Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.
This week, the second season of Monsters reaches its conclusion!
Episode 2.24 “The Family Man”
(Dir by Michael Warren Powell, originally aired on June 3rd, 1990)
Neil (Calvin Armitage) is not happy. The young son of Angie (Annie Corley), Neil is upset that she is dating a condescending psychologist named Warren (Michael O’Gorman). Making things even worse is that Neil seems to be the only person who dislikes Warren. Even Neil’s older sister, Terri (Kelli Rabke), thinks that Warren is a great guy and would be a wonderful stepfather.
Adding to Neil’s problems is his terrible eyesight. He’s recently gotten new glasses, which he cannot stand. He would rather wear the glasses that once belonged to his late father. When Neil puts those old glasses on and looks at Warren, he is shocked to see that Warren is actually a lizard-like alien with sharp teeth. It doesn’t take long for Warren to figure out that Neil has seen through his human disguise but, as Warren explains it, no one is going to believe Neil. Instead, Warren is just going to drain the life forces of Angie, Neil, and Terri, killing them as he’s killed so many other humans.
At first, it looks like Warren is correct. Angie refuses to listen to Neil and she also refuses to put on the glasses. As for the glasses themselves, they are eventually shattered by Warren. What can Neil possibly do!? Luckily, the glasses were not the only thing that Neil’s father left behind….
The second season finale of Monsters owes a great deal to They Live, with the exception being that, instead of seeing how he’s being manipulated by the media, Neil uses his glasses to discovers that his potential stepfather is actually a murderous lizard person. I think that anyone who has ever watched in horror as their divorced or widowed mother dated a new weirdo will be able to relate to this episode. I remember, immediately after my parents got divorced, I tended to view almost every guy that my mom talked to as being a potential lizard person. Eventually, of course, I came to accept that not all strangers were alien beings. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met an actual alien or an actual lizard person. That’s good luck on my part, I suppose.
As for this episode, the lizard person makeup was effective and Michael O’Gorman certain gave a good performance as the manipulative Warren. Probably the most disturbing thing about Warren was the he didn’t seem to be particularly worried about Neil discovering his true identity because he knew there was no way anyone was going to believe a word that Neil said. That said, the episode really was a bit too much of a rip-off to be totally successful. Still, if you’re going to rip someone off, you might as well rip off the best.
The second season of Monsters ends on an above average note. The season itself was, overall, uneven. There was some very good episode and, unfortunately, there were also some very bad ones. I guess that’s to be expected with anthology shows.
Next week, we’ll begin the third and final season of Monsters!
Through the Shattered Lens 