The Shape of Water

[Drunk Monk]

I thought it looked great, but was quite weak compared to Pan's Labyrinth. 

Well, shit, isn't everything by Del Toro since so?

I was put off by the masturbation opening; I found it pointless and silly. 

WHAT?!?!?  The masturbation opening was key.  It sets up how lonely Mrs. Paddington was and shows that she likes it wet.  Come on now.  The movie is about a lonely gal who fucks a fish.  That's a lot to accept.  I mean srsly, a fish?  Maybe if the fish looked like Daryl Hannah...in her prime.. but a fishy fish is hard to accept.  Only really desperate people who masturbate in tubs stoop to fucking fish.  

And the drunk/gay neighbor - did we really need to know that? Whey not just leave it open why he's home all the time and she helps him? 

That's about fucking fish too.  The whole homosexual story arc.  The message here is being gay isn't as bad as fucking fish.

My wife had the interesting idea that since we get the framing story from the artist's perspective (via voice-over) that her getting gills is just his imagination and that she was dead.

That's totally what happened.  Listen to the end narration again.  The fish and Mrs. Paddington die.  That's what they get for their sins.  Death.  Watery death.  Fish fucking is a sin.  A major burn-in-hell-for-the-rest-of-eternity sin.  But the gay guy, who isn't as bad as a fish fucker, he feels empowered by their interspecies tryst and so he rewrites the ending in his own mind.  It's all very romantic, especially if your a fish fucking pervert.  

At least, that's what I'm told.  DON'T FUCK FISH.  There should be a new by-law in the DOOM charter.  NO FISH FUCKERS.