{"id":7407,"date":"2019-10-02T13:00:56","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T20:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=7407"},"modified":"2019-09-10T12:22:15","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T19:22:15","slug":"mark-watches-monster-episode-7-house-of-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2019\/10\/mark-watches-monster-episode-7-house-of-tragedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Monster’: Episode 7 – House of Tragedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the seventh episode of Monster<\/i>, Nina has an epiphany. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Monster<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For discussion of trauma\/PTSD<\/b><\/p>\n

My running theory at this point is that Nina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amnesia was caused by the trauma of the murder of both the Lieberts and her attempted murder of Johan. I know that reveal happens later in the episode, but I wanted to start with this because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s helping me grasp the bizarre history of these twins. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m calling her Nina for now because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s who this character is at the moment, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not even sure \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Anna\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is her real name either. Plus, it represents who she is: she is Nina Fortner, and she had a happy and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153normal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d life with the Fortners. If her admission is true\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand I have no reason to believe otherwise\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthen Johan is the one responsible for the trauma wrought upon Nina. Based on her tearful response to Dr. Tenma, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also clear that she wanted her brother dead, that she thought the world would be better without him.<\/p>\n

Prior to this admission, though, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153House of Tragedy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d slowly unravels the life that Nina had. Well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a very sudden bout of destruction, but it takes a while for Nina to begin to come to terms with it. It seems very much the case that Nina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind goes into shock upon seeing the Fortners dead, as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Dr. Tenma who has the more emotional reaction in the Fortner home. Which I get! Dr. Tenma is also dealing with trauma, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coming at this from such a different angle. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d actually argue that what the doctor struggles with is guilt<\/i>. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to see that in the scene where Nina asks him why he saved Johan, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also there as he places a cigarette in Maurer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mouth. How many people at this point have indirectly died because of the decisions that Dr. Tenma has made? The surgeons and the director at Eisler all died because Johan grossly misinterpreted a private admission in a moment of pain. And now, Maurer is dead, collateral damage because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everyone who gets even remotely involved in this nightmare seems to end up dead! And in Nina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s case, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been re-traumatized and some of her memories have come flooding back.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about those, too, because the first half of them make no sense to me. So, if I recall this correctly, she said that she and Johan crossed a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153border\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and then found the Lieberts? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how literally I should interpret this either. Am I meant to believe that they both came from some place outside of Germany? Did she mean the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153border\u00e2\u20ac\u009d between East and West Germany, implying that this problem didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happen UNTIL the Lieberts crossed over? Ah! I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how significant any of this is. Even while describing the murder of the Lieberts, Nina skips over a LOT of things. Did she always know her twin brother was like this or was this side of him a sudden development? Why was Johan so willing to let his sister shoot him in the head???<\/p>\n

And then there are the detectives from the next town over from Heidelberg. I suspected something was off with them, but only slightly. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, BLESS the way this episode slowly and then VERY RAPIDLY reveals all the details that make Dr. Tenma doubt who he is in a car with. Even though the end of this episode confirms that the detectives ARE real and from the precinct they said they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re from, it still doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t answer many of the legitimate questions that Dr. Tenma had. We know the phone line was cut, so WHO FUCKING CALLED THE POLICE? Why didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the detectives practice any standard procedure at the crime scene??? They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t secure it or anything, nor did they call for back-up. They just grabbed Nina and Dr. Tenma, and obviously, they knew who Dr. Tenma was. How??? Is there someone else who has been following this case? Oh my god, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get it! Who were those guys??? Are they hiding something underneath their legitimate roles as detectives??? AND WHAT IS INSPECTOR LUNGE GOING TO DO WITH TENMA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S TIE??? Oh, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not good either.<\/p>\n

This is escalating so much faster than I could have ever expected, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. LORD.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153House of Tragedy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now OUT!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"