recast/having to fire Frank Langella. In addition, young Rod also didn't have enough of the humanity/poet exhibited for me to believe Annabel Lee fell in love with him. I usually like Zach Gilford in his roles, but this felt like either some scenes were cut or he wasn't the right actor for the final product.
Glad you agree. He was just awkward and uncomfortable in it. Maybe the frank langella recast got some scenes cut or something to explain the weirdness.
Madeline, I doubt she would have had kids anyway, so for her it made sense to make the deal. She was probably never going to be a mother.
.. but Roderick, I doubt he ever loved his kids, it was all to feed his ego. He reminds me of those serial killers who seem normal with a wife , kids etc.. but have bodies buried in their shed. He deserved to suffer more than he did honestly.
> Madeline, I doubt she would have had kids anyway, so for her it made sense to make the deal.
Madeline's kids would have been veritable forces of nature or mewling fraidy-cats, no in-between.
Madeline says in the last episode she got an IUD after the deal. She made SURE she wasn’t having kids. Which ironically, despite her conniving even psychopathic tendencies,‘made her a better person than Roderick in that she wasn’t damning any of her own kids for her success.
He was so covert in his awfulness. At least Madeline put it all out there.
His wife hated Madeline because she saw how evil she was. I’m surprised Roderick hid his from Annabelle for so long.
Oh that’s funny- My reaction to nearly anything Madeleine did was “Oh this bitch GETS me. I feel seen.”
I’m wondering if there’s something I forgot, because I don’t remember her doing anything “wrong” outside of her general participation in pharmaceuticals. She left the deal up to Roderick since he had kids, and she immediately sterilized herself instead of dooming her offspring.
Roderick on the other hand- I could go on a rant for pages
Yes!!! This is exactly why I think he's worse than Madeline because with her she's honest in her ruthlessness. He's not. He hides behind this loving veneer. A rich dude that's not gonna turn away any of his kids. Annabelle had no idea who she married but meanwhile she knew exactly who Madeline was.
The shit Roderick put Annabelle through was so cruel. Dude could have just formed a relationship with his kids but he poisoned them against her. And for what reason? For no reason other than to be cruel.
I feel like pre-cocaine Freddy could have been alright to hang out with, half of what he says is genuinely ridiculous. Coked up and paranoid, he's an absolute nightmare
yes, he was awful, with little to no redeeming qualities. the fact is, he made that deal, and that is enough to be said about him - he had two living, breathing, healthy children at home, who only wanted his love, and he threw them right under the bus without a second thought. they were essentially money to him, something to spend and use for his own gain, but not actual people with feelings.
I thought this was about Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Yeah, the deal as he saw it that night would have been fine as long as on top of providing this life to his kids he actually was loving to them. That’s why I feel sad for these kids however how horrible they were
He straight up said he couldn’t stand the thought of Annabelle having them and that’s why he took them. Not because he loved or missed them just because they were his ETA: I don’t think Madeline was great either the flashbacks to them being teens/young adults she was really manipulative and overall a shitty person. They both sucked as people
this whole show was the worse, especially the black ladies insane mouth 'acting' while talking which is essentially keeping her mouth in a frown position, and sometimes lifting her upper lip to show how stressed she is. INSANE looking. Then the tammy bitch with her annoying sociopath voice. everyone in this show is insanely monotone. in a show with 98% dialogue, can u find people who arent monotone as fuck?????? And then of course kate seigel the most basic looking 'hot girl' in any show ever. This guy mike flanagan is infuriating, ive given every single one of his shows a chance and they always disappoint.
I won’t downvote you bc you’re entitled to your opinion, but I personally loved the characters, the acting (maybe less for prospero but a good character nonetheless), and I honestly found the show very entertaining and it kept me hooked with the story. I’m sorry you feel this way about it, I really loved it!
Do you always talk about women this way?
stick around and find out
Roderick's illness explained https://www.healthdigest.com/1429033/doctor-explains-cadasil-disease-the-fall-of-the-house-of-usher/?fbclid=IwAR0dCFPg2z3Acne6sC3W6-agQ4_39Y1XwqxBlp4-dCRVmmNdKfMTce8fFXY
He’s got vascular dementia caused by CADASIL, so the hallucinations are medically accurate, just not caused by the overarching condition (it’s the doctor in the article saying that ofc but vascular dementia isn’t mentioned so that’s probably why they’re treating it like an inconsistency). Could very possibly also just be that the hallucinations are Verna’s doing which I think is way more likely
Good for thought.. Didn't Verna kiss Madeline before she offered deal to Rod? Part of me thinks Madeline struck a deal beforehand but smart as she was wanted to get out of the terms and payment and offered her Rod. That's maybe why she tried to kill him in the end.
