Monster, season 2: the Menendez brothers are weaker than Dahmer (review)

Ryan Murphy continues his work as a portraitist of Evil, with this new true story devoted to two brothers who murdered their parents. Sociopaths or victims? He lets you be the judge.

Justice has long since ruled. The Menendez Brothers were found guilty of the murder of their parents in 1996 and sent to the shadows for the rest of their lives. A sentence handed down after 7 years of sordid proceedings, which are recounted by Ryan Murphy And Ian Brennan in season 2 of Monster.

The anthology “True Crime” returns to Netflix for this chilling portrait of a family not really like the others, led with an iron fist by José, an immigrant of Cuban origin, who has only one word on his lips: success! Wanting to see his two sons excel in everything, he manages his luxurious life like a tyrant. So much so that the wealthy businessman and his wife will end up being murdered by their own children, at the end of their tether… A double parricide that will allow them to inherit, in passing, the family fortune. So did they do all this for the money? Or to free themselves from their oppressor?

This season 2 of Monster is on a constant wire. Who is the monster? Who is the victim? After a terrifying introduction, marked by the particularly shocking scene of the massacre of the parents, The Menendez Brothers deliver their truth. First to a shrink. Then to their lawyers. Then to the court. They were in fact abused, raped, for years, by their father and with the consent of their mother. The series recounts unbearable sequences, where the unspeakable is transformed into an argument for the defense to justify the unjustifiable. From revelations to testimonies, the authors sow doubt and meticulously unfold (9 episodes is too many) their twisted story. Who is telling the truth? Who is looking for mitigating circumstances? The questioning is interesting but tends to dissolve into a story that is difficult to sustain, where the slightest emotion ends up completely liquefying.

Especially since Ryan Murphy doesn't hesitate to overdo it. The staging by Lyle and Erik Menendez is very theatrical, filming the bodies up close, assuming a form of glamorization of the assassin, which already existed in Dahmer. Except that Jeffrey Dahmer froze the viewer from start to finish. The killer's fascination, between terror and magnetism, worked because he was, without a doubt, a “monster”. This time, the real “monster” seems to be the victim, namely Father Menendez, played by a Javier Bardem more horrible than ever (yes, even more infamous than in James Bond). His character of tyrannical father is spectacular, certainly a little too much. Like the series.

Monster, season 2, on Netflix, in 9 episodes, since September 19, 2024.