Television

The Fall of the House of Usher: Fans react to one of Netflix’s queerest ever series

By Alice Morey

17th October 2023

Netflix has got in on the (gay) spooky season spirit with The Fall of the House of Usher.

The final contribution to the streamer from filmmaker Mike Flanagan, creator of the Flanaverse, premiered on Netflix on 12 October.

Loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe’s poem of the same name, The Fall of the House of Usher is going viral online for how queer it is.

The show follows Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood), the billionaire head of a corrupt pharmaceutical company who is forced to face his past when all six of his children die in brutal and unexplained ways.

In similar vein to Flanagan’s previous series for Netflix, particularly The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor, queerness is normalised within the narrative. However, what sets this series apart is the sheer amount of characters who identify under the rainbow umbrella.

There’s Flanagan’s frequent collaborator (and wife) Kate Siegel, who plays Camille L’Espanaye, a bisexual PR manager and one of Roderick’s illegitimate children.

Starring alongside her is T’Nia Moller’s Victorine, who is also a lesbian in the show and the eldest of Roderick’s illegitimate children, as well as a gifted surgeon. She has a partner and co-worker in Dr Alessandra Ruiz, played by Paola Núñez.

There’s also Rahul Kohli’s character, Napoleon “Leo” Usher”, another illegitimate child (and drug addict) who is in a complicated relationship with Julius (Daniel Jun). Additionally, Carl Lumbly’s C. Auguste Dupin mentions that he has a husband. See? Very queer!

The Fall of the House of Usher has received a 90 per cent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Fans cannot get enough of the queertopia, with one saying that Flanagan’s latest Netflix series is “about what would happen if an entire family was bisexual”.

Another fan said: “All of the women in The Fall of the House of Usher being sapphic was just so real for me.”

Scroll below for more fan reactions.

The Fall of the House of Usher is available to stream on Netflix