Years after winning the Academy Award for his most iconic role in No Country for Old Men, Javier Bardem got the perfect opportunity to channel his “Anton Chigurh” in Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s second iteration of the Monster anthology on Netflix. As the menacing Jose Menendez, who ultimately gets shot to death by his own sons, Lyle and Erik, Bardem is absolutely terrifying. The show, titled The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, focuses on the infamous murders of businessman Jose Menendez and his wife Kitty Menendez, and their subsequent trial. Unlike the first season, where you feel absolutely no sympathy for the monster, the notorious Jeffrey Dahmer (at least I hope so), this season sort of leaves you conflicted. There shouldn’t be any doubt that the Menendez brothers did murder their parents, but the motive behind the murders is where it all gets tricky. The brothers say it stemmed from the unimaginable abuse they suffered at the hands of their father (and they’re still maintaining that stance, by the way, even after all these years). But the court verdict dismisses their claims, and they’ve been sentenced to life without the chance of parole.
The biggest dilemma the second season of Monsters puts you in is whether to sympathize with the brothers or take the side of their parents. Some of you might feel that the show itself takes the side of the brothers and demonizes the (now dead) parents. In this article, we’re going to look into the truth of that. Needless to say, there will be spoilers from this season, so if you haven’t seen the series yet, this is where you take off.
Does the show justify the killings?
Let us jump into it right away. The entire fifth episode of Monsters 2 (guess it’s alright to call it that) zeroes in on Erik talking about his terrifying experiences with his father. The camera always stays on him, initially from a bit of a distance where we get to see the back of his lawyer, Leslie Abramson’s head, and then as he keeps talking, it focuses on his face and we hear Leslie’s voice only. It’s hard not to feel for Erik (and his brother Lyle) after hearing his account. You can literally see the pain on Erik’s face as he shares the disturbing details of his own father raping him over and over for years. Also, when Erik confesses to killing his parents for the first time (to Dr. Oziel, who doesn’t seem to be a good doctor), he completely breaks down. Only people who have actually suffered can react like that, unless they’re psychopaths, of course.
There are many instances where the series shows Jose and Kitty in a bad light. Bardem’s casting further helps the cause, as he’s simultaneously despicable and also chilling. There are moments when you do feel sympathy for Sevigny’s Kitty, but then you hear her confessing about hating her sons and checking Erik’s genitals for traces of a possible STD. That makes her one hell of a terrible mother, and you can’t help but side with the brothers. Keeping all that in mind, it does seem like the Netflix series is out to make a fresh case in favor of the disgraced brothers, who still spend their days in jail. But there’s another side of the same coin.
Or Does The Show Side With The Parents?
Vanity Fair journalist Dominick Dunne is the most prominent face here advocating for Jose and Kitty Menendez. Dunne is not directly connected to the incident in any way, but he bears the burden of a personal tragedy—his daughter was murdered, and the man who (allegedly) did it pretty much walked free, with a slap on the wrist. That’s why Dunne holds contempt for any defendant and their lawyers; in this case, the Menendez brothers, along with Jill (Lyle’s lawyer) and Leslie. But when Lyle takes the stand and gives his testimony, even Dunn is convinced that the brothers were, in fact, abused by their parents. However, you do find out that all Lyle was doing was giving a performance in order to earn sympathy. While the initial episodes of the series portray the brothers in a sympathetic light, in the later episodes, we see the psychopathic sides of the brothers, especially of Lyle’s. Yes, it’s entirely possible that they’ve become like this only because of having a childhood that was far from normal, but the possibility of the whole thing being fabricated cannot be ruled out either. The final scene of the series, where the family is on a fishing trip, with Jose and Kitty sharing a light moment while their sons are contemplating killing them further suggests that the brothers might be lying. Sure, Jose is still a cheating husband, and Kitty is a wife who’s overlooking that, but no way does that imply they’re abusive to their kids.
Final Conclusion
In my humble opinion, I don’t think the second season of Monsters takes any particular side. What it basically does is examine all sorts of possibilities. You see the same scene of Lyle and Erik barging into their house and shooting their parents multiple times, from different perspectives. None of us knows which one is actually real. The truth here is, it’s impossible to know for sure. It’s entirely possible that Jose was indeed what his sons claim to be—a pedophile who would take pleasure in sexually assaulting his own sons. Kitty might be a depressed wife and a terrible mother. That obviously makes Lyle and Erik’s current situation heartbreaking. But throughout the series, you also see these two are actively participating in many shady activities—from burglaries to cheating at examinations to attempting to manipulate people to testify in favor of them. What cannot be denied is that patricide (that’s a word I learned from here) is the kind of thing that can only happen when someone is at the end of their rope. That doesn’t necessarily mean the person has to be a psychopath. Lyle and Erik’s action is understandable if they were really abused by their father (and mother). Otherwise, they’re indeed psychopaths. But the show doesn’t have the responsibility to provide you an answer here, and it shouldn’t as well.
