In the sixty-ninth episode of Monster<\/i>, Grimmer, Lunge, and Tenma all come to understand that something horrible is happening in Ruhenheim. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Monster<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of manipulation, suicide, death of an animal, bullying<\/b><\/p>\n
This is… real bad.<\/p>\n
Which seems like such a bogus way of describing all of this! This is WAY beyond just \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bad.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a nightmare writ large, a purposeful re-enactment of two massacres that, at their heart, are about a poisoning of humanity, both literal and metaphorical. And one of the worst things about all this is despite Grimmer and Lunge figuring most of this out, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re already too late<\/i>. Johan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plan has unfolded far enough that what I think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re witnessing is momentum. This is the start of the avalanche, and it has become a force of nature, an inevitable phenomenon that will be impossible to stop.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There are two plots unfolding simultaneously in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Peaceful Home,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d one inside Ruhenheim and one outside. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the plot outside that gives us the most context. Dr. Tenma is furiously trying to locate Johan and Franz Bonaparta, and he has one last conversation with Nina, who has finally understood what it is that Johan is doing. She uses an interesting phrase when describing his suicidal last stand: She calls it an expression of love<\/i>. Maybe Johan is so terribly messed up that this is<\/i> the only way he knows how to express that emotion. He lived through Kinderheim 511; he witnessed the massacre at the Red Rose Mansion. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seen adult figures corrupt and exploit children his whole life, and it makes sense that he would have developed a warped sense of what \u00e2\u20ac\u0153love\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is. Thus, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a part of me that thinks Nina is right. At the same time, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand everything here. Why turn this entire town against itself? How does Johan recruit people to do his bidding, like the elderly visitors to Ruhenheim who pass guns along to Wim, Wim\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father, and possibly others? How does Johan convince or manipulate them to that point?<\/p>\n I also have to assume that Johan knows Franz Bonaparta\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor, rather, Klaus Poppe\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis in Ruhenheim. Is this all a demonstration of love towards that man, who Johan might very well view as a father figure? Is this an act of reverance<\/i>? If that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the case, holy shit, Klaus is possibly not going to like it at all? During Tenma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s investigation, he discovers one last pseudonym of Klaus, as well as the only picture book published after<\/i> the events of the Red Rose Mansion. While that helps Tenma locate Ruhenheim, it also gives us a glimpse into Klaus Poppe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life. He got… better? After living with the townspeople of Ruhenheim, he came to like them and abandoned his previous malice, much like the main character in A Peaceful Home<\/i>. That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exonerate his past crimes by any means, but if this theory of mine is right (IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S PROBABLY NOT, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122VE BEEN WRONG SO MANY TIMES), then won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Klaus hate<\/i> what Johan is doing?<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in Ruhenheim, the paranoia has already gripped the town, and this whole episode was unbearably tense. Yes, yes, that could describe a solid half of the episodes of Monster<\/i>, but this one is particularly bad. Something felt so terribly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153off\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the previous episode, and here, those jagged edges are becoming weapons<\/i>. Again: how much of this is Johan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing? Is the lottery even real<\/i>, or did Johan exploit an already-existing paranoia? What about the dog? I CAN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T STOP THINKING ABOUT THIS. Either option is terrifying: Johan and his recruits exploited and manipulated a situation over a long period of time, or they recently showed up and took advantage of shit that was already there<\/i>. I suspect it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the later, especially when it comes to Wim\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father and Wim\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bullies, who were just awful without anyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s help and without a nudge from others.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And now guns are thrown in the mix. Not just the ones purchased by the couple who won the lottery. The elderly couple are exerting pressure on specific emotional points and HANDING OUT GUNS TO ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO COMMIT MURDER. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like a nightmarish version of an Oprah screening. YOU GET A GUN! AND YOU GET A GUN! AND YOU<\/i> GET A GUN! They gave a gun to WIM, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. Someone murdered Konrad just for the hell of it, or… shit, did they do that specifically <\/i>to make the lottery couple more paranoid? The dog has been murdered. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a LITERAL storm descending on Ruhenheim that makes leaving impossible.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So who the fuck is Klaus Poppe? At this point, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really only one person who is old enough to be him and is still alive? I thought it was Konrad, and that eerie scene in the beginning felt like a clue, but then… nope. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dead. (And it would be pretty unsatisfying if this random man ended up being one of the major antagonists of the show.) So… the guy running Hotel Versteck? (Still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m spelling that right.) Maybe???? But I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see ANY clues here except that… he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nice??? And old?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m also immensely worried for Inspector Lunge, who makes a VERY bold decision in this episode. Actually, so did Grimmer: Why was Grimmer going to leave town? Had he given up on the idea of doing anything for the people of Ruhenheim? Perhaps. Lunge, however, takes a much more direct approach, and Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL<\/i>. He calls out the elderly couple\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lie by pointing out that the gentleman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shoes are dirty!!! THEN HE ANNOUNCES THAT HE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S MAKING A PHONE CALL. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fucking believe it, except it happened! He definitely vocalized how suspicious they were! So now my new worry is the fate of Lunge: Did he blow his cover? Will the couple retaliate against him? What the fuck is about to happen in Ruhenheim?<\/i><\/p>\n The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Peaceful Home\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 sixty-ninth episode of Monster, Grimmer, Lunge, and Tenma all come to understand that something horrible is happening in Ruhenheim. 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-7515","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\/7515","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=7515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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