Con season is one of my favorites and especially when one of my friends goes on mission as official photographer for the site.
Thanks to Julia for her donations.

Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher was packed with dynamic performances from a stacked cast of familiar faces in the Mike Flanagan universe. While audiences were thrilled to see returning favorites like Kate Siegel, Ruth Codd, and Rahul Kohli make their way back to the Flanaverse, they were equally thrilled to spot legends like Mary McDonnell and Mark Hamill joining the fold. Throughout the series, relationships are put to the test as a well-to-do family begins to crumble because of a decision made by its leaders decades ago. There are a lot of wonderful dynamics portrayed between the characters, but one, in particular, stood out to fans as something extra special. During a panel with Collider’s Maggie Lovitt at the San Francisco Fan Expo, McDonnell answered a fan question about her character’s connection to the mysterious woman who’s hell-bent on tearing the family apart.

For a brief refresher, McDonnell played Madeline Usher, the matriarch of the Usher family and sister of Bruce Greenwood’s Roderick Usher. For every brash move Roderick made throughout the years, Madeline remained calm and calculated in her decisions, revealing herself to be the real player out of the pair. In a flashback, the siblings are approached by a mysterious woman at a bar and given the opportunity of a lifetime to make billions of dollars – but at the eventual demise of their family. In these flashbacks, a young Madeline is played by Willa Fitzgerald with Roderick’s younger version played by Zach Gilford. There’s an electricity made apparent by Madeline’s first meeting with this stranger who the audience comes to know as Verna (Carla Gugino). Explaining this familiarity, McDonnell says,

She meets Verna originally and the way I saw that was like watching Willa’s performance combined with the brilliant writing… It’s like this combination of minds comes together in the art. And what I said was ‘Yes, that’s right,’ because what I could see in Willa was that there was something that she recognized about the truth of Verna’s otherworldness. She didn’t quite know what to do with it. I didn’t – Madeline – but she knew it was there. And so, I felt that there was some kind of implicit knowing. Whether or not it was a conscious historical knowing from god knows where or what, but I did feel like there was a familiarity. There was intimacy, obviously, in that moment in the bar.

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The second batch of screencaptures of Mary McDonnell as Madeline Usher in The Fall of the House of Usher.
And that finale, ohhhh that finale!!!

Did you binge the series like I did and tried to find a good excuse why binging was just the right thing to do?
I gave myself “Mary McDonnell” as excuse and it works.
Here are the first batch of screencaptures, first four episodes. If you come tomorrow, you may find the second batch.

The Fall of the House of Usher is a haunted house of a show filled with the ghosts of Mike Flanagan’s past casts. You’ll recognize a number of famous faces from projects like The Midnight Club, Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Haunting of Hill House, and more in this wicked horror series based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

This time, Flanagan’s ghoulish crew is entering familial territory, as ruthless siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher have built Fortunato Pharmaceuticals into an empire of wealth, privilege, and power. But past secrets come to light when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dying at the hands of a mysterious woman from their youth.

Learn more about this cursed family before they face their fate when The Fall of the House of Usher premieres Oct. 12 on Netflix.

Mary McDonnell

as MADELINE USHER

ABOUT THE CHARACTER
Incredibly intelligent, driven, and calculating, Madeline has always been the brains behind Fortunato. Whenever her brother falters, she’s always there to give him a push, making them a formidable duo. While she loves Roderick, her unrelenting drive and desire for success wouldn’t hold her back from stepping over him, if need be.
“I’ve played a lot of empowered women or women in power, but they’re still aware of certain kinds of rules and decorum. And Madeline really doesn’t give a fuck about it,” said McDonnell. “And I love that about her. She just does not care. So there’s freedom in her, along with all of the other things that attracted me to her.”

PREVIOUSLY IN
Battlestar Galactica, The Closer, Donnie Darko, Fargo, Veronica Mars, Independence Day, Passion Fish, and Dances with Wolves

Read the article at the source to find the description for the whole family.

The BSG cast and crew reunited in support to WGA strike as the wonderful family they are. Here are some photos of Mary McDonnell.

One image from the sixth episode of The Fall of the House of Usher was published. Take a look!