‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story’ Episode 8 Recap: “Seismic Shifts”

To borrow a phrase from George R.R. Martin, misogyny — like racism or transphobia or one other baseless hate — is a sword and never utilizing a hilt. True, it’s a dangerous weapon, and in addition you’re going to hurt your targets and hurt them harmful. Nevertheless there’s no protected choice to swing a weapon like that with out doing hurt to your self.

Irrespective of else anyone wants to call them, Lyle and Erik Menéndez are males. They should because of this reality be the beneficiaries all our patriarchal society can bestow — power, respect, the benefit of the doubt. When males talk, we’re imagined to concentrate. 

Nevertheless the male jurors who refuse to acquit the brothers all through their first trial, thus inflicting a mistrial and prolonging the complete ordeal, do not lengthen this aegis of patriarchy to their brothers Lyle and Erik. No, the Menéndezes are out of the fraternity of perception for 3 causes. First, they lack the maternal instinct, says one female juror; that form of kindness has been drummed out of them. Second, they do not take into account boys may very well be abused; victimization is de facto feminine. 

Nevertheless lastly — and most importantly, says the juror who confides in Leslie Abramson about it after all her mates have departed — the male jurors voted to convict Lyle and Erik not on account of they hate Lyle and Erik, nonetheless on account of they hate Leslie. Anyone who lived through the Nineties or their disastrous 2016 revival attempt can inform you why. The huge blonde hair, the power suits, a high-profile and high-paying job ready of authority, a persona that’s not structured spherical being good for males to be spherical: It acquired’t do. 

So on account of various males disliked a girl, two males are nonetheless up for execution for the crime of killing the people who tortured all of them their lives. It’s further essential to the male jurors to punish that woman than protect their fellow males. Actor Ari Graynor appears to be bodily nauseated as Leslie swallows this shit sandwich full in seconds with out breaking a smile, on account of god forbid.

Not that Leslie is above using further typical — if, uh, idiosyncratic — variations of femininity to make a level when and the place it serves her. The beginning of this episode is a showcase for Leslie Grossman as Judalon Smyth, Dr. Jerome Oziel’s affected individual, mistress, and (we be taught proper right here) sufferer. By establishing that Oziel is just not solely a felony however as well as form of a pathetic dork, she torches an enormous part of the prosecution’s case. Nevertheless she moreover merely seizes the spotlight because of her sometimes zany demeanor. She’s into crystals and cats and is generally a form of woman that males aren’t going to essentially really feel threatened by. Baffled by, presumably, nonetheless not threatened by.

In a method, the complete episode comes proper all the way down to the issue of effectivity. Does Leslie act the best way wherein a girl is supposed to — does she perform gender accurately, to get barely jargony about it? What about Judalon? Does her star flip benefit her the quilt of Self-esteem Truthful, as she pitches to Dominick Dunne?

Speaking of Dunne, what are his fastened dinner occasions nonetheless barely one-man current, the place he can delight his coterie collectively together with his distinctive mixture of effete erudition and fire-and-brimstone hang-em-high justice? And he positioned on a hell of a effectivity remaining episode when he apologized to Leslie, each for not believing the brothers or for underestimating her potential to get them to lie — it optimistic appeared like he meant the earlier to me on the time, however it was the latter all alongside. (To convey points once more to misogyny for a second, Dunne — Nick to his buddies — mocks the women courting the brothers in jail and makes a snide insinuation about Erik’s un-macho homosexuality.)

Then there are the performances of the brothers themselves. Lyle is devastating on the stand, nonetheless will get recorded saying he’d rehearsed crying — amongst quite a few totally different statements that make it unattainable for him to testify at their second trial. Erik blows his private testimony because of a malfunctioning mic he can’t stop messing with, like a toddler in a highschool manufacturing. Sooner than points go south, Lyle suggests completely totally different actors who can portray them inside the inevitable movie to look at (Brian Bosworth, Rob Lowe, Kirk Cameron) and is thrilled that John Malkovich carried out him on SNL. Cameras file every inappropriate smile, every uncommon look straight into the lens, or through it on the viewers at dwelling.

Which in a fashion is the place the episode leaves us: the media, which has turned your whole issue into an ongoing television assortment. Correct throughout the time the 1994 earthquakes start hitting L.A., Erik will get the sense that one factor inside the media narrative has shifted in the direction of them. He blames Leslie, and that’s part of it — she might be a part of Marcia Clark and Monica Lewinsky in Ryan Murphy’s “Historic previous Misjudged Us” Justice League — nonetheless actually it’s moreover prolonged publicity to the badly broken brothers themselves. 

Nevertheless the Menéndez Brother Current is about to lose inside the rankings to the biggest hit of the final decade. Ordered to help clear the cell block in anticipation of a “VIP,” Erik watches O.J. Simpson’s infamous Bronco chase, and later winds up inside the cell correct subsequent to him. (Erik advises the Juice to not perception Robert Shapiro — and to ponder a plea bargain.) Rapidly Jay Leno will go from spoofing Lyle’s horrendously misguided fundraising efforts to the Dancing Itos. A Los Angeles already torn apart as quickly as by racist cops and riots can have a spectacle to look at like none sooner than it, though the brothers set the template. 

Within the meantime, Erik and Lyle’s money, their retailer of goodwill, their fan letters, their approved workforce, their luck, and possibly their time are all working out. Sorry, fellas. I do comprehend it says “MEN’S CLUB” on the door, however it’s members solely.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Events, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family dwell on Prolonged Island.