In the sixth-fourth episode of Monster<\/i>, I am now bracing myself for having my soul torn from my body in every remaining episode. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Monster<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For mentions of racism\/fascism, depression, manipulation<\/b><\/p>\n
What the fuck, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all.<\/p>\n
So, you can watch me have this reaction in real time on video, but when that episode title came up, I was immediately disinterested. Who the fuck cares about The Baby having depression? The dude is a massive neo-fascist, espouses racist views all the time, and is sad that he hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite become the next Hitler? BOO. BE SAD FOREVER, I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T CARE ABOUT YOU. Thus, I find it an achievement that this episode manages to overcome something like this and become\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 lord, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know what. I feel like the whole fabric of this final arc has shifted into something new, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m terrified. What if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gotten this all wrong? What if Johan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s motivations are different than my operating theories? WHAT THE FUCK IS JOHAN PLANNING?<\/p>\n
Still, there are other questions that I need answering before that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s addressed. In The Baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s final appearance, the show pulls back the curtain just a bit, letting us in on the life of a notorious crime boss, and as it turns out, his life of racism and illegality isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t all that fulfilling! He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spent all his time buying<\/i> people, and unsurprising, that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t lead to meaningful relationships and interactions. Everything is a transaction for him, and in the final night of his life, he opens up to a woman who he is on a date with. Yes, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that this woman was most likely hired or manipulated by Johan in order. For what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand I certainly give zero fucks about The Baby as a person\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI do think the episode built a convincing case for his loneliness. I understood it! I despised him as a person and a character, but it was clear why<\/i> The Baby felt so isolated. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just the money thing, though. His job kept him from making real connections with other people. On top of it all: Johan. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear The Baby knew most of what was going on in the organization, but there was still an element of mystery to it all. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s some \u00e2\u20ac\u0153plan\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that is unfolding, and it involves Nina and Johan, and we know from past episodes that this organization wants to use Johan for their own purpose.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But to what end? And why was The Baby so worried about Johan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s activities? UGH WHAT IS THE PIECE THAT I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M MISSING HERE? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m certain there are clues towards it in the episode itself. Capek refers to a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153master\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at one point. Does he mean Johan or Franz Bonarparta? (HELP ME, THAT FINAL FUCKING LINE HAS RUINED MY LIFE.) What is it that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re planning? How does it involve that (still unnamed) man who is basically Johan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s disciple? (This episode also explains the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unrelated\u00e2\u20ac\u009d murders from the previous episode: they were all to help cover up some sort of scandal that this unnamed man is at the center of.) Why is he so important to the story? Shit, why did Johan take on a disciple anyway<\/i>? All of this contributes to the fear that The Baby voiced to the unnamed woman: He was no longer in the inner circle, and for the first time in his life, he believed he might be expendable. Even more specifically: Johan would be the one doing the expending.<\/p>\n Which leaves me with Peter Capek. This is the main reason I felt like this episode shifted the focus of Monster<\/i> so much. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to see why I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve viewed Johan as the main antagonist, and I still think he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of many. I now believe that the main antagonist at the heart of this is actually Franz Bonaparta, the man who Capek met and who Capek spoke highly of to Milan in a previous episode. I believe Capek created this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153program\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of his because of Bonaparta, and that Bonaparta is the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153master\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he briefly referred to in this episode. He must also know that Johan was once a part of Bonaparta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s original experiments, right? Which would explain why he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never mentioned Bonaparta to Johan or has always done so in the past tense, as if Bonaparta was dead. His own paranoia in this episode stems from practically the same source as The Baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s: He realizes he might not be in control of this at all. Does he really<\/i> know what Johan is doing?<\/p>\n Seriously, this episode careens in such a horrifying direction as soon as Capek learns that The Baby is dead. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand why Capek believes that being in possession of Nina will guarantee his safety, but clearly, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the case. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, that whole sequence with the bodyguard\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T EVEN KNOW WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Was the bodyguard resistant to drive away from the house because he was frustrated or because he was tasked by Johan to bring Capek there? We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know because Capek executes him in a state of terror. He immediately goes from hysterical doubt\u00e2\u20ac\u201dafter learning the man was reaching for a lighter, not a gun\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto having his fears validated when he arrives at his SECRET home to find Johan waiting for him.<\/p>\n I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get what Johan says out of my mind. He thought the monster was inside him, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually outside<\/i>? He means Franz Bonaparta, right? And if he does, is this all some weird revenge plan? Or is he trying to find Bonaparta to thank him? Praise him? Condemn him? I KNOW PRACTICALLY NOTHING.<\/p>\n Whew, I need the next episode right now.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Depression\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – You can now pre-order my second YA novel, Each of Us a Desert<\/i>, which will be released on September 15, 2020 from Tor Teen!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong> In the sixth-fourth episode of Monster, I am now bracing myself for having my soul torn from my body in every remaining episode. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Monster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[699],"tags":[700],"class_list":["post-7502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monster","tag-mark-watches-monster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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