Main cast: Tom Noonan (Howard Mitla), Alice Playten (Violet Mitla), and Sharon Cornell (The Police Officer)
Director: Kenny Myers
Wait, so the last Episode of the final season of Monsters is called The Moving Finger? Is that a subtle message to the people that cancel the show, or one to the people for not watching the show?
Based on a story by Stephen King, this one concerns Howard Mitla whose life is turned upside down when he finds himself at war with a strange multi-jointed snake-like Finger that pops out of the sink to disturb and even attack him each time no one else is around. This soon escalates into an all-out war, a bloody one at that.
This is an oddball episode, perhaps not the best one to end the season, but it is still memorable enough to let the show go out with some kind of bang, I suppose.
Tom Noonan does a good job as a man that is driven increasingly demented in the situation he is in, but the episode itself is a mixed bag.
While it can be amusing at times, the short story works because the reader is privy to Howard’s internal monologues, which drives the whole thing and gives a glimpse into the workings of the man’s mind. This episode is restricted to mostly showing me what Howard is doing, and the whole thing soon resembles a Tom and Jerry episode that is hard to take seriously.
This episode also shows what is under the toilet lid—a mistake if you ask me, as the revelation is the cheap and cartoon-like practical effects that this show is known and sometimes infamous for.
Anyway, so here ends the episode, the season, and the show. Monsters has come to an end, only to live on in syndication and streaming. I can’t say I will miss it, to be honest, as compared to other anthology series of its time, it lands squarely mid-tier and is better only when compared to some truly wretched other shows like, say, Ghost Stories.
The third season is stronger than the previous two, as there is a noticeable emphasis on story and characters in more episodes, although it also has its shares of cringe and cower. I will sometimes wonder how a fourth season would be like, perhaps it would build on the improvements of this season, but I will never know. Sadly, I don’t really care either.
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