Monsterland Season 1, Episode 3 explained: ‘New Orleans, LA’

Nicole Beharie starts in Monsterland Episode 3 as a wealthy socialite who must contend with hideous choices she made in the past.

We return to Louisiana for Monsterland Episode 4, where a family is enjoying a festival in the French Quarter in New Orleans. Actually, maybe “enjoy” isn’t the right word since Annie (Nicole Beharie) spends the entire day stressed out. She can’t stop worrying about losing sight of her son George.

At one point, an old friend Nancy (Lauren Bittner) stops her in the crowd as George and his step-dad, Joe Keller (Hamish Linklater), leave her behind to get ice cream. Annie obviously doesn’t want to be stuck chatting to Nancy, but Joe and George have already been swallowed up by the crowd. Nancy tells Annie she’s different than what they expected when they discovered Joe got married — apparently, it happened fast.

Later, Annie’s worst fears are realized when she finds George running through the crowd, thoroughly spooked. He sports a sprained wrist and tells his mother a creature with black eyes chased him, trying to devour him. Annie wonders what happened as they take him to a local children’s hospital. As they pull away, we see a man in a purple suit playing the trumpet in the middle of the crowd. His eyes are black.

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Monsterland Episode 3 recap: 14 years later.

As the title reads, we skip 14 years later in the story to Annie and Joe’s posh home. Annie is hiding in the dark, holding a baseball bat, afraid an intruder is lurking in the backyard. When Joe gets home, she tells him her fears and he throws open the backdoor,  only to be greeted by a crowd of smiling faces. Surprise! It’s a celebration party for Joe who has received a prestigious Kayhart Award for his medical research at the Ochsner Center. Nancy attends and this time she has a familiar guest in tow.

A young woman named Jennifer — although you’ll recognize her as Toni. Nancy seems to suspect something is amiss in Jennifer’s life because she overheard the restaurant manager at the place where she waitressed call her “Toni.”

According to “Jennifer,” she moved to New Orleans to go to school and become a dental hygenist (hey, that’s what Nick’s mom was doing when she had her stroke).

It’s not clear what Nancy does as a profession, but Annie says she likes to make a home in the “wreckage of peoples’ lives.” I also detected a hint of bitterness, or jealousy, in both exchanges Annie has had with Nancy thus far.

Nancy paints Annie out to be an inspiration to her because of where she came from. She encourages Annie to tell “Jennifer,” perhaps to motivate her. Annie explains that she ran away from home when she was 15 because her father was an abusive drunk that threw her mother through a sliding glass door.

Inside the house, we meet a grown-up George. Since we last saw George, he’s graduate high school and started attending college in California, but he managed to take a little time off to come home.

Outside, a young girl sings Joe’s praises during a speech, thanking him for helping her receive a heart transplant and a new lease on life. When she’s done, a man named Frank White steps up to the microphone and the evening takes a turn for the worse.

While Joe doesn’t know who Frank is, Frank asks if he remembers his sister, Julie White. Based on Joe’s expression, I’d say he does. Before things can get any more complicated, Annie calls security on Frank. Somehow he manages to slip past them and return to punch Joe in the face. George watches all of this happen.

George prepares to leave after the party, he’s staying at a girl named Kelly’s house. There’s awkward tension in the air between him, Joe and Annie. It’s obvious he’s not close to his parents anymore. He avoids a hug from Joe altogether, settling for a handshake instead.

In Joe’s office, Annie asks him about Julie White. Around 14 years ago, not long after the festival fiasco, Joe had an affair with a resident — Julie. She was the one who wound up getting fired. Surprisingly, Annie isn’t all that upset.

Joe says it happened when she was stressed out over George, who was having nonstop night terrors after whatever he saw in the French Quarter. Annie is pretty much content just to leave it in the past, though she wishes Joe would have told her back then and not over a decade later. Otherwise, she tells him to pack his things as they have a long flight to wherever they’re headed for him to accept his award.

That night, while Annie’s sleeping, she hears soft jazz music playing through her window. She sees a trumpet player in the distance and slams it shut.

Monsterland Episode 3 recap: The dark truth about Joe Keller.

