Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you an episode from the 2020 series Monsterland,
titled Palacios, Texas. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
In Palacios, Texas; a 400,000-gallon oil spill by Titan International has caused
great damage to the Gulf Stream and the small fishing village in the area.
The fishermen are unable to fish anymore because the local fish are now deformed and worthless,
and this is destroying their economy since fishing is their central income. Now out of work,
many fishermen try to mitigate the spill by wading out in the boats to try and clean the waters.
Former boater Sharko is another victim of this incident: he fell off his boat while
cleaning because a plane was pumping dispersant and made him dizzy, this got his face full of
chemicals. Now he walks around with an oxygen tank attachment and one of his eyes has gone blind,
not to mention the scars covering half of his face. He earned his nickname "Sharko" because
he used to be an excellent fisherman, capable of catching big fish as efficiently as white sharks,
but now he can't work anymore because of his disability. In his free time, Sharko picks up
animal bodies from the shore that have been killed by the oil and sends them to Titan International's
headquarters through slow mail so the package has time to get extra stinky. He also hangs out at the
local dive bar where all the fishermen stop by to have a drink. One afternoon, one of the fishermen
tells the story of how he once found his boat surrounded by a school of mermaids that attacked
him, but nobody believes him even if he has weird scars on his stomach. Sharko stays out of that
conversation, but he does speak up when he hears the fishermen will be going out to the sea again.
He's sure there won't be any more catches and everyone needs to stop lying to themselves.
The so-called clean-up is just a cover-up, Titan International sent some planes that threw some
chemicals to make it look like they were helping but it's silly to expect more from now on. The
senator that promised on national radio that they were working on it has his pockets full with Titan
International's favors, thus he is speaking lies to look good and sail all the way to the White
House. The conversation ends up putting Sharko in an awful mood, so he leaves to sit in his truck
to try to calm down. His peace is interrupted by Breezy, who wants to borrow Sharko's boat
since he isn't using it anymore. However, Sharko still remembers what happened the last time they
tried to work together: Breezy left him waiting for two hours and Sharko had to find out on his
own that Breezy had been arrested. Sharko refuses to work with him again and drives away as Breezy
begins yelling at him with fury. When Sharko gets home, he spends the evening as he usually does:
drinking in front of the television. Sometimes he misses the sea so much that he can't sleep,
thus he turns on the radio to hear what the other fishermen are doing while sailing.
There's a mention of being a beautiful day to be at the sea, and this frustrates Sharko too much to
keep listening. Instead, he leaves the house for a while. At the shore, Sharko finds a fish covered
in oil and throws it in his truck. When he's about to leave, he hears some screeching from among
the rocks and comes closer to check what could possibly be making that noise. It turns out it
isn't an animal but a mermaid, who is also caked with oil. Sharko is shocked and a bit scared,
so he makes sure things are safe by poking the mermaid a couple of times with a tree branch.
Once he confirms she won't move, Sharko wraps her body in tarp and takes her home. It's hard for him
to drag both the mermaid and his oxygen tank, but he doesn't give up and manages to get her inside.
Then, he fills the tub with ice as he would do to keep fish and puts the mermaid in it
while listening again to the radio. The other fishermen have found some catches, but they're
all deformed and therefore useless. This makes Sharko look at himself in the mirror and cover
his scars with a hand to remember what it was like before he become deformed and useless too.
Having caught a mermaid though, means he isn't useless anymore, so Sharko celebrates by playing
some music and dancing around the house. He's suddenly interrupted by the phone ringing:
it's a call from yet another lawyer that wants to help him sue Titan International.
Sharko immediately hangs up on them though, he isn't interested in reviving all his trauma for
money, and no trial will give him his old life back. Later in the evening,
while Sharko is drinking and watching tv, he hears a strange noise coming from the bathroom.
When he goes to check, he discovers the mermaid is alive and furiously getting out of the tarp wrap.
After closing the door to stop her from escaping, Sharko rushes to grab his rifle,
and when he comes back, the mermaid jumps on him as soon as he opens the door again.
The two of them struggle for dominance on the floor and the mermaid even manages to bite
Sharko's arm, but fortunately, he's also brought a fishnet with him, which he proceeds to use to wrap
her up again and tie her to the tub. As he points his rifle at her, Sharko considers shooting her,
but he can hear a song ringing in his ears that convinces him to put down his weapon. The next
day, Sharko goes to the supermarket to buy a bunch of different kinds of meats. When he comes home,
he brings a box of q-tips to the bathroom and uses them to clean the mermaid's gills, removing all
the oil to allow her to breathe properly. Then he offers her the different meats he's brought
and the mermaid chooses raw beef, so Sharko feeds it to her after cutting a small hole in the net
to free her mouth. When he leaves the bathroom, he promises he'll be back for supper. Later in
the evening, while he watches tv, Sharko swears he can hear that song coming from the bathroom again.