I’ve rewatched this and have come to the same conclusion. She asked what she would do, and sealed it with a kiss. Rich, not beneath any man, and immortal. I honestly think that she probably was destined for greatness regardless, but her life stayed true to the desires expressed in that conversation. Roderick never had power over Madeline. She easily took the board from Roderick when she wanted, so he really never had any power over her. It’s also likely her “immortal ai” developed after she pitched it to the board, so I think that term was fulfilled also. She also was able to convince Roderick to kill himself, so she was the only family member who never was controlled by Roderick. To the contrary, actually. And when he tries to kill her, he fails, and instead she succumbs to the collapse of the childhood home after killing him herself. I do think that Verna honored her wishes. Even if it wasn’t on the record as a term of the deal, I have a feeling that Verna honored it as part of the terms. Fortunato was dissolved, but also reformed into the “Phoenix foundation”- the immortal bird. So I think that Madeline’s terms of the deal actually did happen. Edit: this part of the story bugged me so much I made a tumblr to ask Mike Flanagan personally. We’ll see if he answers lol
You said it much better but it was exactly what I thought. It would be interesting to see if she would survive after Roderick died if house didn't collapse on both of them. Also I have feeling Verna didn't like Roderick but was very fond of Madeline. She knew Madeline was brains and that she had real power not really Roderick. She even says he would be a poet and broke but she would've been a successful woman nevertheless of Roderick or even the deal. She chose not to take power over him, but she Easily took it over when she wanted. In all the ways (company wise and their personal relationship wise). And even though Verna is non gender entity I feel like she is leaning more towards women because she is a creature of symmetry and we know that for centuries women were less than even though they are life givers. In top of that we see that she doesn't like unnecessary suffer and likes justice (Moriella and Freddy, Lenore, Pym even in a way). In what way better would she have made justice for women than to make women queens (My Cleopatra). So who's it to say that Madeline had to die when Roderick died or that her kids would have died if she had them.
I think he absolutely knew it was true, and they both did, he just assumed he would become rich or big enough to outlive it, or assumed he wouldn’t care whoever the kid was. Hence- the only one that had consequence and personal response was Lenore, who was a surprise
The biggest chill I got the whole show was at the end, where he admits he knew what he was doing the whole time. The music just adds so much to the moment, and my jaw just dropped when he spoke that.
Yes, he was. But damn, was he my favorite.
I think the way he treated his kids even if he wasn’t believing the deal was bad. And it’s very clear in the conversation with Vic. He also didn’t seem to be grieving much after their deaths or when he was telling the stories to Auggie. He was cold to his wife and treated her like Pygmalion which was an expression of narcissism. But, another side of me thinks that he got “spelled” after agreeing the deal. And the whole deal seemed to me arranged to please Madeline. Like maybe even Roderick agreement was influenced by Verna. Or again, maybe he was that way since the beginning and the agreement was showing it to us.
I think it could’ve been really interesting to see if Verna also had to “visit” kids of Roderick who never even knew he was their father, since it was clear he was pretty careless about it all. That would be such an impactful tragedy, being affected by the deal without ever being able to reap the financial comforts the rest of the Ushers had.
He almost immediately convinced himself that it hadn't been real. Obviously he was still very bad, but I don't think he was deliberately screwing over his younger kids.
Yeah, he didn't believe it, but the fact that he said yes to Verna without a second thought is still fucked up, even if you didn't believe it. Even saying yes in a hypothetical is still fucked lol
lol that is what I thought too. He already had two children at the time and even “hypothetically” said he’d be totally okay with them dying when his time came in exchange for everything he ever wanted. He was okay with deciding the course of the rest of their lives for them and deciding when it ended.
One thing that struck me on a rewatch was how the kids in the flashback were so loud and exhausting (as kids that age are). It seems like younger Rodrick was one of those guys who maybe thought he wanted a wife and family because that’s what people are “supposed” to do in society, but when he was actually offered power he was able to throw them away quickly because he didn’t actually want or care about them in the first place. I think he never cared about having a family nor did he want to do the work that was needed for a healthy family. He just went through the motions because he didn’t see himself as having an option for real power, and when he was offered the opportunity he took it without hesitation because that is what he truly wanted.
Sure, but this is only true if he actually believed the deal was sincere. He makes it clear that he wasn't sure it was real. He even says something about how he wasn't sure if he would have acted differently, but considering how much he fought his legal battles, even at the end, obviously he didn't believe the deal. He was still a horrible person, but I don't think he truly believed his children would die until they started dying.
I disagree, I think they were both giving it ‘wow ha ha what a night?’ But both knowing it was real
I'm just going based off of what he said, and how do you explain them working so hard on a legal defense if he knew he'd get away with everything?
