Monsters season 2: How the Netflix documentary on Lyle and Erik Menendez fills the holes in the series

In nine episodes, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan didn't quite have to cover this bloody news story.

After the success of Dahmerseason 2 of Monsters is going strong on Netflix with its new sordid story but full of twists and turns: the Erik and Lyle Menendez affairaccused in 1989 of having murdered their parents. A double murder of incredible violence which led to increasingly grim revelations. If public opinion initially thought that they had committed this crime to receive an important inheritance, they pleaded self-defense, explaining that they had been mistreated since they were six years old, both psychologically, physically and sexually, by their father. , and never supported by their mother.

Available in nine episodes, ranging from the initial crime to the second trial, the new show from the creator ofAmerican Crime Story is told from all angles, so that viewers can make their own interpretation. This can give the whole thing a repetitive side, with the worst details being told in another way, to the point of nausea. We thought we had covered the issue, but in the documentary, we discover new testimonies, starting with those of the two murderers, who tell their version from prison, without us seeing them on screen. The aim of this new film is also different, more clearly defending his two brothers.

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

Warning spoilers!

It is impossible to compare these two contents without going into detail, and it is they which end up making the difference and showing two opposing ambitions. Starting from around twenty hours of interviews with Lyle and Erik Menendez, director Alejandro Hartmann literally gives them the floor, which the creators of the series avoided – which led to the anger of those involved. Murphy and Brennan preferred to tell their story by drawing inspiration from multiple archives, since their first trial was particularly publicized in the early 1990s, the American channel Court TV having decided to broadcast it live.

This is also carefully transcribed in the series: images from the time used in the documentary show to what extent the actors playing Erik (Cooper Koch), Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and their lawyer Leslie Abramson (Ari Graynor) were inspired by their real pleadings and testimonies to replay them in fiction.

New testimonies
In two hours vs. new, the docu inevitably makes a few dead ends – no mention, for example, of the scenario co-written by Lyle featuring a double murder of parents by their boys. However, he dwells at greater length on certain aspects, the two brothers confirming for example that they could (should?) have been arrested much earlier, given that they had powder on their fingers when the police arrived. the crime scene, and that the shell casings were hidden in their car, right in the middle of the search perimeter. They support the idea that they got a few weeks off, during which they spent a lot of money, because they were privileged, young, white, beautiful and rich.

Once we arrive at the trial, if we see that the series is generally faithful to its sequence, we still see more clearly the abuse suffered by the two boys, with the exhibition of a shocking photo of Erik hanging on the above the ground until he can't take it anymore, to “harden”according to his father, when he was only two years old. The idea was present in the series, but seeing it in photos, accompanied by the testimony of a member of their family is even more shocking. Ditto for the decision to separate the two brothers during their final incarceration, which is present in the last episode, but whose pain we feel more here. Because the duo comments on it, and we see them accept a television interview to ask to spend their life prison sentence together. They will ultimately be separated for several years, and this decision is denounced as an injustice even more clearly in the documentary than in the series.

Ryan Murphy talks about the Menendez brothers: “They should thank me!”

Among the “forgetfulness” of the series, the floor here is given more to people who attended the trial. If Leslie did not want to participate, nor Doctor Oziel, we can clearly see the latter testifying during the first trial, and being particularly incriminating against the two accused. We then understand better why the latter's recordings could not be used as evidence, he being dismissed from his position as a psychiatrist in the middle of the affair. Better put in the context of the time, the testimony of his mistress and patient, Judalon Smyth, who accuses him of manipulation and rape, then seems much more credible.

Erik and Lyle's cousin, who quickly appears in the show, is also more present, explaining with more confidence that Lyle confided in her when he was very young about sexual abuse at the hands of his father José, that she spoke about it to her aunt Kitty – the boys' mother -, but that she did not come to her defense. Since no one ever spoke of the incident again after the fact, she believed she had misunderstood what had happened, before realizing the extent of the abuse her cousins ​​had suffered during their trial. One of the members of the jury, who wrote a book about this case, from the point of view of a “jury not listened to”also returns at greater length to an idea mentioned in the last episodes: the differences in judgment between the female and male jurors during this first trial, which resulted in a “no decision”. Neither guilty nor exonerated, the Menendezes had to wait until a second trial.

We also get more of a glimpse of Norma Novelli, the woman who took Lyle Menendez's confession in prison, and how he experienced his “treason” : he considers that his book should only have been a “point of detail” during the second trial, and suggests that his lack of testimony came from him, and not from the revelations made by the media coverage surrounding the release of the work making him appear to be a liar. The shift in public perception, from initially seeming to believe the two brothers to eventually seeing them as whiny and manipulative, is also very present here, much more so than in the series. Once again, the fact of watch a clip from the SNL sketch with John Malkovichfor example, and not just hearing about it, immediately takes you back to the context of the mid-1990s, when Americans no longer had confidence in their justice after the cases of Rodney King and OJ Simpson.

Finally, the reasons which pushed the judge to sentence the two accused to life imprisonment, while refusing certain testimonies and the defense this time not detailing too much the abuses to which they had been victims, are more clearly denounced here.

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“Make up your mind” VS “Free the Menendez brothers”
In the end, the main difference between the two projects comes down to the choice of the director of the documentary to take a clearer side than those of the show. It quickly becomes clear that these two contents were not designed with the same objective, the nine episodes attempting to give the most global summary possible on this affair, while leaving it to the viewer to form their own opinion.

On the contrary, the documentary compiles the arguments defending the idea that if they were truly victims of psychological, physical and sexual abuse in their childhood, and that they felt in danger of death from their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez did not deserve a life sentence. And raises the question of the evolution of society's view of sexual violence against (very young) men. Since “the TikTok generation” discovered this affair, at the turn of 2020, the two brothers are more perceived as victims of abuse by the general public, and all the work carried out by Lyle in prison to help free the speech of men sexually abused in their childhood is welcomed . During this film, the only one to consider them as “monsters” is the prosecutor in the first trial, Pamela Bozanich. Who, by dint of shocking declarations, ignores “big bad guy” of the documentary, openly attacking the two brothers, their father, the defense or… the Tiktokers.

With two such different tones and objectives, the series and the documentary complement each other, without falling into repetition. The platform's approach then poses a question: will all this advertising offered by Netflix allow Erik and Lyle Menendez to have their trial reviewed? In May 2023, their lawyers officially filed a request, ensuring that they had new evidence supporting their clients. To find out more, you have to look at another documentary, Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayedavailable in English on Peacock, in which singer Roy Rossello says he was sexually abused by Jose Menendez when he worked at RCA Records. He was only 14 years old then. A letter denouncing the excesses of the father of the family was also found in 2015 in the personal belongings of a cousin of Lyle and Erik, when the latter committed suicide.

In other words, “the Menendez affair” is far from over.

A new trial for the Menendez brothers? “They will be released before Christmas!”