Hello Monica, nice to see you, pity about the circumstances.
Can I note first that you are looking better than you have in some time. Good, with nice shiny hair, as opposed to scary and stunningly obviously plastic. I think I detect a Botox tone-down in order to be able to actually express grief during this sweeps death-a-rama.
And then there are the words out of your mouth. To which we say Amen!
Look, to a degree I’ve always understood the way they’ve written Monica in relation to Jason.
If we didn’t have a whole town of Jason apologists she’d probably even get a complete pass, because if anyone’s entitled to be in denial about who their hit man son is it’s his mother who appreciates that he’s brain damaged.
Monica had four kids: her vilified natural son (now deceased), her momentary plot device natural daughter (now deceased), and the two children she chose to parent in very difficult circumstances. Jason and Emily (now deceased). Monica made a very active choice to take on those two kids, so understandably she’s rather bonded to them. They both chose to follow in her professional footsteps, and pre-accident Jason was the least troublesome, least screwed up of all her kids (and consequently startlingly boring).
Then Jason’s brain meets rock and he not only doesn’t remember the family, he actively resents them. Yet he winds up bonding with Lila and Emily, but not Monica. While I always felt like he had more respect for her than he had for the men in the family, Monica lost her bond with the son she chose to raise even though he was the product of the affair her husband paraded around town. She lost that bond even though he managed to make a connection with the other women in the family. They didn't judge him, he accepted them.
Jason became a mob hit man, was complicit in ensuring a fundamental estrangement between Monica and her only grandson, and barely sees her other than during sweeps crisis events. But Monica remained one of his chief apologists. Lila and Emily didn't judge, and he loves them, so maybe if she doesn't judge he'll love her too. She tipped him off to goings on at the hospital – when they remember that she works there – in ways which sent him off with more guns. She embraced any contact he facilitates with Michael as if it’s a gift rather than something he took away in the first place. She used every single opportunity she’s given to try and make some connection with her son, even though he’s a hit man.
It’s frustrating and seems contrary to everything else Monica was (to say “is” would be misleading given we only now see her when they kill another member of her family), and yet, I could understand it with her.
Of course though, we do have a whole town of Jason apologists, so Monica just became another log on that particularly galling fire, when they bothered to write for her at all.
Which makes it entirely welcome that now that Emily is dead she choses to let Jason have it:
“You are nothing but a killer!”
“You are everything I have left and I don’t want you, get out!”
Beautiful. Give me more. Keep it coming for days, weeks, please. Have more people join in.
I suspect we’re supposed to feel sorry for Jason in this, but aint going to happen. I’ll feel for the fact that he’s lost his sister, but not a moment’s sympathy when his mother rejects him or blames him for Emily’s death. And if the rest of the family joins in then so much the better. I’ll just sit back and enjoy the ride.
And hope it lasts once they find out that Emily may be dead, but hey, Jake’s really a Q.
Go Monica. Hope to continue to see you around speaking, yelling, and punching the truth, complete with movable face. That your maternal grief for AJ didn't bring this on is just another part of his vilification, but if Emily's unnecessary felling brings about a change, then it's achieved something useful.
