Hulu’s Monsterland Episode 8 Newark, New Jersey Explained-Grief Is Bloody Business

Monsterland Episode 8 Newark, New York is a grotesque and poignant reminder to hang onto our families, and it’s okay to believe in angels.

Every episode of Monsterland brought a new monster and plenty of monstrous behavior. Each beast had a purpose, though. Humans are the worst evil, and the monsters acted as catalysts for their behavior. Recurring characters prove this out. Toni wanted a new life free of Jack. Her monster is a shapeshifter. Other characters need an escape from the real world, and a mermaid comes to remind them they aren’t as innocent as they think. Every story is interwoven with elements of the one before. Monsterland Episode 8 Newark, New York, offered a rare hopeful ending.

Monsterland Episode 8 Newark, New York opens with Brian, Mike Coulter of Luke Cage fame, buying a doll. When the cashier drops change on the floor, Brian leaves without taking it. He returns home and wraps one of a mountain of presents under a gorgeous Christmas tree. Despite the festive setting, it is clear something is wrong. His wife Amy, Adepero Oduye(12 Years A Slave), returns home and tries to encourage him to go to a counseling session for parents who have lost their children. Brian initially says he they don’t belong there because their child is not dead and later feigns sickness to avoid going.

This is a couple in crisis, which plays out as the episode unfolds. Newark, New Jersey is about the toll guilt, and grief can take on an otherwise loving couple. Brian and Amy loved each other once but have lost their way as they collectively grieve the kidnapping of their daughter nearly two years ago. Brian feels tremendous guilt that she was taken on his watch, while Amy wants desperately to have human connections and heal. She .understands that her and brian need to move on together to have any hope of being happy again.

Brian becomes so despondent and distant. Amy has an affair while he shuts down. He goes to therapy only as a way to find more clues to what happened to his daughter. After revealing her affair to Brian, the two have a nasty fight, and he leaves for a diner where none other than Toni from Monsterland Episode 1 and 3 works. She is now working in New York, still alone. Toni has left her daughter Jack behind and hasn’t looked back. It was easier to lie about Jack’s existence than admit she left her in a Mercedes and ran.

What happened to Toni?

This is the first of two important concepts in Monsterland Episode 8 Newark, New York. Regardless of what you do, how far you run, or what decisions you make, you can’t outrun your past. It is better to accept your life and strive for better while appreciating what you have. Avoidance and refusal to grow are recipes for stagnation, loneliness, and failure. We see this theme in every episode of Monsterland.

Negative emotions make monsters out of people. Toni may have left her troubled child behind, but her life doesn’t seem that much better. She is still working in a diner and is obviously miserable. Toni is still making risky choices like taking mystery drugs from the local thug and obviously feels guilt regardless of the lies she tells. She sees herself as a monster because she is. Leaving her child behind to start new was the only way out for this overwhelmed young mom.

What did the angel do?

Amy and Brian must find their way through the stages of grief together. After leaving Toni at the diner, Brian follows what he thinks is his daughter but turns out to be an angel. He carries the creature home, and husband and wife care for it. As a reward, the angel gives the two insight by placing his bloodied finger in each of their mouths. The two begin a series of visions designed to hasten the grieving process. Neither is a monster, only a depressed parent of a lost child.

All of the pent up rage and hopelessness comes pouring out until Brian asks Amy about her affair, and she cruelly tells him it was good. At first, out of spite, she laughs but then realizes that if Brian is upset, it means he is finally ready to fight for the marriage. After returning from punching the man Amy cheated with, the couple reunites and has sex with the angel watching. The angel slits his throat, and blood washes over them.

It is a grotesque scene meant to symbolize rebirth or baptism in blood. Shortly after, Brian and Amy enter a theater and get to watch their child dance one final time. They are finally able to say goodbye. It is the gift of renewal that the angel brought them. Angels come in many forms, some more terrifying than others. As Alex tells Toni in Episode 1, “Sometimes you have to live with what you’ve done, to really live.” Catch all our Monsterland coverage here. Until Season 2 live well.