There were a lot of mysteries that befell the doomed titular family in Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher. Try as they may, the children of Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) just couldn’t seem to escape death’s icy grip in ways that seemed completely unfathomable. But one of the show’s longest-lasting mysteries came in the form of a zone-out-and-you’ll-miss-it comment made by Mary McDonnell’s Madeline Usher.
For a brief refresher, when they were young, siblings, Madeline and Roderick made a deal with the devil — or in this case an entity known as Verna (Carla Gugino) — that would see them rise from rags to riches, specifically through their pharmaceutical company, Fortunato. There’s just one little hangup — their bloodline would eventually pay the consequences, as any of the children or grandchildren that they had were to essentially serve as sacrifices. While Madeline took the deal very seriously, never having any children, Roderick couldn’t seem to keep it in his pants, parenting a slew of kids with various partners. But, although she never bore children, it’s teased that, for a fleeting moment, Madeline was married.
Hoping to get to the bottom of the burning question that’s been on our minds for the last year, Perri Nemiroff asked Willa Fitzgerald about the unexplained marriage when the actress swung by for Collider Ladies Night. Fitzgerald played the younger version of Madeline, which would lead one to think that if anyone aside from McDonnell knew the juicy details, it would be her. Sadly, Fitzgerald is just as much in the dark about it all as the rest of us, responding, “No, I have no idea.”
The Plot Thickens
Fitzgerald’s uncertainty about her character’s one-time spouse is through no fault of her own, as she explained that she scoured the script and there was never a mention or tease of any sort of romantic connection. This led her to believe that whoever Madeline fell in love with was after her time as the character came to an end.
“Actually, when I was prepping the thing, I basically took my scenes out because they were all chronologically in order in the flashbacks, and just made myself my own little script with all of my stuff in it. So, I think when I was prepping,
I don’t even think I had an awareness of that line or that mention of that happening
. I didn’t need to know it because it’s not something that had already happened. But no, I have no idea. But
I do believe it was probably a good match for good reasons
that did not have a good end.”
So, sadly, the case of Madeline’s long-lost lover continues, although Fitzgerald added, “I don’t think it was for some sort of, like, fool’s love errand.”
The Fall of the House of Usher is now streaming on Netflix. You can watch Fitzgerald’s full episode of Collider Ladies Night below.
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