Parole

Few shows over the past few years can be said to have had as much impact as Netflix’s “Monster.”

In interviews for a Variety cover story about Charlie Hunnam, the star of show’s new season about serial killer Ed Gein, “Monster” co-creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan reflected on the phenomenon of the second season about Erik and Lyle Menendez. As that installment blew up in fall 2024, a new generation of viewers discovered the Menendezes’ story, including their claims that their parents, whom they were convicted of killing, had abused them. Both Menendez brothers remain in prison after having been denied parole in August of this year, and, in September, a judge denied their petition for a new trial. Even still, the calls for them to be released have grown deafening — including from Murphy himself.

“I do wish they had been paroled,” says Murphy, “and when I started working on it, I thought the complete opposite. I thought, Nope, kill your parents, stay in jail.” Continuing to consider their case has shifted Murphy’s thinking. “I feel this about the prison system in general: What good does it do to keep people just sitting in jail? They could get out of prison and do something constructive with their lives. I don’t agree with the parole board that they’re a danger to their community — I don’t think that’s true.” 

Co-creator Brennan was similarly dismayed that the Menendezes remain incarcerated. “I was surprised, and I was sad, even though my feelings about them are completely mixed,” he says. “I really thought it was going to go there because of this groundswell — people returning to that story 30 years later with a different set of cultural priors.” (Brennan notes that male sexual abuse, which the Menendezes say they suffered at home, is better understood today.) 

“The state of California has no interest in keeping them behind bars at this point,” Brennan continues. “That verges on a kind of cruelty that I don’t quite understand.” 

Brennan takes care to note that he has never interacted with the brothers, and the Menendezes, at first, were put out by what they understood to be the show’s depiction of them. Erik Menendez issued a statement from prison, when the season of “Monster” about his family debuted, declaring that the show was “rooted in horrible and blatant lies” and “disheartening slander.” Months later, though, Lyle credited the show with “shining a light” on their story and said he and his brother were “grateful.” Murphy wasn’t surprised.

“We’ve always felt wildly misunderstood about this show, from day one,” Murphy says. The Jeffrey Dahmer season, he says, was intended to be about father-son relationships and about social justice, as epitomized by Niecy Nash-Betts’s character. “That was the beating heart of the show. When the show came out, nobody wrote about that at all,” he says. “It was just a constant stream of ‘How dare they, it’s so exploitative.’ I found the same thing with ‘Menendez.’ The show had aired for three days, and Erik Menendez and his wife were speaking out against the show, although he would later come out and say ‘I was wrong, it really did help us.’ I found that interesting.” 

The Gein season, like the Dahmer and Menendez seasons before it, sets out to, as Murphy says, “provoke the question” — in this case, to address the roots of America’s ongoing mental-health crisis through the story of a high-profile sufferer of mental illness. Those kind of stories are what fuel the show’s run; other stories, Murphy and Brennan say, they’ve ruled out. 

John Wayne Gacy, Brennan says, has “nothing redemptive” in his story: “The second the name comes up for us, every year, both of us go, No. There’s no pathos.” The Golden State Killer has a similar chilling effect on brainstorming. And Ted Bundy sparks nothing in Murphy: “When you look at those crimes,” he asks rhetorically, “what are the themes there? It doesn’t ask you any questions about society. It feels too murderous — not interesting enough.”

Other stories just aren’t ready yet. “We have a ‘maybe one day’ file,” Murphy says, noting that he’s considered a “Monster” season about Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, but deemed it too early in the narrative to proceed. “We know nothing about him,” he says. “There was nothing to write — we didn’t have information yet. Maybe something will come out in the trial.” 

Beyond Gein, the pair are already preparing a fourth season, which will feature Ella Beatty as purported axe murderer Lizzie Borden. “It’s a female ‘Monster’ season,” Murphy says. “It talks not just about Lizzie, but other infamous women who were branded as monsters.” (He cites Countess Elizabeth Báthory, a Hungarian noble accused of torture and murder at the turn of the 17th century, and Aileen Wuornos, executed for serial murder in 2002.) “There’s many different monsters that float through the season. This has the same approach: Profiling famous women who have been labeled as one thing, and we ask the question: Really, do you think so?”