Main cast: Lili Taylor (Jamie Neal)
Director: Bette Gordon

Habitat is too ambitious of an episode for the format of Monsters.

It’s about Jamie Neal, a lady that signs up for an experiment that sees her being alone for a set period of time. Along the experiment, she is subjected to harsh lights, annoying sounds, and more, but that’s nothing compared to the cray cray overtaking the poor darling.

Lili Taylor has to carry this episode on her own for the most part, but unfortunately, she is given some of the most unintentionally hilarious monologues to deliver.

More problematic, though, is that this episode is about about 20 minutes long, so everything just zips quickly by. As a result, instead of Jamie slowly becoming crazy, it comes off like she goes cuckoo over a week at most, suggesting that she may already by tad cray cray in the first place.

Also, the episode is cursed with some ghastly effects. The lights and sounds are more at home in some cheesy game show like The Crystal Maze, and the costumes are hilariously bad in a way that makes high school football team mascots look like masterclasses in the art of costuming.

Because of this, the episode resembles more of a clown show instead of a psychological thriller, and it’s hard to take it seriously at all. It’s definitely a misfire, and a testament to this show biting off more than it can chew.