"The Pit and The Pendulum" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lenore

Back in 1979, Dupin coached Roderick on what he would need to say in front of the court in regards to CFC forms and his forged signature though it was clear that the tension was getting to Usher, causing him to snap at simple things. Annabel stepped in to send Roderick to another room, apologizing for the distracting noises. While Roderick grabbed a coffee, she asked Dupin what would happen after the trial, asking for his word that when it was all said and done, the detective would help them get back on their feet. Dupin promised.

Dupin muses that the only reason he malfunctioned and ended up trusting Roderick back when they were making the whistleblowing attempt was because of Annabel. He trusted her, so he trusted Roderick. Dupin lost a lot, but knowing that Roderick lost her sustained him, all said and done. She was the only good Usher.

Roderick begs to differ. Lenore is the best of them-- all the best of Annabel Lee without the broken heart.

Answer: Tech

Roderick was furious speaking to Pym and Madeline the day after Tamerlane died, claiming that not a single person heard her murder when they'd hired her a bodyguard, and not one person lifted a finger at the Goldbug launch as she smashed televisions and assaulted Juno. Madeline admitted that she had her hands on the culprit, but she felt the woman give away like cold steam.

More importantly, the Fortunato board was headed to a vote, and no amount of blackmail could get the Ushers out of the hot water they found themselves in. Pym and Madeline both agreed that Frederick would be a key player in the decision before them. They needed to get him into the board room to figure things out.

More than that, they just needed to hold on just a bit longer. As Madeline would later tell Pym, Roderick couldn't be trusted because of his disease, and with a bit more time her algorithm would allow Fortunato to push into A.I., artificial consciousness, and virtual immortality. If the board put her in charge, they could leave the rotten legacy behind them and move into the future.

Answer: Very, very slowly

When Morella awakened from her most recent sedation, she opened her eyes to find her entire room covered in photocopied wedding photos, all spread out on the walls by Frederick in an attempt to remind her of the vow she made. She begged him to stop, but he simply dosed her with the experimental nightshade again, explaining all the while that he knew he wanted to marry her the first time they met, back at the photoshoot. The one-sided conversation ended when Frederick received a call beckoning him to the office for an emergency. Before he departed, he asked Morrie where she put the wedding ring when she went to the party.

Arriving at his father's office, Frederick received a verbal beating, mainly because he still hadn't seen to the proper razing of the condemned lab. If Freddie couldn't take care of it, Roderick said, then he couldn't count on him for the little things. With the rest of the family gone, only Freddie could save the family. As the swing vote, the best message he could give was to simply avoid picking up the phone when they called-- and they would call.

At home, Juno would speak to Roderick's doctor about her own situation. With her on a regimen of two thousand milligrams of Ligodone a day, she nearly doubled the highest dose recorded, and the doctors wanted her on more. Life, she said, is too short, and Ligodone is too much like heroin for her to want to be on it anymore. The doctor told her that it would be a very slow wind-down if she wanted to try and kick the pills.

Answer: Remove her teeth

Frederick's status as the swing vote starts to get him some attention, especially from the board, and he ends up fielding calls while spending time in Morrie's room in the midst of lines of cocaine and sedating his wife. He calls up the Jersey boys to take the condemned lab down sooner-- that very night if possible. Dosing Morrie one more time, he told her a bit of wisdom his father once said: "To test a bond, you don't really need to break it. You just crack it a little." He had no intention, he claimed, of being cruel, but he'd need to be brutal with her just once to establish his new authority. Grabbing a pair of pliers, he proceeded to remove her teeth.

Lenore would catch her father before he headed out to let him know she's been researching burn treatment facilities-- some of the best in the world. She even talked to one of the doctors and got her a potential admission. Frederick chastised his daughter for even considering it. The two argued and Roderick told his daughter she wouldn't get a free pass from repercussions. In the meantime, she was not to check in on her mother while he was gone, running errands for the company for the day. She attempted to defy him immediately, but the door to her room was locked.

Answer: A grandfather clock

A loud noise spooks Dupin while he and Roderick continue their chat and he expresses that the sounds in the house are starting to bother him. Though he suggests heading into the basement to check on Madeline, Roderick says that the story is almost at its end. It's a bit much for the detective though; he feels Usher is just dragging it out, and it's probably because he's getting something out of it. Roderick denies this, and keeps Dupin in the room by informing him that he'll be caught dead to rights on murder. More than one at that.

Dupin nearly leaves, but the chiming of a grandfather clock interrupts the conversation, the ticking having gone unnoticed the whole time they've been there. Dupin can see it this time, and it prompts Roderick to believe it's Freddy's doing. All of the kids, he explains, have been with them all night, making sure their stories are being told correctly, and within a few moments he'll probably be jolted by Freddy's ghost, there to compel him into shock and dismay, and since Dupin won't see anything, it'll make him look crazy.

As the pendulum of the grandfather clock screeches to a stop, Annabel's ghost rounds the corner of the living room entry and a young Freddy rushes to Roderick's arms. He picks up his boy-- and Dupin continues to see nothing-- but Freddy seems to tear apart, bisected in his arms.

Answer: Perjury

Back in the 1970s, Annabel brought Freddy and Tammy to the court hearing, wishing him luck while Roderick is brought in to give his statements. It was December 20th and he was sat before about a dozen people, all asking him to explain documents and objecting to the slightest motion from the opposing side. Discussing the consent-for-care forms with the DA's insistence, he explained that nothing seemed unusual about the documents in front of him-- all standard boilerplate.

It was then that Dupin realized something was amiss as Roderick was originally prepared to admit his signatures were forged. The DA asked if he was compelled by anyone at Fortunato to reverse his stance for the deposition, and it was a claim he alleged was not the case. Instead, Roderick claimed that Dupin was forcing the issue, appearing at his home multiple times in what appeared to be a vendetta against Rufus Griswold and Fortunato. With that, Roderick was put in handcuffs and accused of perjury.

