I would have to nominate "Boneless Horror" for the award of "Best MonsterQuest Episode Title."  I mean, really!  I feel like the octopus deserves better.  Aside from being physically fantastic - from its ability to camouflage itself to its penchant for squeezing through ridiculously small holes - the octopus is ridiculously smart.  I remember reading about a study where researchers taught an octopus how to open a screw-top jar to get the crab inside.  And then a second octopus learned the same trick just by watching the first octopus do it.

In other words, octopuses (oh fine, "octopi") are awesome.  Big ones doubly so.  The world's largest KNOWN species of octopus, the Pacific Giant Octopus, is plentiful in Puget Sound.  My grandfather was a cod fisherman in out of Everett in the 1950s.  He dredged them up all the time.  He called them "devil fish," and shot them on sight.  

The 1950s were not a good era for wildlife.

Although the Pacific Giant Octopus reaches a wingspan of 10 feet, MonsterQuest is hunting an animal 20 times that size.  It all started with the St. Augustine Blob.  This is one of many giant wads of tissue washed up onto the beach from unknown origins.  Inevitably these turn out to be dead whales or basking sharks.  

An octopus specialist examined pictures of the St. Augustine Blob, and proclaimed it the remains of a new species he invented, Octopus Giganteus.  He speculated that the entire animal would weigh 50 tons, and have a wingspan of 200 feet.

Then someone sent him an actual sample of the St. Augustine Blob.  Chagrined, the scientist changed his diagnosis to "whale blubber."

But this doesn't stop MonsterQuest from hunting Octopus giganteus.  Just because it's imaginary, that never stopped them!  And as the narrator somberly points out, "if [Puget Sound] is hospitable for this species, it may well be a comfortable home for Octopus giganteus."  The show then helpfully shows a graphic of a Giant Pacific Octopus (10 feet long), Octopus giganteus (200 feet long), and a ferry boat (also 200 feet long).  

Aside from the hilarity of hunting a ferry-sized beast in one of the most well-traveled and dived waterways in the world, this episode has some great underwater footage of Puget Sound.  As someone who lives right on the Sound, I really enjoyed just seeing what's under the surface.  The Sound has some very deep parts - as much as 700 feet deep in places - and a huge variety of marine life.  

It also has some great footage from the Seattle Aquarium.  The aquarium's octopus expert tells the story of when the aquarium noticed that sharks were going missing overnight.  They spent a night watching the tank to find out what was happening, and captured some astounding video of an octopus attacking, killing, and eating a fairly large shark.

There's also a wonderful sequence with a mechanical engineer.  Having done his research, the engineer has learned that the (entirely hypothetical) Octopus giganteus would be able to crack a human skull in the same way that his mechanical crushing device crushes this coconut.  Easier, even!

Although they don't find the (entirely hypothetical) Octopus giganteus, this is a great episode.  Octopususes are awesome, no two ways about it.  If it takes a hunt for a mythical animal as a framing device to show neat octopus footage and recount cool octopus anecdotes, then so be it!