It’s not remotely surprising that a second and third installment of the Jeffrey Dahmer-focussed series Monster are in the works. Despite numerous articles questioning the purpose of another grizzly series about another serial killer, and despite scathing reviews calling the show “unwatchably queasy”, Netflix viewers absolutely loved the show. It quickly whizzed to the number one spot on the streaming site after its September 2022 release, and stayed there for weeks.
It’s now Netflix’s third most-watched English speaking series, ever, with an insane 856 million hours viewed (which is a hard number to get a handle on, but given that the series is ten episodes long, and each episode runs at about 50 minutes, that means that the first season was watched in its entirety about 103 million times). It also was nominated for, and won, numerous awards including Golden Globe Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards and Satellite Awards.
So if you are one of the millions of viewers that tuned into part one, here’s everything we know about the next instalments of the show.
There’s going to be a second and third season
Just one month after Monster: Jeffrey Dahmer dropped, Netflix announced it would be renewing the show. The numbers spoke for themselves, so it wasn’t a major surprise that the streamer wanted to try and repeat the show’s astonishing popularity.
What was slightly surprising was that Netflix announced it would be immediately be renewing the series for two seasons. And to deal with the fact that the Dahmer story had been tied up, it was also announced that the future series would be anthologies, and that each one would explore “stories of other monstrous figures who have impacted society”. Fans wondered whether the phrasing of the statement meant that future seasons of the show will not only focus on serial killers.
What else do we know?
That’s where most of the details currently end. We know that Ryan Murphy, who created Monster: Jeffrey Dahmer, as well as anthology series American Horror Story, and The Watcher, will be returning to helm the second and third season, but there are currently no release dates for either series, nor details about what stories they might explore, or which actors will be joining the cast.
Netflix showed their appreciation of Murphy when news of season two was released, saying, “The creative team of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan on Monster along with Eric Newman on The Watcher are masterful storytellers who captivated audiences all over the world... The back-to-back force of these two series is due to Ryan’s distinct original voice which created cultural sensations and we are thrilled to continue telling stories in the Monster and Watcher universes.”
Will Monster change after the backlash?
What will be interesting to watch is how Netflix will develop its future seasons of Monster. Monster: Jeffrey Dahmer was a clear hit, but caused a tonne of controversy for the way it focused on the murders of Dahmer’s victims.
“These men and boys were dehumanised not only by Dahmer’s brutal actions but by retellings limited to descriptions of their deaths and bodies,” said The Guardian. “Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims don’t belong to the killer, to Netflix, or to true crime fans.”
“I don’t see how they can do that,” said Shirley Hughes, whose son Tony was killed by Dahmer. “I don’t see how they can use our names and put stuff out like that out there.” Eric Perry, whose cousin Errol Lindsey was killed by Dahmer, Tweeted, “I know true crime media is huge rn, but if you’re actually curious about the victims, my family (the Isbell’s) are pissed about this show. It’s retraumatizing over and over again, and for what? How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?” Rita Isbell, another cousin of Errol Lindsey, called the show “harsh and careless”.
This was despite Netflix explicitly billing the show as a series which focused on the lives of the victims and their family members rather than on glorifying the killer or focusing on the killings themselves. But these efforts very clearly did not succeed. Jeffrey Dahmer was arguably glamorized, being played by Hollywood actor Evan Peters, who previously starred in X-Men: Days of Future Past and American Horror Story.
“Dahmer is very clearly a Ryan Murphy show, as indicated by the grotesque and macabre nature of the material,” said Vulture. “ It’s admirable that Dahmer wants to honor the victims’ lives and celebrate who Hughes was as a person. But that effort can’t be a complete success in a show that also insists on literally reducing Hughes to a piece of meat.”
