[Review] Monsterland Continues to Tackle Real Life Through the Guise of the Supernatural in the Back Half

Encounters with mermaids, fallen angels, and other strange beasts drive broken people to desperate acts in Monsterland, an anthology series based on the collection of stories from Nathan Ballingrud’s “North American Lake Monsters”.

Read Part One over on Queer.Horror.Movies.

1.05 “Plainfield, IL”: A suburban lawyer debates life and death. 

TERRY

Before we start, I do want to say you were right, Joe. The creature birthed in “New York, NY” was a pelican...which we’ll get to very soon. But first, we’re back to cover the second half of Monsterland, based on North American Lake Monsters: Stories, the short story collection by Nathan Ballingrud and holy shit we’re back in the heavy storylines. I’ll admit going into “Plainfield, IL”, I was worried because horror has had a rocky history dealing with mental illness...and queer storytelling. But I found myself moved to tears with this exploration of a couple dealing with bipolar disorder. 

“Plainfield, IL” goes back and forth in time, exploring the non-traditional meet cute between Kate (Taylor Schilling) and Shawn (Roberta Colindrez) through their marriage, their decision to have a child together and up to the present. They’re celebrating the start of their sixteenth year together and after a night of drinking, this on-the-surface-perfect relationship shows the cracks of reality. Kate suffers from bipolar disorder and struggles with suicidal ideation and while the two are very much in love with each other, it’s a daily struggle. We see how Shawn has done her best to suicide-proof the house, storing sharp objects above the sink with a childlock ziptie. It’s gotten so bad that Shawn has sent away their twelve year old daughter to boarding school after she discovered Kate passed out in her own vomit from the third suicide attempt that year. 

After the celebrations, Shawn passes out and when she wakes up, she finds Kate, dead in the bathtub. Shocked, she attempts to clean up some spilled wine from the carpet. That’s when Kate gets up out of the tub and walks over to her, nonchalantly asking, “What happened? Why am I wet?” and then, based on Shawn’s reaction, “What’s wrong?” 

So like the previous four episodes, “Plainfield, IL” uses the concept of monsters to explore real world fears and experiences. This time it’s using a zombie as a metaphor...for a lot of things dealing with mental illness. First, there’s the dichotomy of mania versus depression, where Kate is shown at her most manic the night before she ended her life and the sobering depression that follows that can leave someone feeling like a zombie. It also taps into themes explored in The Tell-Tale Heart where Kate becomes a physical manifestation of the guilt Shawn has for being complicit in her death. But then, as the body continues to decay, it becomes survivor’s guilt as Shawn can’t bring herself to let go and continues to torture herself by forcing the zombified Kate to stay. 

Joe, it’s a lot. I didn’t think Monsterland could top the heaviness I felt after watching the first episode, “Port Fourchon, LA”, but boy was I wrong. This one punched me in the gut, particularly with the denouement and its incredible sadness and implications. This is probably my favorite of the series so far, but it’s also one that I don’t think I want to revisit. 

What were your thoughts on this episode as we head into the back half of the series? Did you appreciate the way the episode used zombie tropes to explore this sensitive topic? Did Kate’s revelation about how complicit Shawn was in her death work for you? And please tell me I’m not the only one who cried during this episode…

JOE

I’ve come to use the word “Oof” a lot in my writing in the last year. Usually it’s to mark disbelief or convey dismay at a creative decision. Here, though, it was very much tied to the same feelings you talk about because these roughly 52 minutes do, quite literally, hit like a punch. It’s powerful, it’s raw and it’s very hard to watch (in a good way).

I’ll confess that even today, when I see an explicitly queer narrative, I get anxious. There’s a lot of pressure to “get these stories right”. There are still so few of them that each individual story is made to carry the burden (see the varying reactions from queer viewers to last month’s Spiral, the Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman movie on Shudder). “Plainfield, IL” almost manages to gracefully side step that responsibility because at its core, the story isn’t about a lesbian couple (I mean, it is); it’s primarily about a couple who have been through all of the ups and downs. This is so heartbreakingly real and relatable that the sexual orientation of the central couple is nearly elided. 

And yet, the fact that this is a lesbian love story accounts for a great deal of its affect, right? Queer stories are rarely, if ever, afforded this level of depth and nuance, and even less frequently in horror. There’s a reason that this story is the highlight of the season thus far and, if we’re being honest, it’s very likely going to be the best episode of the series. Hell, it might even land among the best episodes of TV for the year. It’s that impactful.