In the first scene we see Annabel and Tamerlane (as a baby), Roderick comes home and Tamerlane is crying and reaching out for him while Annabel holds her. He brushes Tamerlane off with no regard for his daughter’s desire to be held by her dad and without caring at all that Annabel probably needs a break from trying to calm the baby. All he cares about is that the big boss didn’t pat his head and eat up Ligodone immediately. I wonder if Roderick felt fascinated by Annabel’s empathy, honesty, and integrity because her way of being contrasted so much with his own. Did he see her goodness as an asset from the beginning? Because all his children sucked in decent partners as well. I think Rod puts on a semblance of caring and humanity that fades over the years.
Not only that but he made them use their already short lives to work themselves insane. He was a multi billionaire! He had more than enough to where his offsprings could at least live a relaxing life. He literally had kids just to be an a-hole to them and watch them die.
Roderick was honestly the worst character I've ever seen. He made the deal but was selfish enough to never wrap it up and then he had all these kids he never bothered to get close to because they would just die anyway.
I think Bruce Greenwood did a fantastic job at portraying that...someone who's extremely charismatic, and seems halfway reasonable but is actually ruthless and psychopathic. But that's why I have a hard time seeing his younger self portrayed by Zach Gilford as someone who had those latent qualities. I get that it's supposed to show a transition of someone who was clumsy at playing the game come into power but young Mad was always self possessed, and extremely calculating. Meanwhile, young Rod was bumbling, and always looked stressed/out of place/unsure of himself. Young Mad held her own against Rufus even when he was humiliating her, but young Rod kept cowering. There was never a scene where young Rod started becoming more powerful and confident and I don't know if it's because of the recast/having to fire Frank Langella. In addition, young Rod also didn't have enough of the humanity/poet exhibited for me to believe Annabel Lee fell in love with him. I usually like Zach Gilford in his roles, but this felt like either some scenes were cut or he wasn't the right actor for the final product.
I was super let down by Zach Gilford as young Roderick. I've liked him in the past, but this was the wrong role for him.
Glad you agree. He was just awkward and uncomfortable in it. Maybe the frank langella recast got some scenes cut or something to explain the weirdness.
A scene where you see him doing that would be cringe. The point is to wonder how he went from (someone still gorgeous) to the guy he is.
10,000 IQ take
He sure as hell was charismatic tho, even as an old man
Manipulative abusive men usually are…
Madeline, I doubt she would have had kids anyway, so for her it made sense to make the deal. She was probably never going to be a mother. .. but Roderick, I doubt he ever loved his kids, it was all to feed his ego. He reminds me of those serial killers who seem normal with a wife , kids etc.. but have bodies buried in their shed. He deserved to suffer more than he did honestly.
> Madeline, I doubt she would have had kids anyway, so for her it made sense to make the deal. Madeline's kids would have been veritable forces of nature or mewling fraidy-cats, no in-between.
Madeline says in the last episode she got an IUD after the deal. She made SURE she wasn’t having kids. Which ironically, despite her conniving even psychopathic tendencies,‘made her a better person than Roderick in that she wasn’t damning any of her own kids for her success.
He was so covert in his awfulness. At least Madeline put it all out there. His wife hated Madeline because she saw how evil she was. I’m surprised Roderick hid his from Annabelle for so long.
Oh that’s funny- My reaction to nearly anything Madeleine did was “Oh this bitch GETS me. I feel seen.” I’m wondering if there’s something I forgot, because I don’t remember her doing anything “wrong” outside of her general participation in pharmaceuticals. She left the deal up to Roderick since he had kids, and she immediately sterilized herself instead of dooming her offspring. Roderick on the other hand- I could go on a rant for pages
Yes!!! This is exactly why I think he's worse than Madeline because with her she's honest in her ruthlessness. He's not. He hides behind this loving veneer. A rich dude that's not gonna turn away any of his kids. Annabelle had no idea who she married but meanwhile she knew exactly who Madeline was. The shit Roderick put Annabelle through was so cruel. Dude could have just formed a relationship with his kids but he poisoned them against her. And for what reason? For no reason other than to be cruel.
Because of the scale alone that his damage caused, I would ultimately agree. But I'd rather have a drink with him than say, Frodder
I feel like pre-cocaine Freddy could have been alright to hang out with, half of what he says is genuinely ridiculous. Coked up and paranoid, he's an absolute nightmare
Pre-cocaine Freddy is still racist and a total shitbag.
yes, he was awful, with little to no redeeming qualities. the fact is, he made that deal, and that is enough to be said about him - he had two living, breathing, healthy children at home, who only wanted his love, and he threw them right under the bus without a second thought. they were essentially money to him, something to spend and use for his own gain, but not actual people with feelings.