"Iron River" is a sordid little tale of a woman, Lauren, whose best friend Elena dies in the White Woods when they're teenagers. Lauren "takes over" Elena's life, becomes like a second daughter to the deceased's mother, and gets married to Elena's high school boyfriend. But on the wedding day, the past comes back to confront Lauren. Elena's remains turn up, and one of Elena's friends has her suspicions and pays Lauren's mother Faye to confront Lauren.
It all makes sense up to the 36 minute mark. But of course it wouldn't be a 'Monsterland' episode if there was no monster , and things made sense. So Lauren hallucinates being in the Woods, and an old Hag shows up. And are we in real life, or Lauren's dream, or another of the production staff's metaphors? Heck if I know. It turns out the Hag had a bad life, like Lauren supposedly had (although we never see it), and has been holding Elena as a teenager as the daughter she never had.
The Hag offers to trade Elena for Lauren. And Lauren... walks out of the cabin and away. Who knows what it all means? You could come up with a theory. Did it really happen? Did Lauren go back to her stolen life? Did she abandon Elena? Was it a dweam of extrawordinary magnitude? Who knows? Who cares? I can come up with a half dozen theories, but... get your own. Presumably TV writers get paid to tell me my theories. One episode I could accept, but an entire series? Nuh-uh.
I don't mind 'Monsterland' using horror as a metaphor. But that's all it does in seven episodes, and it doesn't look like the season (and series?) finale is going to be any better. And like most of the preceding episode, "Iron River" seems to be trying to cram too much in. There's a lesbian kiss, and what you'll do to get out of poverty, and parental issues, and lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
You can theorize about what it all means. 'Monsterland' is great on giving you stuff to theorize about. But I've got plenty of that in my life. I want to see stories I can't experience on my own. Told by storytellers. Not episodes where the production staff asks me to tell what I see. I can do that on my own. It's not escapism, and the stories are both too scattershot and too specific to apply to the human condition in general the way that Rod Serling, or Joseph Stefano, or Stephen King have done in the past.
I can kind of dig that all of them are Rashomon-type versions of "the truth" and we never find out what the truth is. But we _never_ seem to find out the truth in an episode of 'Monsterland'. I don't mind the occasional story where we don't find out the truth. But I'm not looking for an entire series where we don't find out the truth, or get an ending (which is "the truth").
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
It all makes sense up to the 36 minute mark. But of course it wouldn't be a 'Monsterland' episode if there was no monster , and things made sense. So Lauren hallucinates being in the Woods, and an old Hag shows up. And are we in real life, or Lauren's dream, or another of the production staff's metaphors? Heck if I know. It turns out the Hag had a bad life, like Lauren supposedly had (although we never see it), and has been holding Elena as a teenager as the daughter she never had.
The Hag offers to trade Elena for Lauren. And Lauren... walks out of the cabin and away. Who knows what it all means? You could come up with a theory. Did it really happen? Did Lauren go back to her stolen life? Did she abandon Elena? Was it a dweam of extrawordinary magnitude? Who knows? Who cares? I can come up with a half dozen theories, but... get your own. Presumably TV writers get paid to tell me my theories. One episode I could accept, but an entire series? Nuh-uh.
I don't mind 'Monsterland' using horror as a metaphor. But that's all it does in seven episodes, and it doesn't look like the season (and series?) finale is going to be any better. And like most of the preceding episode, "Iron River" seems to be trying to cram too much in. There's a lesbian kiss, and what you'll do to get out of poverty, and parental issues, and lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
You can theorize about what it all means. 'Monsterland' is great on giving you stuff to theorize about. But I've got plenty of that in my life. I want to see stories I can't experience on my own. Told by storytellers. Not episodes where the production staff asks me to tell what I see. I can do that on my own. It's not escapism, and the stories are both too scattershot and too specific to apply to the human condition in general the way that Rod Serling, or Joseph Stefano, or Stephen King have done in the past.
I can kind of dig that all of them are Rashomon-type versions of "the truth" and we never find out what the truth is. But we _never_ seem to find out the truth in an episode of 'Monsterland'. I don't mind the occasional story where we don't find out the truth. But I'm not looking for an entire series where we don't find out the truth, or get an ending (which is "the truth").
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?