Back home, Madeline explained to Annabel that this was all expected, and Fortunato would have him out of prison by dinner as he'd made himself the most important employee at the company. They'd be in a new house by Christmas. If they'd done it Dupin's way, Madeline explained, Fortunato would've sued the Ushers into a crater. Annabel, racked with guilt, believed Roderick was going to be the hero.

Answer: Snap her neck

Madeline would drive herself out to the old Usher house, arriving to find the door unlocked and letting herself in. Stepping through the threshold, she would be somewhat unsurprised when the door slammed shut behind her with little provocation. A ringing bell from the basement door would take her attention before she'd turn to find Verna in a leather chair awaiting her, seated in a spot that was empty a moment before. Verna would offer her a drink, suggesting it'd be for the boys later on, but they wouldn't mind.

Madeline, admitting her recent denial of Verna's existence, would ask her to stop while she sat down, but that wouldn't happen. Pivoting immediately, Madeline asked for a renegotiation of the contract, especially since Roderick set the original terms, but Verna told her the ink was dry. Madeline wouldn't back down though, suggesting they solve it woman to woman. Verna admitted she wasn't a woman.

Madeline would rise from her seat and snap Verna's neck at the slightest provocation, but it wouldn't do much. As Madeline stood over the body of the dead figure, Verna spoke to her from across the room, suggesting she sit so they could actually speak to one another. Madeline apologized for her impulse; Verna said it was okay, water under the bridge, because Madeline was always a favourite of hers.

At Frederick's home, Lenore would break into her mother's chambers and find Morrie in her bed, struggling to breathe, bandages unchanged and with teeth missing from her mouth.

Answer: A poet

Juno confronted Roderick in his office, suggesting that she planned to get clean and wean herself off Ligodone, but he said he wouldn't have it-- it'd be a PR nightmare. He advised her not to do it due to the side effects from the withdrawals, comparing it to being a fish pulled out of the water but being unable to die. All that said, it wouldn't be addictive. But with that in mind she'd be clean and right as rain after three-or-so years of suffering. Juno called him a monster, but Roderick claimed he was Victor Frankenstein; she was the monster, but she was the perfect creation. It was then that Juno realized he never loved her; he only loved what she became when she took the Ligodone and survived her ordeal. She decided then that she'd take three years of Hell over a lifetime still married to him. It was an easy choice.

Madeline and Verna would talk into the evening with the latter claiming that they shared the same fascination with pain, and now, with Verna unable to take Madeline's pain away, she could offer her something new. Years ago, she offered the Ushers certainty. Now, she could offer clarity. No strings attached.

Verna stated that had Roderick refused her offer in 1979, he would've become a poet. It's why she gives a poem of her own, called 'The City in the Sea', because a poem is a safe space for a hard truth. When she finished, she let Madeline muse on it for a bit. What to do next would come to her.

Roderick would spend another night in the basement of the Fortunato building staring at the brick wall. At the same time, Frederick would arrive at the site of the demolition, prepared to speak to his workers. Meanwhile, Lenore would stay with her mother, at her bedside, until the ambulances arrived.

Answer: Yes

At the condemned lab, Roderick approached his last-minute contractors to be told that they were going to be pointing the finger back at him should anything go wrong. After all, he insisted on the immediate demolition. First, however, he would need five minutes inside. He grabbed a radio, told them to wait for the all-clear, and headed in.

When Roderick walked into the building he found the cleared-out main room and took another hit of Leo's cocaine before wishing his worst to his dead, youngest brother, urinating on the spot where his body was found. Standing there, in the dark, he froze before collapsing to the ground, unsure of what had come over him.

Verna would reveal the truth, emerging from the shadows dressed in construction gear. She'd let him know that normally, she'd never intervene, but after the pliers in Morella's room, she decided to go ahead. Moments after Freddy removed his wife's teeth, in taking a call with his demolition crew, he mistakenly filled his bag of cocaine with the nightshade he'd left on Morella's bedside tray. He was, of course, persuaded a little bit by Verna herself. When he took the hit in the lab, he'd directly inhaled the paralytic.

Verna took his radio and gave the all-clear, allowing the workers to send the wrecking balls through. She told him that, in the other life, he would've been a dentist. That's what made the whole situation with Morella all the more concerning.

As the walls started to come down, Verna stayed nearby, insisting that he try to appreciate what was about to happen. Above, a metal support swung freely, loosened by demolition, sharpened to a blade point at the end. As it lowered to his body, it not-so-cleanly bisected him. Perhaps if he hadn't taken Morella home and done what he did, it all would've gone a bit less violently.

Answer: Ligodone

Madeline found Roderick in the basement of the office again, this time joining him by taking a seat to let him know that Freddy had died. With that, it was just them remaining. She told him he remembered the deal and the terms-- "Into the world together, out of the world together, or there's no deal." There was only ever one way out. She told him that he needed to be a hero again for both their sakes and she handed him the Ligodone bottle. He'd have to take all of them at once; he'd just go to sleep if he did, otherwise it'd hurt.

Roderick asked if there was another way, but Madeline reassured him there wasn't. She'd run every scenario in her head, but this was it. She put the pills into his hands and he took them, washing them down with expensive liquor, all while Madeline reminded him he was a king and a legend, saving them all.

Madeline left him laying on the basement floor with the Ligodone bottle in his open hand. As she turned away, she heard the jingling behind the brick wall. She departed the way she came, turning back to look at her brother one more time.

As soon as Madeline departed, Verna emerged from the darkness and caressed Roderick's cheek. As he spit up the pills, she reintroduced herself to him. She couldn't let him go that easily or so soon.