But I’ll ease back on the platitudes to address what makes “Plainfield, IL” so effective. As you mentioned, the use of the zombie as a metaphor for Kate’s bipolar symptoms is very clever (and confirms, once again, the versatility of that monster; zombies are not my fave, but they sure can fill in for a lot). And while I appreciate that writer Emily Kaczmarek doesn’t lean too heavily into tropes, I did like how the gross out elements were used for both comedic levity (the eyeball, the hat) and horror (when Kate’s ankle snaps en route to the cemetery. Ouch!)

Kaczmarek’s use of flashbacks is one of the stronger creative decisions we’ve seen on Monsterland because it provides framing, as well as mystery. Particularly early on when it’s unclear where this story is going, the back and forth builds on that uncertainty. I’ll be interested to see how non-queer audiences respond to these initial scenes, because I 100% spent my time anticipating something bad would happen because of their sexuality. It’s what queer viewers have been primed to expect and the fact that “Plainfield, IL” capitalizes on that awareness, but doesn’t succumb to it, was pleasantly surprising.

We should also acknowledge the acting here. I’ll admit that I tend to dismiss Taylor Schilling as a pretty face, despite having seen her deliver the goods for years on Orange Is The New Black. As Kate, she’s pretty mesmerizing, convincingly capturing the highs and lows without losing what makes Kate a charming and captivating partner for Shawn. 

Colindrez was new to me, but she’s a force to be reckoned with in a quiet, almost understated way. She’s wonderful as the anchor for the relationship and Shawn’s struggle to support her wife, while simultaneously resenting and even blaming her, is just so powerful and hard to watch. 

I legitimately gasped when the reveal came out that Kate was still alive in the tub and Shawn left her. There’s so much there that’s unsaid and I love that it’s a terrible moment, but it doesn’t turn Shawn into a villain. It’s monstrous behaviour, but the episode has done the emotional labour to make us understand why she reacted that way, and why she’s so desperate not to let Kate go again now that she’s back.

Basically, it’s all the feels, especially in those final scenes when she refuses to let Kate go, then sees how Kate lives on in their teenage daughter. Again, big ups to Kaczmarek for ending this episode on a quiet moment of beauty rather than a big, loud climax. This is pain and love and heartbreak all in one scene and it’s glorious.

I do have one minor problem with the episode: the scenes where Shawn goes to work and then stays late. That didn’t work for me at all. I’ll accept that Shawn is initially in shock and that’s why she clutches her phone and can’t focus throughout the day, but the suggestion that she wouldn’t have burst out of work at the first opportunity didn’t resonate. 

That minor blip aside, though, this is a near perfect episode to me.

Which isn’t something that I can say about the next episode.

1.06 “Palacious, TX”: A disgruntled fisherman makes the catch of a lifetime.

JOE

This is a tricky one, Terry. I appreciate writer Mary Laws’ efforts to tie the story of an immigrant fisherman who finds a perfect “catch” in with the failure of the American dream. I can’t say that I liked much more than that, though, as this whole episode is not only sad, it verges on romanticizing a pathetic and vaguely rapey protagonist.

The minute we see Sharko (Trieu Tran) cleaning up the beach, it’s evident that we’re headed for mermaid territory. The creature make-up for Adria Arjona is fine, but it’s not particularly memorable and the limited budget ensures we never get a good look at the tail. What frustrates me is that aside from the siren call that she’s able to emit, there’s nothing particularly novel or interesting about this mermaid. If anything, she’s simply a catalyst for Sharko’s quick descent into fantasy and eventual death by suicide. 

The fact that he wants to fuck the fish lady and that she ultimately eats him is pretty obvious from the get-go, which...doesn’t leave a lot else here for me. Once again, there’s glimpses of class and racial conflict (similar to what we commented on back in episode 3 “New Orleans, LA”), but for the most part Tran has to sell this character’s loneliness without being able to do much more than stare at an oversized fish tank. 

Anything would pale in comparison to the last episode, but this slight entry is a particularly weak episode for Monsterland in general.

