Monsterland Season 1, Episode 7 explained: ‘Iron River, Michigan’

Kelly Marie Tran stars in Monsterland Episode 7, a dark fairy tale story about abuse, envy, and neglect that can haunt you into adulthood.

Monsterland Episode 7 is a dark fairy tale story that explores themes of envy and privilege. It begins with two young girls, the lonely, neglected, abused daughter Lauren (Kelly Marie Tran) and the pretty, popular all-American girl Elena.

They primp in front of a mirror in Lauren’s bedroom Elena waits for her boyfriend Pete to come over. Early on, we begin to see Lauren’s desire for elements of Elena’s life, from her hair to her boyfriend.

But there is a mean streak in the way Elena talks to Lauren and bosses her around. When Pete shows up, Elena asks Lauren to go somewhere else so they can have sex. Lauren doesn’t want to wake her mother, who works nights and is an abusive drunk (a theme on this show), so Elena tells her she’ll have to wait in the closet.

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After Pete leaves, Lauren suggests they go into the White Woods and smoke a joint he left for them. Everyone in town knows the woods are dangerous, especially for girls.

A killer dubbed the lumberjack supposedly killed multiple young girls and left their beheaded bodies in the forest. Lauren even owns an entire book on the subject because her mom has instilled in her a fear of the woods since she was young.

Elena tells Lauren she needs to stop letting her mother control her. Lauren stands up to Elena and says she won’t go into the woods with her and she’s sick of Elena always bossing her around. Regardless, Elena still plans to go ahead without her. She never comes back.

When the detective questions Lauren about Elena’s disappearance, she doesn’t mention the woods. She just says Elena left and that was it.

Monsterland Episode 7 recap: Ten years later.

The episode skips ahead ten years to Lauren’s rehearsal dinner. She’s marrying Elena’s old boyfriend, Pete. He delivers a touching speech about their relationship, how they grieved together and grew closer. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves except two of the bridesmaids, who happen to be Elena’s old friends, Abby and Cheyenne. Abby thinks the whole thing is weird since it feels like Lauren has basically slipped into Elena’s life in her absence. She’s even become close to Elena’s mom, Rebecca.

Even more ominous is that the police recently discovered the remains of a young girl in the woods. Abby thinks they might be Elena’s and implores Lauren to tell Rebecca the news. If Lauren doesn’t do it, Abby will. Lauren comes close to telling Rebecca while they’re cleaning up, but can’t bring herself to say it.

On her wedding day, Abby grows increasingly mutinous while watching Lauren get ready. She finds it creepy as hell that Lauren is going to be wearing a wedding dress passed down from Rebecca’s mother’s mother. She even affectionately calls Lauren “Elle.”

Abby drags Cheyenne to the bathroom to further discuss. She believes Lauren killed Elena all those years and then took over her life, hence why she won’t tell Rebecca about the remains. Cheyenne tries to be the voice of reason, telling Abby she listens to too many true crime podcasts, but Abby remains convinced.

Monsterland Episode 7 recap: What happened in the woods?

Throughout the hour we see Elena’s final night alive occur with slight variations, always from Lauren’s perspective. We don’t know which version of events is the truth, although there are some clues. After Abby’s theories in the bathroom, we see a version where Lauren did follow Elena to the woods and Elena scared her. They got into a shoving fight and Elena fell and hit her head, dying on impact. To make it seem like the lumberjack killed her, Lauren beheaded Elena with an ax.

When Lauren returns to her dressing room, her mother, Faye, shows up. Abby has paid her to ruin the day. She accuses Lauren of knowing more about Elena’s disappearance than she’ll admit, as she found dirt on Lauren’s coat and Elena’s scarf in her bedroom back then. When Lauren tries to get her mom to back down, Faye slaps her. Abby and Faye then force Lauren to tell Rebecca the truth.

In another version of events from that fateful night, Lauren accompanies Elena to the woods, they smoke, then Elena takes off to try and scare Lauren. Suddenly, Elena hears screaming in the distance and chases after Elena, but all she finds is her scarf.

Lauren swears that’s the whole truth, but Abby still doesn’t believe her. Rebecca excuses herself as she takes in the revelation.

Monsterland Episode 7 recap: Who is the hag in the woods?

Returning to the woods while in her wedding dress, Lauren runs into a strange, old hag. The woman leads her to a cabin the woods and fawns over her, saying she would have been a perfect daughter. Lauren admits to slipping into Elena’s life after she vanished because she wanted what she had so badly — the love and the future. She thinks she did kill Elena, at least, in a way.

The hag tells her she was once a girl, too, and a young blond boy took her into the woods and sexually assaulted her, resulting in her being abandoned naked on the side of the toad. She got frostbite from the incident.

“This world has been cruel to you, too.”

Yes, but Lauren feels guilty for the things she’s done, but the hag tells her it’s not her fault.

“Some of us have been given nothing, so we have to learn to take.”

Suddenly Elena walks in carrying firewood. She’s the young version, so we know this is all in Lauren’s head. This version of Elena is held captive by the hag and cannot speak because her vocal cords have been frozen. She uses a chalkboard to write messages and begs for Lauren’s help. The hag says she’s willing to make a trade, Lauren for Elena.

The last visual we see is Lauren walking out of the woods in her dress with her head held high.

What did the ending of Monsterland Episode 7 mean?

Oof, this one is a doozy. I’m not entirely sure I know what it all means, but my theory is that the hag is some kind of manifestation of Lauren’s envy. I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that the hag mentioned an assault.

I think Lauren was traumatized by something she saw in the woods and that’s why her memory isn’t trustworthy. As for a “blond boy,” was it Pete? Did he do something to Elena that Lauren witnessed?

Another reason I think the hag symbolizes Lauren’s darkness is because she tries to justify the bad things Lauren has done, telling her it’s okay to take when you have nothing. It’s like the adult version of Lauren is arguing with that nasty part of herself that longed to take everything from Elena, and eventually did, in a way. She tucked her guilt down inside, physically represented by a cabin hidden in the woods.

I don’t think Lauren literally killed Elena, but something happened in those woods and I think Lauren lost part of herself there along with her old friend.

As for the vision of Elena with frozen vocal cords, well she’s gone and she can’t tell her own story. No one will know what legitimately happened to her, and Lauren took her place making it easy for some people to forget about her and move on, like when you put one sticker on top of another one. That’s why Rebecca welcomed Lauren into her life, she needed a daughter and Lauren needed a mother.

What did you think about Monsterland Episode 7? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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