Ooh ooh ooh?
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 1.1 “Pilot”
I’m tired of the trend of titling pilot episodes pilot. It was amusing the first few times, now it just feels lazy.
This thing is weird. Bizarre. I think they are aiming at a riff on the Monkey King.
A hitman, who is definitely evil, gets hired to kill a progressive politician then flees so he doesn’t turn into the fall guy…
…and hides in a hot spring occupied by a bunch of Japanese macaques, otherwise known as snow monkeys. His enemies show up, kill him and all but one of the monkeys…
…and an unusually smart monkey sets out for revenge.
The animation of the monkeys is beautiful, I love it, but this is very strange to have been made into a show!
(The monkey isn’t evil. He doesn’t know his friend would kill anyone for money. But…)
“If you pick one of those up in anger, you will never put it down” is a great line.
Oh, and the hit-man’s ghost shows up.
Yes, this is for adults. And, as I expected, it’s pretty violent.
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 1.2 “Bright Lights, Big City”
Okay, more like very violent. Not just a high body count but they apparently made this animation so they could do even more extreme stuff. That’s your content warning. Don’t watch this if you don’t have a high tolerance for people getting shot, limbs being hacked off, etc.
The monkey has a conscience, but so far it isn’t stopping him. He’s also killing people instead of interrogating them, but as he can’t speak English and the ghost can only be heard by him, I don’t know how they’d interrogate anyone anyway!
All he wants is vengeance, but I wonder if this is going to develop more nuance later.
The antagonists are a pair of cops. Who may be the good guys, but they are cops, so…
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 1.3 “Legend of the Drunken Monkey”
You don’t get to go to your reward until you stop making the monkey kill people.
Is he smart enough to get it?
No.
Is the monkey the smarter one of the two?
Starting to look that way.
The monkey is a card shark. A card shark. Which…gets things done. He’s also drunk. Because he’s a monkey, this doesn’t stop him. It’s a thing.
No really gross violence this episode, but it helps to know the basics of poker.
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 1.4 “The Code”
In which the dog emphatically does not die. I was amused by this.
The monkey won’t kill animals, and all animals can talk to each other. He also saves a rat from a glue trap (by the way, glue traps are awful, don’t use them), and the rat saves him later.
This episode is entirely about how having a code is good, actually. It’s entirely about the step from villain to anti-hero.
He’s only going to kill killers.
That is kind of badass.
As a nice touch, Punisher is a fiction to this show…somebody’s reading a Punisher comic. Gail Simone, where are you?
This is shifting towards redemption arc and I am a sucker for a good redemption arc.
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 1.5 “Run Monkey Run”
That’s one big bounty on one little monkey. Which is unfortunate for an entire bunch of monkeys, none of whom are Japanese macaques.
The ghost is finally admitting the monkey is better than him in skill, but when will he admit the monkey is morally superior?
I loved the monkey hiding inside the Poacher, that was karmic.
And the ghost, who wants the monkey to ditch his current partner. Kind of a shame he can’t. Wonder if they’ll end up working together, though.
Also the cop Yakuza and the good cop trying to explain it was kind of funny.
This lightened the mood, which I kinda needed tonight.
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 1.6 “The Long Goodbye”
Bryce is convinced that if they kill the Rooster, he can move on. He’s misunderstood, of course.
The Rooster has a ton of doubles. All of whom end up dead. Including the Rooster.
Which just frustrates Bryce, especially as he opened up to somebody, finally…and it’s the monkey. This can’t go well.
Not as much happens in this and it’s also a setup for the introduction of a female assassin who kills everyone who even mildly upsets her. No restraint from this one!
Episode 6 of 10 of season one…and he still doesn’t know what he’s really supposed to be doing. “Poor” Bryce.
Poor Monkey, more like.
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 1.7 “Sayonara Monkey”
Monkey’s done. I don’t blame him.
Lady Bullseye kills all the macaques at the zoo just to hurt him. And comes after everyone. It’s a bad fight, and Monkey’s done.
He traps Bryce in a salt circle because Bryce is a “demon” (I believe hungry ghost is more accurate) and wanders off to find a new troop.
Unfortunately, Lady Bullseye’s still out there, so we know how this will end. And Bryce will get out next time a janitor visits that toilet.
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 1.8 “Home Sweet Home”
Apparently Hulu likes the flashback episodes too, although at least only about half of this was a flashback…to Bryce accidentally killing somebody and having to run, abandoning his wife and child.
I appreciate that they didn’t kill the wife. No fridging of women here.
They just fridged a baby monkey instead…a kid that Monkey was taking in when he tried to go back to being a regular monkey.
It doesn’t work.
This is the “you can’t go home” episode and now they’re back together and resolved to see things through.
Good luck to them.
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 1.9 “The End Part One”
Oh dear.
Everyone, including the audience, has been had. It’s actually an amazing twist, I didn’t quite see it coming…but I should have.
The sun of Japan. Pretty bad right there…that’s a fascism/extreme nationalism thing.
And the Monkey just found out.
Also, something is destabilizing Bryce. I suspect it has to do with Yuki somehow, but could somebody have realized Bryce is there and be throwing out some anti-ghost wards?
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 1.10 “The End Part Two”
So, there’s an obvious epilogue here written after they got renewed. Monkey decides not to kill the ultimate bad guy, Bryce ascends…
…and then Monkey ends up killing him anyway, in defense of other, and…yeah.
It’s a bit of a downer ending because now Akiko is mad at him and he’s having to flee Japan to America where, one assumes, season two takes place.
Oh and dear old Bryce sold his soul and is actually a demon now. This can’t go badly at all.
Or maybe it’s his route out of hell given the reason he’s doing it.
Season two, here we come.
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 2.1 “Return to Sender”
So, poor Monkey is now working for Satan. Without knowing it. Hopefully we can eventually get the little guy out.
He’s followed to New York by a certain cop with a certain sword…apparently a quite dangerous one.
CW: The cat dies.
To be fair, the poor cat had been transformed into a giant red tiger and was trying to kill them. It’s still not the cat’s fault, ghouth.
Poor kitty.
Monkey also finds out just how much of a jerk Bryce was all along. Which we knew.
Can he actually get free of Hell? I doubt it, given he’s now working for them voluntarily.
I still kind of feel sorry for him.
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 2.2 “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?”
Okay, you were warned not to use the ancient magical sword. Explicitly so. Accurately so. Guess who’s got possessed.
The funniest part of this was Monkey pretending to be the main course at a dinner where people were eating endangered animals. Pro tip, don’t eat monkeys, it’s bad.
Lots of violence, but that sword is the new problem. So are the supervillains who are now mad with Monkey and who want the sword.
Somebody should have thrown it in a lake somewhere, just saying.