Terry, do you have thoughts about the way that director Nick Pesce opens up Sharko’s fantasies to capture his imaginary sexual trysts with this fantasy woman? Did you enjoy the first act when the rural setting is established by a bunch of local yokels telling tall-tales in the local pub? And were you disappointed, like me, that Pesce wasn’t brought on to do a more spectacular episode, given his propensity for bigger budgeted works?

TERRY

In some ways, this was the most disappointing episode for me, Joe. I’m a huge fan of Pesce’s work (and I’ll defend his version of The Grudge forever) so when I learned he was attached to this series for an episode, I was ecstatic. And while it’s ironic that a man whose last name literally means fish is directing a film about fishing, outside of some connections to the overarching mythology of the show, this tale of monstrous fish just doesn’t work for me. Coming off of the series stand-out of “Plainfield, IL”, it feels like a complete slog. 

On a positive note, I did like its connections to Episode 4 “New York, NY” as it directly references the oil corporation that featured so strongly in that episode. The fact it opens with an oil-covered pelican--are we to assume it was the pelican that was birthed from the CEO in “New York, NY”?--also helped the show click as a throughline that everything happening in Monsterland is happening in the same world. It also brings up a Senator Dorsey who featured as a side character mentioned in Episode 4. 

I also did enjoy the tall-tales in the pub, even though it was mainly used to establish that people believe in mermaids. Like you, I thought the actual creature felt very flat in this and while I appreciate the subtle inference that no matter your station in life, humans want to exert control over someone/something else, I found this one the least thematically interesting. 

Luckily, the next episode is a bump up in quality...if still a bit messy.

1.07 “Iron River, MI”: A neglected daughter longs for another life.

TERRY

“Iron River, MI” has a lot going on, particularly when compared to the previous episode. A cold open establishes the central mystery and characters as it introduces Lauren (Kelly Marie Tran) and her pseudo best friend Elena (Sarah Catherine Hook). They have that kind of awkward “opposites attract” friendship where Elena is incredibly popular, has a hunky boyfriend named Peter (Ben Chase), a caring mother named Rebecca (Susan Pourfar) and gorgeous curvy hair. Lauren has none of this. 

Elena is everything Lauren is not and has everything Lauren wants. Lauren’s own mother Faye (Joy Osmanski) works nights and spends the day passed out from drinking. It’s also inferred that she constantly insults and berates Lauren when she’s not in a drunken comatose. 

This cold open suggests that Iron River is home to a lot of weirdness...and in the world of Monsterland that’s saying something. Elena has a book called Horror in the White Woods that’s filled with bizarre occurrences and serial killers. Elena is particularly infatuated with one such story of The Lumberjack and, creepily, wants to look as beautiful as his victims. After a fight over the way Elena treats Lauren, Elena leaves to go smoke her joint in the white woods alone. Of course she never makes it home and Lauren keeps the secret of their fight from the authorities and Elena’s desperate mother.

Fast forward ten years and Lauren has kind of become Elena. She’s adopted Elena’s hairstyle and nickname (!). She calls Rebecca “mom” (!!). She’s getting married to Peter (!!!). And while she’s about to head off into the picture perfect life that seemed destined to Elena, news starts to trickle in that they’ve found the remains of a woman in the woods...and Lauren’s decisions ten years ago come back to haunt her. 

This is a dense episode, Joe. I actually found myself wanting to know more about the town of Iron River and its disturbingly macabre history. We get little pieces of it, like with The Lumberjack who murdered a bunch of women in the White Woods in the 80s, and a friend of one of the wedding guest’s families who killed his entire family...but I wanted to know more. Meanwhile, the actual conflict of the episode might be a pretty traditional story of lies coming back to haunt someone but it’s executed really nicely. It’s so nice to see Kelly Marie Tran in a leading role and she imbues her character with a lot of needed pathos. 

What I enjoyed about “Iron River, MI” was how murky it was. I think a lot of us have had that friend we look to as having it all and wishing we had some of that, whatever “that” is. And you can’t fault Lauren for lusting after that life, particularly as we get to know her mother Faye, who will do anything--including sell her daughter out--for an easy buck. A mother who kicked her daughter out of the house when she was a teenager. It’s easy to understand her motivations, even when the more complicated truth trickles out. 

My biggest complaint, though, is the reveal of the witch towards the end.  And it’s not the show’s fault and I’m still not completely sure why it hit me like it did...but when the character is introduced, I couldn’t help but immediately think of the Blue Dude in 30 Rock. Then I just couldn’t stop laughing throughout the finale. That probably says more about me than the episode…

I swear when hunched over they look similar…I swear.

