Season one of Monsters, writer Ryan Murphy’s addictive anthology TV series about appalling human behaviour, told the story of America’s most notorious serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer. For Season Two, the showrunner – comfortably the most prolific and successful man in elite TV – has outdone himself, retelling the double murder of Jose and Kitty Menendez by their sons, spoilt Bel Air brothers, Lyle and Erik, in the case that gripped America.
Murphy is not one for sparing the goriest of details in his dramas. Murder most foul is merely the tip of the Menendez iceberg in Ryan’s tread through their tale. Monsters touches blithely on incest, physical, psychological and emotional abuse, too. The TV whiz has form at the grimmest, most salacious end of the psychosexual homicide spectrum. A matricide and patricide is just a new twist on old obsessions. His former, ongoing anthology suite, American Crime Story, covered the murders of Gianni Versace and Nicole Brown Simpson.
