“The Haunting of Hill House” and “Midnight Mass” creator Mike Flanagan delivered his final Netflix limited series last Friday with the premiere of “The Fall of the House of Usher”.
Scoring strong reviews, the series is full of sorts of nods to author Edgar Allan Poe from the more obvious storytelling elements to various little visual easter eggs and references.
However, one theory gaining traction in recent days in online fandom has been shot down by Flanagan himself about one aspect of the story – namely how almost every episode’s portrayal of a death of one of Roderick Usher’s adult children was a representation of the seven deadly sins.
Flanagan has dismissed that talk when asked about it on Tumblr:
“I’ve heard this a few times today – I’m sorry to say that it was NOT our intention to have the Usher kids represent the 7 deadly sins. Roderick only has 6 children, for one thing, and I got most of my religious horror out of my system in Midnight Mass (plus, no one will ever do the seven deadly sins better than Se7en, so why bother?).
I’m always happy to see people digging into the work, and typically don’t want to dissuade someone from whatever meaning they find there, but in this case I’d be lying if I said that was our intention.”
The talk comes as the series is now sitting in second place on the global Top 10 with 6.3 million views in its first few days, behind only the “Beckham” limited series.