Feeling bad for the mermaid, he pushes the tv to the bathroom so they can watch a series together.
Sharko tells the mermaid all about Bonanza, even quoting entire dialogues; his father loved this
show and American TV in general, and he used it to learn English. Eventually, Sharko falls asleep
against the tub, unaware that the mermaid has been stretching her hand to try to touch him.
A strange noise wakes Sharko up in the middle of the night, and when he checks the kitchen, he
discovers Breezy has broken in and has grabbed the radio. Sharko threatens with calling the police,
but this only makes Breezy mad. He smashes the radio and begins yelling at Sharko for not lending
him the boat, only stopping himself when he hears a noise coming from the bathroom. Unfortunately,
Sharko can't stop Breezy from moving past him and finding the mermaid in the tub.
Breezy immediately gets excited, thinking how much money they could make by selling her, but
Sharko explains he's been waiting for the sea to get cleaner to throw her back in. Future plans are
put aside for now when Breezy points out you can't keep a mermaid in the bathtub. The next morning,
the brings some tools and begins building a glass tank big enough for the mermaid in the middle of
Sharko's living room. Breezy takes too many breaks to smoke though, and Sharko reminds him of the
importance of taking pride in one's work, a lesson that his father taught him. In return, Breezy
shares the scars on his body, made by his own father using cigarettes. Then he begins thinking
about proving his worth through the mermaid, so Sharko has to cut in and remind him he can't tell
anyone about her because they'll take her away. In order to keep him silent, Sharko tells Breezy
they can be captain and deckhand like the old times. Breezy is skeptical after the last refusal,
but Sharko explains he's always been hard on him as a boss because he was treating him like a son,
and that was the way he had been taught by his own father. Sharko assures him he cares about him,
and Breezy buys it, happy to have a new father figure in his life. Once the work is finished
and Breezy is gone, Sharko fills the glass tank with water and throws the mermaid inside,
making her very happy to be able to swim again. In the evening, Sharko makes dinner for both of them,
trying to keep it romantic with flowers and music because he's become very fond of the mermaid.
After tossing her a raw steak, Sharko sits in front of the tank to have his own dinner while
telling the mermaid more about his dad. He loved all things American, like Sinatra, and it had been
hard to find work in Texas because of racism towards foreigners. When Sharko was a kid, he
had to watch his father scare the Klan off their house with a rifle. Life's been hard for Sharko
since the accident, and he thinks losing his job is like losing all his father had built for them.
While Sharko talks, he keeps hearing a distant song, and images of a strange woman flash in his
mind. Suddenly, there's a knock on the door, and Sharko opens it to find the woman from the vision.
She comes inside and touches the empty tank, confirming Sharko's suspicions: she's actually
the mermaid, and she brings a message for the sea. Everyone is grateful for Sharko's rescues, and for
being the only one that understands the terrors of the oil. The mermaid thinks Sharko is pretty
much one of them, and to thank him, she touches his face to heal his injuries before kissing him.
With newfound vitality, Sharko spends the evening dancing with the Mermaid to the sound of Sinatra
and getting busy with her on the couch. He also takes off his shirt to show off the muscles that
have returned as he tells the mermaid dozens of stories about his old fishing adventures,
declaring himself to be the king of the ocean instead of just another immigrant's son.
When they pause to chat for a while and bond through their experiences, Sharko confesses
he used to wish he had drowned when he fell off the boat, but he doesn't want that anymore now
that he has someone that loves him. Some hours later, Sharko notices some cars parking outside
his house and tells the mermaid to stay inside while he checks it out. When Sharko comes out,
he looks like his regular scarred self, confirming the last few hours have been a hallucination. The
cars belong to the fishermen, who have come over because Breezy told them about the mermaid. They
admit Sharko had been right about the sea because they couldn't catch anything, and now they think
Sharko should share the mermaid as a group catch in order to sell her and feed everyone's families
again. Sharko saying no isn't enough to make them leave, so he retrieves his rifle and shoots at the
ground as a warning. He calls himself the king of the ocean again and threatens with shooting each
of them next, which finally causes the fishermen to leave in fear. Then, Sharko goes back inside,
where the mermaid is swimming in her tank, knowing that the hallucination caused by her
song is still going and Sharko can hear her supposed worry in his head. Sharko promises
nothing will ever keep them apart and invites the mermaid to go out for a dip in the sea.
As he brings a ladder in front of the tank, Sharko images they're at the beach,
jumping together into the water. This translates to him climbing the ladder and
jumping into the tank, allowing the mermaid to finally catch him and feed on his body.