Some worlds have monsters. This is one of them—but they’d done a very good job of containing them. They are objects of study, as much as horrible dangers.
When they get out, though, they are only one of those things.
The wait is over, but “Internal Investigation” was not worth that wait. The hiatus made me think that we would get a bombshell of an episode once we returned to The Magnus Protocol. I was wrong. Not only is this episode not scary, it barely gives us any new information for any of the ongoing mysteries.
Is there a more classic spooky horror scenario than hiding from something or someone who’s looking for you?
This is the tale of Marcus.
He has a monster inside of him. But not in, like, a metaphorical way. Somehow, by some mechanics, Marcus ends up with a being of immense knowledge inside his soul.
Last week, we looked at a dragon who enjoyed bacon—as well as some other fun monsters.
This time, the scale is a little higher, but the food involved is just food.
“Public Image” is a classic little horror story of an episode. There’s the tiniest cut back to the OIAR, but mostly we spend all the runtime with Heinrich Unheimlich.
“Dependents” is a sad, brutal exploration of trauma with excellent and heartbreaking acting from several of the voice actors. It’s shorter than a lot of other episodes but has managed to get a much deeper emotional response out of me than any other in the series. I am bummed out right now.
Well, somehow I predicted right. “Circling Back” contains a standard horror story. The fact it also has a pretty strong push on almost all overarching plotlines was just a bonus.
“Scrutiny” is a lore dump episode for fans of The Magnus Archives, that also happens to contain one of the most emotionally brutal statements in the whole season. It’s barely even supernatural.
“Out of the Box” is perhaps the first comedy episode in this series and the second in Magnus as a whole. Maybe that’s just because of me being exposed to some much horror content, and not being bothered by the body horror, but I chuckled multiple times.
“Terms and Conditions” is an odd little episode. I’m unsure of the goal, to be frank. Besides the last two scenes, it’s just kind of mildly spooky stuff happening. Maybe that’s just a testament to how subtle the foreshadowing is, but I doubt there were that many big clues in the Bonzo section. It’s just Bonzo being Bonzo.
In many stories, especially cosmic horror stories, humanity is threatened in some way or another. The reader is a witness to a potential end of the world.
This is such a story, but it does have a twist to it. For it is not an attack that threatens humanity.
