Image Credit: ‘Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menéndez Story,’ Netflix

A month back, we got our first look at Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menéndez Story, the second season in Ryan Murphy and Netflix’s anthology focused on provocative true-crime stories.

With its moody lighting, dramatic music, and extended, passionate embrace between handsome actors Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch—playing Lyle and Erik, respectively—the teaser left us with one question: Wait a minute, is this supposed to be homoerotic?

Well, now that the season has premiered, we have our answer, and it’s a queasy, uncomfortable, and controversial…. yes???

If you weren’t already familiar, The Menéndez Brothers’ trials for the murder of their parents, José and Kitty, were one of the media sensations of the ’90s. At first, the siblings’ maintained their innocence and it was believed to have been a mafia hit on their wealthy and powerful family, but after a tape was leaked of Erik confessing to his psychologist, the young men claimed it was in retaliation to a childhood of psychological and physical abuse at the hands of their parents.

In 1996, Lyle and Erik Menéndez were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in person without parole.

Erik (left) & Lyle (right) Menéndez | Photo Credit: Getty Images

Throughout the case’s media circus, a number of rumors about the brothers swirled, including the notion that, perhaps, Lyle and Erik were incestuous lovers who plotted to kill their parents after they’d been found out. Though that claim was unsubstantiated, Lyle did tearfully admit to perpetrating their father’s cycle of abuse toward his younger brother, while questions lingered around Erik’s sexuality, especially after prosecutor Pamela Bozanich asserted he was gay and having sex with inmates.

To this day, both men maintain the are straight, and both have even gotten married to women while serving out their life sentences.

All of which is to say, the story around the Menéndez brothers is nuanced and quite complicated. No matter how horrifying the crime they committed was, the evidence shows they were victims of abuse. Would a modern re-telling of their crime and trials be able to approach the story through a more humanist, compassionate lens?

Monsters, which premiered September 19 on Netflix, doesn’t necessarily provide any conclusive answers, and that ambiguity is only making people more upset.

Frequently jumping through time, the series doesn’t shy away from depicting the abusive household the brothers grew up in. It’s a tough watch, and that’s to say nothing of the scene where José and Kitty’s grisly murder is recreated in harrowing detail.

Javier Bardem plays the demanding patriarch José as downright terrifying, while Chloë Sevigny’s pill-addicted Kitty is cruel and complicit. In many ways, the show want us to understand that perhaps the parents are the true “monsters” of this story.

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Still, there are enough moments that seem to intentionally leave the door open to the theory that Lyle and Erik may have been lovers. Some of it—like gratuitous shots of the brothers in tiny swimwear or stepping out of the shower, barely covered by a towel—feels like typically salacious Ryan Murphy fare.

But there are other instances where the brothers are shown kissing each other goodbye on the lips, or sensually dancing at a party and putting their fingers in their mouths, openly encouraging audiences to wonder about the true nature of their relationship.

In another scene in Episode 3, a shirtless Erik has a conversation with a fellow inmate at the prison where he openly ponders if he “likes being with dudes.” It’s an intriguing moment, but one that Monsters doesn’t delve into much further.

Of course, there’s validity to telling a story about the long-term effects of abuse, how the Menéndez brothers’ traumatic upbringing may have warped and damaged their understanding of and relationship to love and sexuality. You could argue that another Netflix series, Baby Reindeer, handles that subject matter with proper care.

But this isn’t necessarily that. Again, it’s a Ryan Murphy-produced show, so it’s flashy and even sometimes funny, chock-full of eye-catching performances (Chavez and Koch truly do give star-making performances here) and period-accurate details and references that can be fun to see on screen. It’s designed, first and foremost, for entertainment, but all of that can, at best, muddle the message, and, at worst, feel exploitative.

If these complaints sound familiar, well, the anthology’s first season focused on Jeffrey Dahmer was met with similar outrage, as many accused the series of glamorizing a serial killer and unfairly capitalizing on the stories of victims and their families for pure shock value.

Of course, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story also went on to become one of Netflix’s most-watched original series of all time, and earned a number of Emmy nominations (including a Best Supporting Actress win for Niecy Nash-Betts), so it’s no surprise they’re back for more—with a third season, where Charlie Hunnam will play the notorious Ed Gein, on the way.

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As TV continues to recount these gruesome, thorny, and troubling stories—about real people, alive and dead—here we are, continuing to tune in and talk about them. Wait a minute… are we the Monsters?

For the record, an alleged statement from Erik calling out the “blatant lies” of Monsters—which appears to have originated from his wife Tammi’s social media counts—has been making its way across the internet. You can read it in full below:

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