I finally finished watching Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story.  Not that it was a chore – I was simply savoring it.  I loves me some Menéndez boys.  I’ve always been more partial to Erik than to Lyle.  I felt the same way here.  In this version, Erik is far more, shall we say, “fluid” than Lyle – except in the shower, which is a whole other story.  In any Ryan Murphy oeuvre, we have come to expect a certain amount of artistic license.  In this one, he doesn’t disappoint.  Call me crazy, but I find it hard to believe that these boys were lounging alone in a hotel room wearing only colorful bikini briefs while ordering shrimp.  Something seemed – well, fishy.  There was also lots of sexual content.  We had José touching the boys (and more), Kitty check out Lyle’s junk, the boys soaping up each other (in a manly sort of way), and Erik teasing guys of color in the prison shower with his perfect ass.  The actor says the penis was a prosthetic.  But you can’t fake that ass – as you’ll see on BillyMasters.com.

Let me say a bit about the casting.  As far as I was concerned, the star of the show was Ari Graynor, who played the unlikeable Leslie Abramson (and looked strikingly like Jennifer Grey two noses ago).  She was riveting.  Nathan Lane gave a wonderful performance without even the slightest resemblance to Dominick Dunne (but there was something vaguely reminiscent in his halting speech pattern).  I’m no fan of Ms. Sevigny – so that was probably good casting.  Javier Bardem didn’t grab me – which puts me ahead of his sons.  Lyle was perfectly played by Nicholas Alexander Chavez – who claims to have never heard of the family before he auditioned for the part.  And Erik was embodied eerily by Cooper Koch – who is openly gay, and looks like a young Matthew Ludwinski.  Koch had quite a tour de force with Episode Five, which was shot in a single take.  I’d like to think he’ll be remembered at Emmy time – while I’ll remember other aspects of his “performance” frequently.

The miniseries (which is what we’d call it in the old days) has been met with both praise and criticism – starting with Erik Menéndez himself, who called it “disheartening slander”.  Ryan Murphy said, “I think it’s interesting that he’s issued a statement without having seen the show.”  The brothers can’t be too pissed off at Netflix – they participated in a documentary called The Menéndez Brothers via extensive audio interviews.  Rosie O’Donnell, who has gotten close to Lyle over the years (she’s visited him and interviewed him on her podcast), advised him to never watch the show – but added that perhaps the attention would be helpful to their cause.  In recent years, their claims of sexual abuse have gained traction, particularly after last year’s docuseries, Menéndez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed.  Kim Kardashian visited with the brothers – which must have done wonders for their “morale”.  She said: “Had this crime been committed and trialed today, I believe the outcome would have been dramatically different.”  Kim didn’t visit the brothers alone – she brought Cooper Koch.  Cooper spoke to Erik before the show premiered and says, “I got to have a really good conversation with him and tell him that I believe him and I did everything I could as an actor to advocate for him and portray him as authentically as possible.”  During his visit, he says he got to embrace both brothers!  The LA District Attorney is conducting a “review of evidence” in anticipation of a November 29^th hearing for the brothers’ petition for a new trial.