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The major themes I noticed in the series were:
1. Poe's writing is awesome
2. Personal drama/power struggles in this famous family
3. Unfettered capitalism is bad
4. This one family can be blamed for the opioid epidemic
5. The opioid epidemic is bad

There's probably more, but this is enough to see a problem. There's just too many good ideas to jam into this work even as an 8 episode series.

Something that Poe said about writing a story or poem is that it should have a "unity and single effect", meaning that the author should choose what they want the audience to feel or learn, then focus all the elements of the writing to evoke that feeling or message. Basically, don't clutter up the story with too many ideas.

Had the series just focused on adapting Poe's stories into this tale of family intrigue and doom, The series would have left a far better final impression (at least on me). As is, it ended feeling muddled.

If the story about the opioid crisis was so important, it should have been intertwined either directly or symbolically or metaphorically at every key moment in the show.

But, you can swap out "pharma company" with any other mega corporation for most episodes with no change to the story.

That's a problem. If I can remove that pharma company element from most episodes without changing the plot, then it's not key to the story. In those moments, the theme "capitalism is bad" is the important element, but it also just stands alone. This is most obvious in Roderick's "lemon" speech. It's a great speech, but it stands out because it stands alone. It's not integrated in a way that flows into the rest of the series poetically (literally and figuratively).

A great example of intertwining themes effectively is Verna reciting Poe's "The City in the Sea" to Madeline in the last episode. In that scene, Verna says she can give Madeline some "clarity" and recites a shortened version of the poem: https://poets.org/poem/city-sea

The scene is VERY moving. The acting is impeccable. The poem is striking in the moment and it isn't over explained. Madeline confesses she doesn't understand it.

If you read the poem, the imagery is a city of the dead sinking into hell. The message is clear for what is about to happen to Madeline, but it's a truth wrapped in the artistry of poetry. It's a beautiful cipher. It's everything Poe enjoyed in his writing. That scene is a perfect combination of the themes of Poe's writings and this particular Flannigan story about this broken family of broken people in a neo-Gothic setting.

But in that same episode, we get Verna throwing numbers, statistics, and straight up preachy messages about the opioid epidemic to Roderick, who, supposedly, was deep down a poet.

Why did Verna switch from delivering truth through poetry to what is nearly a power point presentation with trending line charts of yearly opioid deaths?

It shows the series's writing was unbalanced. It tried to jam in a social message at the end and make aboslutely sure the audience understood it.

In the process, the series's writing lost the poetry, literally and figuratively, that it was so beautifully using in the early episodes.

My partner made a point that "Flanagan creates horror that a really broad audience can enjoy." and I agree completely. "Usher" feel mature without being snooty, thrilling without being gratuitous, and smart without being inaccessible.

The problem is that Flanagan REALLY wanted to get a social message front and center when this particular theme just didn't support that type of messaging. He needed to let symbolism and metaphor carry his ideas just like Poe did.

The fact that the rest of the series is just so good, that it makes the errors at the end that much more glaring. /