So I’ll send it back to you, Joe. What did you think of “Iron River, MI” and its slight worldbuilding? Did you also want to know more about the world of the White Woods? What did you think of the narrative and the themes it was exploring? Plus, I’m curious about your take on the witchy reveal, the witch’s comment of “Some of us have been given nothing, so we learn to take” and the rather morally ambiguous and malicious ending? 

JOE

We are firmly on the same page here - minus the 30 Rock reference (because I don’t remember it as well as you do!). I liked a lot of this episode, particularly how writer Emily Kaczmarek once again smartly uses flashbacks (or alt-flashbacks as the case may be) to illustrate how different people interpret what happened between Elena and Lauren that day in the woods.

We’ve complained about episodes that don’t focus on a single character, but here that diversity of perspectives helps to complicate a fairly straight-forward tale of jealousy and impersonation, though it does mean we get far less of Tran than the leads of other episodes. This is a shame considering Tran is, as always, a very endearing and empathetic figure. Lauren is so evidently kind and soft-spoken, particularly during the wedding rehearsal dinner scenes, that it renders bitchy Abby (Alice Kremelberg)’s accusations that Lauren killed Elena and decapitated the body a little hilarious. Like, sure Abby…

You’re absolutely right that this is an episode that is trying to do more than it has time to properly handle, which is also a bit of a shame. I’m a sucker for folklore and urban legends, and with multiple different events tied to the White Woods, I spent most of the first half of the episode wondering exactly where the story was going. Lauren’s white wedding gown was giving me gothic ghost vibes (perhaps I’ve just been watching too much Bly Manor?) while The Lumberjack sounded like a perfect slasher villain.

Cue my ‘oh...witch” response when the old woman appeared. It’s not that it’s a bad choice, but it didn’t excite me like other villains on the show. Not unlike last episode’s mermaid, this also isn’t the strongest creature design (one almost wonders if the production notes read “throw dust on her and call it a day”). No, my biggest issue is that this final act is so rushed so any kind of mythology about this woman, her rationale for abducting Elena because she wanted a daughter and even the implications of Lauren swapping places with Elena and staying on for a life of indentured servitude...it all comes and goes in the blink of an eye. 

This is particularly frustrating considering the whole episode is a study in contrasts between mothers and daughters and learning how to step out of the shadows and become who you want to be. There’s something disappointingly simple about a tale that posits both Lauren and Elena never truly grow beyond who they are as teenagers - they both still want great hair, good moms and a relationship with Peter, the boy who wears too much AXE body spray.

Did I love that final scene of Lauren stomping her way through the forest after rejecting Elena’s pleas for help? Absolutely, because anything else would have felt like a shitty morality story (and Monsterland has wisely resisted that for most of its run). But considering all of the fascinating nuggets of White Woods mythology that go unexplored, and this speedily resolved conflict, there are some missed opportunities here. 

Two final observations:

1) Seriously, after 10 years (!) of working wordlessly for a witch, Elena’s third question is about Peter. Who cares about their high school boyfriend this much?!

2) Kelly Marie Tran has stunningly gorgeous hair in the present day scenes, so I appreciate that the transformation from her unflattering teen years bowl cut needed to be very obvious. But WOW is that ever an atrocious wig.

1.08 “Newark. NJ”: A grieving couple struggles to say goodbye

JOE

We’ve made it to the end, Terry! While I don’t think that “Newark, NJ” is the best episode of the season, it definitely features one of the more optimistic finales so it makes sense to cap things off with this tale.

“Newark, NJ” focuses on grieving couple Brian (Mike Colter) and Amy Cooke (Adepero Oduye), who lost their 6 year old daughter sixteen months ago. Like most of Monsterland’s episodes, the circumstances of Tabitha (Jordyn Curet)’s disappearance are revealed slowly: the episode opens with Brian at the store, buying a doll and having some kind of PTSD experience involving falling change. On his way home he avoids looking at a ballet class, and we see him enter the only house on the street still decked out for Christmas. These and other visual signifiers, like a drawer full of red Sharpies, hint at some kind of tragedy looming over the house.

