Everything We Know About Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story, Netflix's Dahmer Follow-Up
The Ryan Murphy brand launched another successful product in 2022 with the excessively monikered "Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story." It was a dark companion piece to the already-plenty-dour "American Crime Story" anthology series (which gave us the shamelessly entertaining "The People v. O.J. Simpson" in its first season), and while it didn't go down especially well with critics, the lead performances from Evan Peters and Niecy Nash (as Jeffrey Dahmer and his neighbor Glenda Cleveland, respectively) earned nominations at the 2023 Screen Actors Guild Awards. This bodes particularly well for the series' 2023 Primetime Emmy prospects. Add in Netflix's claim that the show logged one billion views in its first 60 days of streaming, and this means it's time for another unnerving exploration of notoriously grisly murders.
Up next is "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story." Whatever you think of Murphy's work, you have to admit that this is square in his sensationalistic wheelhouse. Here's everything we know about the second season in the creative's "Monster" anthology so far.
What is Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story about?
"Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" will, of course, recount the bizarre tale of the titular Menéndez brothers — who, on the evening of August 20, 1989, brutally murdered their mother and father, José and Mary Menendez, with shotguns in their Beverly Hills home. The brothers were not immediately charged, which allowed them to go on an extravagant spending spree over the next few months. Eventually, they were arrested, and, after the first trial ended in two locked juries, found guilty of first-degree murder.
The bizarre circumstances of the killings and the Beverly Hills setting turned the case into a nationally televised phenomenon. But that's just part of the story. If you watch the "Monsters" teaser trailer embedded above, you'll hear the actual 911 call made by Lyle after the murders. This seemingly cold-hearted element of the cover-up was integral to the siblings' eventual conviction.
Who is working on Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story?
It's likely that Ryan Murphy and "Monster" series co-creator Ian Brennan will once again serve as showrunners on "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story," and that the season will run 10 episodes. As for how the story will be told, the writers will undoubtedly delve into the brothers' claims of mental, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of their parents. These charges were downplayed in the second and final trial, but they have resurfaced over the years. More recently, "Today" previewed "Menéndez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed," a Peacock docuseries in which Roy Russelló — a former member of the popular boy band – accuses the deceased José Menendez of sexually molesting him.
Given the presumed length of the Murphy and Brennan's series, there's not a chance they won't touch on this allegation. If they do address all of these charges in a convincing manner, could the brothers receive a new trial? If done well, this could be an explosive series (indeed, Netflix holds the rights for a documentary offshoot). It's still very early days (no one's been cast yet, and the show's merely slated to arrive in 2024), but this is a tragic tale that could be told in a very different fashion. Watch this space for updates!