The following morning, Annie gets a horrific shock when a public relations woman named Kate arrives at their home to break some surprising news. Remember what he said about Julie White? Well, it wasn’t entirely true.

Julie White is a 19-year-old NYU student. Do the math. And several other women have come forward, although the statute of limitations expired on most — except an 11-year-old. Joe instantly goes on the defensive, claiming these women are coming forward because of the attention he’s receiving over his award, an award the Kayhart Foundation no longer feels comfortable giving him.

So now we know what the thrust of this episode is! Monsterland is tackling the #MeToo movement. Annie is a sounding board for all the victim-blamers out there.

“How is a man supposed to move through life with the possibility of accusations at the drop of a hat.”

Because these women couldn’t be telling the truth, right? Kate points out that the problem is — most of these accusations are usually spot-on.

“Except here, of course!”

But Julie released a videotape online containing “sensitive” content — so how could Kate even say that much?

Regardless, Joe admits to Annie that he’s sick and needs help. She’s horrified. By the time the news breaks, more than 40 more female patients have come forward alleging sexual abuse making the case against Dr. Keller, one of the biggest sexual abuse cases in medical history. Is that why George isn’t close to his step-father?

Annie starts remembering what Nancy said to her when they met back at the festival all those years ago. Why did Nancy say Annie was different? Did Nancy know what was going on, or suspect it, back then?

That night, Annie hears the trumpet again. She sees the player outside her house just after someone throws a rock with the word “rapist” written on it is thrown through her window. She confronts him to ask if he threw it, and the man reveals his monstrous side — black eyes and fanged teeth.  Annie hits him over the head with the rock and then hides his body in the shed.

She calls George again after. He hasn’t responded to her since the scandal happened.

“I’ve done something terrible.”

I don’t think any of us expected the trumpet man to be dead already. He attacks Annie, bites her neck, and blows out several windows of the house and shed. She cowers in fear in the basement when George finally shows up.

Monsterland Episode 3 recap: George forces his mother to confront her choices.

She tells George that she saw a monster and wonders if he remembers it from when he was a kid. She starts apologizing to him for not believing him when he tried to tell her about it as a kid — of course, it sounds like she’s apologizing for not believing him when he told her Joe abused him. Instead, Annie says she saw the monster and thinks it’s real now. George thinks she’s on drugs.

In reality, they need to discuss what happened at the French Quarter all of those years ago. The truth is, as expected, Joe did abuse George, and he told his mother at the festival, but she didn’t believe him. She refused to believe, and she let her son get abused so that she could have a nice house and fancy clothes.

Over the years, Annie told herself that George was better off with Joe for a step-dad, but in reality, he’s never been able to get over the trauma, especially because his mother didn’t protect him. He’s failing school.

He feels lost, as if he’s drowning. At the very least, he needs Annie to admit that she knew. That’s why Joe married her, after all, because she was a poor maid who could be his cover while he continued his abusing children.

She can’t do it, and George walks out the door. The trumpet man returns, blasting his music throughout the house, shattering more windows and leaving a desperate Annie screaming for quiet until she finds an ice pick on the ground and jams it through her ear to puncture her eardrums so she can’t hear anything anymore.

Well, now she can revel in the silence — or so she thinks. But the mournful tune continues playing. Annie can’t escape the horrific things she did to her son.

Monsterland Episode 3 recap: Final thoughts.

While most shows aim the predators, Monsterland went for the accomplices. In a compelling hour, we got to see how these people stay in power for so long. They often have allies that are willing to look the other way or remain quiet.

The worst is always when a child is involved, helpless to do anything except tell their truth and hope their parent will protect them, as parents are supposed to. But Annie literally sold her soul by sacrificing her son to Joe and his abusive tendencies for years just so she could live a plush, comfortable life.

In the end, she follows the trumpet player and his somber song to a version of Hell as a band of black-eyed demons emerge to accompany the trumpeter in an uncanny resemblance to the original French Quarter festival — the very day that Annie first betrayed her son.

What did you think about Monsterland Episode 3? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

All eight episodes of Monsterland Season 1 are now streaming on Hulu.