You could call it comedy and tragedy. You could call it good cop, bad cop. You could call it the carrot and the stick.
Whatever you call it, this double-barreled approach to storytelling is working sickeningly well for Monsters . Directed with verve by Paris Barclay from a script by co-creator Ian Brennan and David McMillan, this tremendous episode features some of the show’s funniest material yet, including an anxiety-spiking musical montage, a Zoolander -ish escape fantasy sequence, and a camp confrontation between a brassy broad and a blue blood in high dudgeon. And — here’s the real, real rough stuff, so be warned — it also explains that when you’re being molested, you can spike your abuser’s food with cinnamon to improve the taste of his ejaculate.
You see what I’m saying? It lifts you up, and then knocks you to the concrete. In this episode, the brothers’ crime finally catches up with them. Dr.
Oziel’s mistress tips off the cops to the existence of their recorded therapy sessions; not only are they full of confessions, but they also document the brothers’ active threat to Oziel’s life, making them admissible in court despite doctor-patient privilege. (Which he violated anyway by blabbing to his mistress.) Yet they continue to insist that it was Fidel Castro, or maybe “the Bambino Family,” that did it, even after they’re arrested.
Most of the episode, in fact, involves the brothers coming into contact with, and conflict with, the harsh reality.