The controversial Netflix drama, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story,” explores multiple perspectives on the Menéndez brothers’ case.
The second installment of the “Monster” collection, created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, shows the trauma and troubled upbringing that led the brothers murder their parents.
The biographical crime drama anthology television series follows the brothers through the murder trial and their testimonies.
It centers around the 1989 murders of José (Javier Bardem) and Kitty Menéndez (Chloë Sevigny) executed by Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and Erik Menéndez (Cooper Koch).
It isn’t easy to play characters who were traumatized by their father for years and carry loads of emotions that pack a punch to the audience with a huge sense of understanding and remorse.
Chavez and Koch portray this story based on real events with their performances, portraying Lyle and Erik.
It isn’t easy to play characters traumatized by their father for years and carrying loads of emotions that pack a punch to the audience with a huge sense of understanding and remorse.
As viewers watch the show, the true meaning of “monsters” is constantly reinforced through the series and for a viewer who does not know the case, they could think that it is referring to the brothers.
The term “monster” morphs as the episodes go by when the parents José and Kitty are fully introduced in later episodes.
I think the real monster of the story is José. Throughout the show he is responsible for all the trauma caused to both of the boys, by yelling at them, mocking them, as well as abusing them.
Throughout the testimony he is the center focus of the damage caused to Lyle and Erik, the brothers talk about the abuse that was caused to both of them starting at the age of six years old.
José throughout the show would push the brothers to do things they didn’t want to do. For example, he forced Lyle to get a hairpiece just because he was losing a little bit of hair which isn’t something a normal parent would do.
Bardem’s performance throughout the series is intimidating and effective with the understanding of the brothers’ real life testimony.
Later in the series, you start to realize that the abuse didn’t start with José, but continued through him.
Sevigny does a good job telling the story of how the brothers were treated. Throughout the show, viewers find out that Kitty is just as responsible as José because she lets the abuse continue.
This leaves it up to the audience to decide who in the Menéndez family are true monsters.
I empathize with the Menéndez brothers because reliving these experiences in the 1990s is nothing but brave.
The highlight of the show is episode five, “The Hurt Man,” which has a 32 minute dialogue of Erik explaining his sexual abuse to his lawyer, Leslie Abramson (Ari Graynor).
When “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” was released, families of his victims mentioned that Murphy never reached out to them, according to a Sep. 27 Slate article.
This seems to be the case since the Menéndez family criticized Murphy for inaccuracies in the newest installation of the “Monster” series, according to the same article.
I think the show accurately presents what Los Angeles represented in the early 1990s. However, there are many inaccuracies about what happened during the case.
For example, in the show, Lyle was talking to an undercover journalist who was recording all their conversations in jail and the recordings in the show are much different in real life.
Murphy said he is no longer interested in anything related to the Menéndez brothers and he has no interest in talking to them, according to an Oct. 1 Hollywood Reporter article.
Lyle’s character is portrayed as a very cocky, spoiled and angry young adult, which in many ways is difficult for viewers to grasp if they’ve seen Lyle’s court testimonies.
The Menéndez brothers are currently serving life sentences with no chance of parole in separate prisons.
Erik’s wife, Tammi Menéndez, issued a statement on Sept. 19 on X (formally known as Twitter) on how he truly felt about the show.
Erik explains in the statement how the portrayal of Lyle saddens him and how the show tends to be dishonest about the conditions of the crime.
“Those awful lies have been disrupted and exposed by countless brave victims over the last two decades”, said Erik Menéndez. “Who have broken through their personal shame and bravely spoken out. So now Murphy shapes his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander.”
If critics and viewers are finding faults in the show, I say it isn’t on the actors but more so on the creators.
The show isn’t a direct biography of the brothers, it is more of a biography of time and place. How there was plenty of injustice going around in Los Angeles including the Rodney King riots.
What the show is good at is exposing a new generation to the case of the Menéndez brothers.
The story of the Menéndez brothers is a case that challenges everyone's moral compass if what they did was for the greater good.
Overall, this series gives the audience quantities to the original ruling of the Menéndez brothers case, it was popular in the ‘90s and it will be repopularized for a new generation with this show.