Initially I thought it was a bold choice by series writer Mary Laws to neither confirm nor deny whether Tabitha is actually dead, but then I read Nathan Ballingrud’s short  story “The Monsters of Heaven” and discovered that it’s actually a pretty faithful adaptation. Laws switches the gender of the child and a few other details, but the truth about what happened is never confirmed. 

That’s not really the important part anyways. This is a story about how a couple processes their grief differently to the point that the only thing standing in the way of their separation is an otherworldly intervention from aliens with hallucinogenic blood.

I’ll confess that the short story is a little more adept at introducing this fantastic concept; the alien presence is firmly a background anomaly right up until Brian stumbles upon a body. The Hulu series uses Tabitha’s voice over narration to explain the February appearance of “the angels” from its opening moments and it feels wholly separate from the more intimate, character based drama unfolding between Brian and Amy. In truth I appreciate “Newark, NJ” more after reading the story because the alien presence is an integral component of the source material, but viewers who don’t read the story will undoubtedly balk at it until the climactic pay-off.

In truth, this is another super tough episode, Terry. Colter and Oduye really tear the house down with their grief, particularly in the scene when Amy explains how she stepped up and went back to work because he wasn’t ready. This is some heavy shit and it feels incredibly authentic. I’ve definitely had these kinds of clipped, accusatory conversations in my marriage when times got tough.

And really, that’s what Monsterland has excelled at over its eight episode run. I haven’t loved all of its metaphorical monsters, and several episodes were stronger in theory than execution, but the series’ willingness to dig into character-based emotion and explore the messy, often unrefined lives of real people—POC, queer people, poor people—has made for a fascinating and unorthodox series. I’d really like to see this series return, with slightly recalibrated narratives that are a smidge less ambitious so that they can really dig in and explore this world. Overall, the season is a B- for me. 

I’ll turn it back to you, Terry. I’m sure you have thoughts on the reappearance of poor Toni (Kaitlyn Dever), who is back to using her real name and working as a diner waitress. Did the contrast between her lost child and Brian’s work for you? Did you—like me—feel that Toni’s fate was the series’ one heavy-handed morality lesson? Are you annoyed Mr. Grey never showed up? What did you think of the final emotional sequence in the theatre where Brian and Amy find peace? And how about that literal bloody sex scene?

TERRY

What I loved about this episode, Joe, was how it connected so thematically well to the first episode, providing two halves of one coin by examining two families that felt chained to their child. In “Port Fourchon, Louisiana,” it was Toni and her child that she never wanted and felt shackled to in life. Here, it’s a family ruptured by the disappearance of their daughter and the ramifications of a family struggling to move on in the face of trauma. Put together, it makes such a smart bookend to the series and the contrast between Brian and her felt authentic and painfully real. While the episode didn’t make me cry like “Plainfield, IL” did, it certainly moved me. 

It’s funny, though, I didn’t completely see Toni’s fate as a morality lesson; quite the opposite. The use of the angel blood as a device to be explore what it means to terms with something—be it a loss or a questionable decision you’ve made—means that we get to examine the loss of a child through two lenses. I don’t think the story has necessarily punished her for her choice. Toni’s still a waitress in a shitty restaurant, with or without her child and while she takes the drug of angel’s blood and sees “the truth” that she’s a monster, she says it without much remorse. 

I think over the course of these eight episodes, Monsterland has shown that we are the monsters...but that doesn’t come with any sort of condemnation attached. That maybe we’ve concocted these ideas of monsters hiding in lakes and the woods and in each other to hide from the fact that we aren’t perfect. And if the angels falling from heaven in “Newark, NJ” aren’t the beautiful creations we’ve dreamt up in our minds, it’s because nothing is perfect. We like to dream of fantastically beautiful and caring angels and fashion ourselves in their light, but, as Brian says, “Maybe god threw them out of the sky. Maybe heaven’s a dark place.”

Maybe, as some Christians like to say, we really are created in his image. And if the result is that, again as Brian says, our first instinct when angels fall from the sky is to chop ‘em up, drain them of their blood and “Turn them into capital,” we’re fashioned off of something horrific. Something monstrous. 

So while I still don’t know what to make of the baptism by blood and sex imagery (other than it was wild) and I am a bit miffed that Mr. Grey never showed up, I do think this show did a decent job of holding a mirror up to society and saying, “you need to do better.” Heavy-handed, sure. But it still mostly worked for me. 

I’d give this season of Monsterland a B-.