{"id":7408,"date":"2019-10-04T13:00:22","date_gmt":"2019-10-04T20:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=7408"},"modified":"2019-09-10T12:25:57","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T19:25:57","slug":"mark-watches-monster-episode-8-pursued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2019\/10\/mark-watches-monster-episode-8-pursued\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Monster’: Episode 8 – Pursued"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the eighth episode of Monster<\/i>, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still not ready. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Monster<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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

How many twists and turns has Monster<\/i> thrown at me in just eight episodes? Way too many, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, and I just passed the TEN PERCENT MARK in my journey. How???<\/p>\n

I say this all knowing that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pursued\u00e2\u20ac\u009d just threw another curveball at me. I went into this assuming that Dr. Tenma would find some way to pursue Nina. She was his link to Johan and the mysterious past of these twins, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d already left his job back at Eisler. EXCEPT THIS EPISODE IMMEDIATELY REVEALS THAT HE HADN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T REALLY DONE SO. He took an extended leave of absence, and with Nina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sweet note, Dr. Tenma is reminded of the promise he made to himself. He wanted to be a surgeon\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand the best possible!\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbecause it was right<\/i>. It was a good thing to want to save lives, and it was moral to view all lives of being worthy of being saved.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So Dr. Tenma gives up the chase, and he returns to a very \u00e2\u20ac\u0153normal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d life, at least relative to him. That transition was so confusing to me because I wrongly assumed that I was watching a flashback to Tenma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time at Eisler. NOPE. He actually went back, and for at least a brief period of time, he was just the head surgeon! That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it!\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a strange place to take the story, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something I felt only in the moment. This really was the calm before the storm, and that storm arrived in two different forms: the necktie and Eva. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so wild to me to think how these two plots intertwined here because I figured that we were done with Eva. Her father was dead, she turned her back on Tenma, and then Tenma rejected her when she tried to come back into his life. This plot was completed, right?<\/p>\n

NOPE. NOT AT ALL. Because now, years after everything that went down at the hospital, after Dr. Tenma already had multiple brushes with Johan, Eva is at a very strange place in her own life. She has inherited a filthy amount of money from her father, and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also faired well in her three<\/i> divorces. I feel kinda weird about Eva as a stereotype of the gold digging widow? At the same time, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m wondering if she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s meant to be a foil for Dr. Tenma. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forget that she was the first person to vocalize the opinion that some lives are inherently more valuable than others. She also embarrassed Dr. Tenma for living up to the opposite belief of this. And where is she now? She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rich, she has power and access, and she is deeply, deeply unhappy. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only within a drunken bout of daydreaming that she has an epiphany: the only man who actually cared about her was Dr. Tenma. He truly loved her, and she threw it away.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to watch Eva here because I know how warped your thinking can be while drunk, even if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gone as long as I have without alcohol. I still remember it! And at the time, it seemed like a good idea for her to approach Dr. Tenma and ask to try again. She was attempting to be sincere, but his cold rejection of her flipped the script. Again! This is the second time she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been rejected by him, but after all this time, it still<\/i> stings. (I also bet the alcohol isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t helping.)\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This one act, though, unravels everything SO DAMN QUICKLY, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all!!! Because then Eva threatens to reveal that she knew exactly<\/i> who she gifted the necktie that Inspector Lunge had. This whole sequence is fascinating to me because the show\/writers decide to give us virtually nothing<\/i> from Dr. Tenma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective. He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fight back when Eva tries to blackmail him to try again. Instead, he give up! He very casually leaves the hospital, quitting his job in a surreal scene where he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even give his boss a chance to argue with him. While this is happening, Lunge and the Federal Police converge on the hospital, and they learn the hard way just how dedicated Tenma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s patients are. From Lunge\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective, I can see that being yet another sign that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on the right path. I bet he is already assuming that Tenma behaved as he did in order to win people over to his side as a means of camouflage. Right??? He could hide in plain sight by being a great surgeon! Of course, we<\/i> know this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the case.<\/p>\n

Instead\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going by conjecture here\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI believe Dr. Tenma knew that telling people the truth would get him nowhere. He told Lunge, and Lunge still doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe him. He told Maurer the truth, too, and that didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t end too well, did it? So he throws his whole career away, and then the episode cuts to FIVE MONTHS LATER, and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re left with a lot of assumptions. Obviously, Tenma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s disappearance makes him a prime suspect in a new<\/i> murder. Which I also get!!! The dude just up and left his job in the middle of an investigation, right after a piece of evidence was identified as his. But where is he going? Is he still trying to track down the twins? Was all of this his sign that he shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have given up on this pursuit in the first place? WHERE THE HELL IS THIS SHOW GOING.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pursued\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":"