Monster

This is a solid true crime show with brilliant acting. Especially Evan Peters does an awesome job. It's exciting to see the horrible story of JD staged so carefully. Would have been an 8 but the last two episodes focus too much on JDs neighbour Glenda Cleveland. She surely suffered a lot when JDs crimes were discovered but 15 people had been killed whose friends and families certainly suffered a lot more. I think those people deserve more attention than a lady that indeed did a good job but was not involved in the matter so much. That's why the last episodes are a little bit slow moving. All in all worth a watch.

I ate up seasons 1 and 2, they were really well done and with intriguing plots and character studies.

Season 3, however... The first episode showed a lot of promise, and I was actually looking forward to the following episodes. However, as soon as the myriad of sub plots started I quickly lost interest and almost stopped after episode 4, but I pushed through (so you won't have to).

It seems to me like the show wanted to do a general study of infamous serial killers but needed a key character for the hook, and choosing Ed Gein makes sense, seeing as he was prolific and went on to inspire many other serial killers. But the balance is way off. There's too much fluff and non-factual plots and characters in the majority of the season compared to the actual Gein aspects.

There's characters we see a few times or even just once and then never again, some only mentioned in passing, but in a way that makes them seem important, like the son of the woman teaching "Domesticated Husbandry" is mentioned as someone we're supposed to know, but I could not for the life of me remember who he was, if we'd even seen or heard of him previously.

Of course there's a lot of gratuitous scenes as well, whether they be of the sexual/sensual or gory nature, classic Murphy.

The last episode especially was atrocious, as many others have attested, particularly ripping off Mindhunter, even with Happy Anderson reprising his role as Jerry Brudos, and at first I thought they had cast Holt McCallany as well, but it was just a look-a-like.

The season seems to practically celebrate Ed Gein as well as painting him as someone we should feel sorry for. Very little time is spent on the repercussions surrounding the victims and their families, as if they are just an afterthought or even entirely irrelevant.

When it comes to directing and writing, it was just messy, too many too blurred lines between reality and hallucinations to such a degree it was difficult to know how much of Ed's social life was real and how much of it was in his head.

I've had a lot of issues with several of Murphy's productions over the past few years and honestly think he has run out of original creativity and has just gotten used to churning out shows, making money and then moving on to the next. I really miss the earlier days of his stuff, the first four seasons of AHS were amazing for example. I wish the whole Murphy production team would take a break for a few years and come back with, hopefully, renewed creative juices!

I'd probably give seasons 1 and 2 a rating of 7-8 and I can't rate season 3 higher than a 2.

My 8/10 rating is for the first two seasons (covering Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez Brothers respectively), but my rating for season 3 (covering the life and crimes of Ed Gein) would have to be more like 4/10 - the decline in quality is huge.

The first episode of season 3 is excellent, even if it rushes through numerous aspects of Gein's story (e.g. His brother Henry), but after that point it's like a drop off a massive cliff. Season 3's main problem is the total fabrication of entire characters and plotlines - such as the babysitter storyline, but the biggest one concerns Adeline, who absolutely did not exist. Her inclusion re-writes numerous events and even some of the foundational psychological pillars of Ed Gein himself (e.g. Abject isolation, a lack of female relationships beyond his overbearing mother, and of increasing sexual dysfunction).

The desecration of Bernice Worden's character - as in, who the real victim was - also somes as a shocking embellishment. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if some sort of legal action was to be taken by the family of Worden for such a scathing depiction of the last person to suffer at the hands of Ed Gein.

Enveloping the various famous films that have been inspired by Gein's story is a neat idea, but the execution is quite sloppy. There is more reliance on recreating scenes from the films (e.g. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) than on understanding what inspired which film and why: in regards to the aforementioned 1974 Tobe Hooper film, the clear inspiration was the 'house of horrors' aspect of Gein's crimes (furniture made out of human remains etc) - and NOT a chainsaw, which has no connection to Gein's story at all. Meanwhile, the time spent looking into Anthony Perkins' experience making Psycho (1960) feels similarly disjointed. The revealing of Gein's crimes to the American public was more of a watershed moment in the post-war crumbling of the national psyche, prefiguring many years of socio-political turmoil and serial murder - but such a thought barely enters into the conversation put forth by Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy.

I've no idea what on Earth the showmakers were thinking with this third season, moreso when you consider how well-made the previous two seasons were. With plenty of story to tell from the true history of Ed Gein there was no need to add in so much made-up rubbish.

There are two monsters is this heartbreaking and compelling story, but they are not Erik (Cooper Koch) and Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez), they are Jose (Javier Bardem) and Kitty (Chloë Savigny).

I don't want to delve too deeply into the legal aspects of this case, because this is not a documentary, but a dramatic series. However, let me start by saying, if Erik and Lyle had been Erika and Lyla-two daughters-they would never have spent a day in jail. That's not to say that Erik and Lyle were blameless, but the mitigating circumstances were so overwhelming and compelling that they should have been sentenced to voluntary manslaughter with a 10 year sentence.

Then there is Dominic Dunne (Nathan Lane) a despicable man who trafficked in gossip and celebrity cocktail parties. He was sort of a straight Truman Capote.

I want to highlight Episode 5 'The Hurt Man.' There are only two characters in the entire scene: Leslie Abramson (Ari Gaynor) and Erik. Director Michael Upendahl places the camera about 12 feet away from the table where the two are seated. Abramson with her back to the camera (we never see her face) and Lyle facing. Slowly, imperceptibly, the camera pushes in on Erik until it passes Abramson and ends with a close up of Erik as he explains the title of the episode. Riveting!

Cooper Koch does a tremendous job throughout, but especially in that episode. Nicholas Chavez is also terrific as Lyle. Javier Bardem and Chloë Savigny are outstanding as Jose and Kitty.

I knew very little about the Menendez brothers. I knew about the killings and about the molestation defense. But that's about it. The luridness of the story kept me at a distance but now, in this compelling Ryan Murphy series I was hooked from the very first episode. I could watch it as a work of fiction but the fact that it was a true story made me look back and read about it. Oh my God! There are no likeable characters in this saga but really good performances and that's enough to keep you glued to it. And here I discovered Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez. He took over my senses from beginning to end, including the episode that is just him. Superb performance and the humanity he finds in his monster makes you want to rethink the whole thing and believe them/him. He will make re-watch the series again, soon.