This episode 4 from "Hulu's" "Monsterland" called "New York, New York" is a story that's set in the big apple and it involves corruption and the big corporate world. It involves a rich CEO who's under investigation for being on the take, as the guy is a greedy and corrupt business man who's morals are questionable as it's win at all cost and his lifestyle of high dollar ladies and abusing the bottle puts him at risk. Now enter a spin and twist on religion as his sins soon doom him as the demons of fate are flying free to take a tortured soul like his! Overall okay episode that's dark and twisted in nature!
3 Reviews
Ooh, Look: Religious Imagery!
Gislef21 November 2020
Warning: Spoilers
"New York, New York" as least takes a different approach to the storyline. Instead of showing someone going through the gut-wrenching effects of poverty (as in the last three episodes in a row!), we see a CEO who is responsible for his company's oil spill. So he redirects the blame, but it turns how that he's been possessed by a... demon of the Apocalypse, or God, or the Devil, or something.
Although the demon claims that it's God, presumably it's lying because the story makes even less sense if God is acting through the protagonist, Stanley Price, then if he was demon-possessed. Why would God want to start the Apocalypse by taking over an oil company CEO, and have him cut open his own stomach to release an oil-covered bird. Or demon. Or something.
"New York..." is fairly straightforward until the back half. It goes off the rails a little bit when Stanley dreams of the Last Supper in his penthouse, and then a church where his call girl Sharon recites Biblical lines to him. We never see Sharon again, so I'm not sure what that's about. Did she walk out on Stanley, or was she a demonic assistant, or what? We never do find out.
Instead we get swept up in the story of Stanley's flunky, Josh Hammond. Who discovers that he and Stanley have a bond of sorts, both being idealists who have given in to corporate greed. And then Josh calls in a self-help guru, who manages to get through to Stanley when the demon possesses him. And he cuts open his stomach to release the bird/demon inside of him, and it flies off.
And then Josh goes home and tells his SO that he's sold out and it's too late. So Josh is gay, because it's 2020 and... of course he is.
The whole thing goes off the track in the last 20 minutes or so. Stanley acting all weird and having hallucinations isn't because of his guilt. It's because he's possessed by a demon that is using him to send a sign of the Apocalypse. Because oil spills (along with wildfires, diseases, and corrupt politicians) are signs of the Apocalypse. There... haven't been wildfires, diseases, and corrupt politicians in the past?
"New York..." isn't a bad episode, and at least it makes a change of pace. The performances are good, including Bill Camp, who played Howard in 'The Outsider'. It's just there are a lot of ideas floating around, and no real effort made by writer Wesley Strick to pull it all together. You've got corporations, and pollution, and the Apocalypse, and demonic possession, and religion, and New Age mysticism (the Marianne character casually accepts that she's facing a demon!), and an innocent corrupted by money and power, and... everything all crammed into one 52-minute or so episode.
The religion is tossed in almost superfluously. Maybe Stanley's religious hallucinations are brought on by his visit to a church for a PR shoot with a senator. And the conversation between Stanley and a young choir boy, Tim (Mason Schneiderman) is the most amusing thing in the first four episodes. It brings a lighter tone to a downer of a series and batch of first-four episodes.
But other than that, religion doesn't play any part in the episode. Okay, it's pretty definite that Stanley is possessed by a demon at the end of the episode. So why drag the religious imagery in? A demon possesses Stanley, so he... hallucinates a bunch of people standing around him chanting Latin? All-righty. We do get scenes of Bill Camp coughing up black bile (oil) and eventually giving himself a C-section of sorts and giving birth to a bird-demon. Which is more definitive supernatural stuff than we got in the last three episodes. So there's that.
And there's a weird part at the beginning where Josh talks to a woman in a taxi, about "him", and convinces her to sign a NDA. I have no idea who "him" is (is it Stanley?), and the woman Syd disappears for the rest of the episode. The scene doesn't tell us anything about Josh, and I have no idea why it's there.
So overall "New York" is an okay episode, and finally digs into the supernatural promise of the title. It's more about demonic possession than "metaphors". But it is still kind of incoherent, tied together by some good performances and imagery.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
Although the demon claims that it's God, presumably it's lying because the story makes even less sense if God is acting through the protagonist, Stanley Price, then if he was demon-possessed. Why would God want to start the Apocalypse by taking over an oil company CEO, and have him cut open his own stomach to release an oil-covered bird. Or demon. Or something.
"New York..." is fairly straightforward until the back half. It goes off the rails a little bit when Stanley dreams of the Last Supper in his penthouse, and then a church where his call girl Sharon recites Biblical lines to him. We never see Sharon again, so I'm not sure what that's about. Did she walk out on Stanley, or was she a demonic assistant, or what? We never do find out.
Instead we get swept up in the story of Stanley's flunky, Josh Hammond. Who discovers that he and Stanley have a bond of sorts, both being idealists who have given in to corporate greed. And then Josh calls in a self-help guru, who manages to get through to Stanley when the demon possesses him. And he cuts open his stomach to release the bird/demon inside of him, and it flies off.
And then Josh goes home and tells his SO that he's sold out and it's too late. So Josh is gay, because it's 2020 and... of course he is.
The whole thing goes off the track in the last 20 minutes or so. Stanley acting all weird and having hallucinations isn't because of his guilt. It's because he's possessed by a demon that is using him to send a sign of the Apocalypse. Because oil spills (along with wildfires, diseases, and corrupt politicians) are signs of the Apocalypse. There... haven't been wildfires, diseases, and corrupt politicians in the past?
"New York..." isn't a bad episode, and at least it makes a change of pace. The performances are good, including Bill Camp, who played Howard in 'The Outsider'. It's just there are a lot of ideas floating around, and no real effort made by writer Wesley Strick to pull it all together. You've got corporations, and pollution, and the Apocalypse, and demonic possession, and religion, and New Age mysticism (the Marianne character casually accepts that she's facing a demon!), and an innocent corrupted by money and power, and... everything all crammed into one 52-minute or so episode.
The religion is tossed in almost superfluously. Maybe Stanley's religious hallucinations are brought on by his visit to a church for a PR shoot with a senator. And the conversation between Stanley and a young choir boy, Tim (Mason Schneiderman) is the most amusing thing in the first four episodes. It brings a lighter tone to a downer of a series and batch of first-four episodes.
But other than that, religion doesn't play any part in the episode. Okay, it's pretty definite that Stanley is possessed by a demon at the end of the episode. So why drag the religious imagery in? A demon possesses Stanley, so he... hallucinates a bunch of people standing around him chanting Latin? All-righty. We do get scenes of Bill Camp coughing up black bile (oil) and eventually giving himself a C-section of sorts and giving birth to a bird-demon. Which is more definitive supernatural stuff than we got in the last three episodes. So there's that.
And there's a weird part at the beginning where Josh talks to a woman in a taxi, about "him", and convinces her to sign a NDA. I have no idea who "him" is (is it Stanley?), and the woman Syd disappears for the rest of the episode. The scene doesn't tell us anything about Josh, and I have no idea why it's there.
So overall "New York" is an okay episode, and finally digs into the supernatural promise of the title. It's more about demonic possession than "metaphors". But it is still kind of incoherent, tied together by some good performances and imagery.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
Possibly the best one yet
darkphoenix-831647 October 2020
Warning: Spoilers
While the show is somewhat uneven from episode to episode, this one has been the most interesting so far. The figurative evils of greed become very literal in a way that will please fans of demonic possession fiction.
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