The View From Halfway Down (Bojack Horseman) (2020) BoJack has his recurring nightmare of attending a dinner party at his mother's house — a party where all the other guests are dead family and friends. Only this time, he can't seem to wake up from the dream. Partway into the episode, BoJack realizes that he is trapped in a dying nightmare as his real self drowns in his swimming pool.
"The View from Halfway Down" received widespread acclaim, with praise for its ambitious concept, dark and serious tone, and function as the culmination of the title character's story. It was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.
Quoting a YouTube comment: "The thought that there's absolutely nothing after death. That there is no "other side". Is both comforting and extremely horrifying."
The Fall of the House of Usher (2023) The series is a modernized take on the stories of Edgar Allen Poe, centering around corrupt CEO Roderick Usher, who, along with his scheming twin sister Madeline, built a global pharmaceutical empire. Now, a mysterious woman, Verna, begins to pick Roderick's dysfunctional heirs off one by one. Verna--who is implied to be the Grim Reaper, given her powers over death and her ability to turn into a raven--likes to have those she reaps "tee up" their own deaths, and so presents each Usher child with a secret test of character, giving them to chance to either act on negative motivations like spite or selfishness, or on positive motivations like compassion, honesty, or self-care. All of them inevitably choose wrong and suffer hideous, awful deaths as a consequence of their own faults. The exception is the grandchild Lenore, who chose to do the right thing…and is rewarded with a quick, painless death, because her fate was already sealed. It turns out that Verna had made a deal with Roderick and Madeline, offering them a life of wealth and success and immunity from being convicted of any crime, at the cost that their entire bloodline would end at the same time. The time has come to pay the price, despite Madeline's futile obsession with seeking immortality (which just produces an AI model of Lenore that says the same message over and over) and her convincing Roderick to kill himself to break the pact (at which point Verna resurrects him just so they can die together). Roderick ends up poisoning and mutilating Madeline, but she is still alive when he buries her and comes back to kill him in her last moments (just like their mother did), bringing a catastrophic end to the family. Verna visits the graves of the Ushers and flies off.
End Films Semifinals Bout 2
The View From Halfway Down (2020)
The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)