The Fall of the House of Usher episode 4 explores the rapid downfall of another Usher sibling, and this one might just be the most chaotic of all the deaths we've seen so far.
So far, we've seen Camille and Perry die at the hands of this strange supernatural force, and now we get to see what happened to Leo. With six siblings all dead in the space of two weeks, though, we're only halfway through the carnage.
This episode does little to debunk the black cat theory, as this one does indeed bring a lot of bad luck to Leo. Remember in the last episode when he murdered his boyfriend's cat, and we suggested it might come back to bite him?
Here's a recap of what went down in Netflix's The Fall of the House of Usher episode 4...
What happened to Leo?
The episode opens with Leo at his fifth shelter of the evening, where he is desperately trying to find a cat that is an exact match for Pluto, the one he brutally killed. He's doing the classic animal switch hoping his partner won't find out, but it's a costly mistake.
When he arrives at the shelter, it's the ever-mysterious Verna who is working the desk, and tells him she'll be pleased to help him. Considering she just murdered two of his siblings, Leo has no idea what he's just walked into!
As soon as he gets the cat home, it starts acting aggressively, scratching Leo on the wrist before fleeing. Things escalate and it's leaving dead, bloodied animals all over his apartment, including under his pillow. But that's not even the worst part. It's only Leo who can see this cat, and his partner Julius has no idea what he's talking about.
Defeated, Leo calls Verna to get rid of the cat, who tells him that it's in the walls of his apartment. Suddenly, the cat jumps at Leo, tearing at his throat. Leo looks up to see Verna standing above him, mirroring the cat by licking the blood off her hands, just like she did back in the facility when she was mirroring the chimp's behaviors.
Leo has a breakdown and starts smashing at the walls of his home, using a conveniently placed replica of Thor's hammer from his collection of comic book memorabilia.
Julius comes home to discover the carnage that has unfolded, with Leo smashing up the walls. Still, he cannot see the cat or Verna or any of the dead animals, so he assumes Leo is just experiencing a seriously bad trip, as he'd been trying to get him to go easy on the drug use.
Finally, Leo sees the cat on the railing of the balcony, and he loses it. He runs full speed at the cat and ends up falling to his death, landing on the street below. We then see the cat walking over his body, just to rub it in!
How did Roderick and Dupin meet?
Throughout the course of the series, we've flicked back to Roderick unloading one huge confession onto Dupin, regarding his family, his business, and these suspicious deaths. But we didn't know much about their past until this episode.
We see a young Dupin (Malcolm Goodwin), who used to work as a Medicare fraud investigator, come knocking on Roderick’s door to ask him about his signature on a whole bunch of forms.
He believes they have been forged so that Fortunato can get people into drug trials without informing them of the very real side effects; many of these patients have wound up dead.
However, Roderick never signed any of these documents. Dupin wants to recruit him to build a case against Fortunato, but Roderick turns him down because he's worried about losing his career.
When Rufus Griswold (Michael Trucco) is confronted, the CEO makes it very clear that Roderick needs to be a team player. Meanwhile, Roderick's sister Madeline sees it as an opportunity.
She wants Roderick to do exactly what Rufus says while also making friends with Dupin, putting himself in a very dangerous position that quickly comes back to bite him, considering his now complicated relationship with Dupin.
The Fall Of The House of Usher is available worldwide on Netflix now.
