I Just Watched the First Episode of ‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez’ & I Have Thoughts

As I watched the first episode of Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, two questions lingered in my mind. First, what exactly makes someone a bad person, or shall I say, a "monster?" And are all monsters ultimately the product of toxic and abusive family dynamics?

It's interesting to think about, considering the other real-life examples I've seen. There's Jeffery Damer, who grew up with an emotionally absent father and became a loner. Then there's Ted Bundy, who reportedly felt "unloved" by his mom and resented his stepdad. And now, there's The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story—a new Netflix docuseries that depicts the real-life case of two brothers who were convicted of murdering their parents in 1996. While most argue that the motive was money, the siblings insist that they retaliated due to their parents' abusive and cruel behavior.

Murphy's nine-part docuseries, which stars Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch as Lyle and Erik (respectively), sheds new light on this old case, and I must say, it's already off to a pretty intense start.

I'm just one episode in, but I feel like I already know these boys well. At first glance, they're shallow and spoiled, but both are haunted by their actions—and their responses are vastly different. Lyle can walk the walk in public although he's a ticking timebomb. And Erik is slowly unraveling as he's plagued with suicidal thoughts. Chavez and Koch both deliver solid performances here, because their psychological torment and anxiety are so palpable that a part of me feels sympathy for them. In fact, there's one jolting scene where Erik relives the murder in a dream, and when he wakes up, he looks genuinely terrified.

But let me back up a bit and mention the brothers' parents, because these two characters are also quite intriguing. José (Javier Bardem) and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez (Chloë Sevigny) aren't exactly the best role models—José is pretty much the Hulk in human form and Kitty has drinking problems. So, it's especially fascinating to see the shared scenes between these parents and their kids—to see in real-time how their actions may have driven the boys to do something so extreme.