Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story – Episode 3 Recap & Review

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime

Episode 3 of Monsters: Lyle and Erik Menendez Story starts on March 8th 1990. Jerry Oziel’s wife, Laurel, demands that he head back home immediately. The police have a lawful court order to check their house, and all of this is, of course, Judalon’s doing.

Oziel can’t talk his way out of this and neither, it seems, can Lyle or Erik. Jerry is forced to hand over the tapes, and upon hearing the confession, the detectives immediately arrest Lyle. Erik is actually away in Israel for a tennis tournament, and he’s implored to return home by Gerry. He does not want to be arrested and thrown in a Middle Eastern jail.

Erik returns and goes willingly with the officers, a stark contrast to the way Lyle is arrested. As fate would have it, they happen to be in adjacent cells. The pair hold hands and try to come up with a way of getting out of this. While Erik is struggling, one of the guys inside takes a fancy to him. This Tony, and Erik overhears the guy talk about how he waits 20 minutes before having the showers to himself, and the pair start to grow an affection to one another.

Erik is clearly gay but he’s repressed this side of him, partly thanks to his father. It seems Kyle might survive after all… but Lyle is the polar opposite. He’s struggling, and after starting off quite strong, his façade slowly slips. Their lawyer, Gerry, exasperates as he believes they’re only worried about the superficial side of how they look on camera and caring about their products, rather than the case itself.

Gerry is quick to point out they need to get their act together. They could be facing the gas chamber but Erik suggests they bring up what happened to them both before the murders. It appears they have a lot of deep-rooted resentment for their parents, which could be linked to past abuse.

The guards do a check of the cells not long after and find a series of notes about their getaway story. It’s as elaborate as it is incredulous, but the ensuing result sees Lyle moved to a different cell block.

The one saving grace here though for the boys could well be Leslie Abramson. She’s notorious for being the defense attorney to some of society’s most reprehensible people. She looks at the mental state of those individuals who committed crimes and tries to look at the nuance of each crime. And of course, juries do not like nuance, so that plays right up to the Menendez case.

Leslie is the best defense attorney in LA, so naturally she’s recruited to the case. She lets rip on Kyle in prison, pointing out all their biggest mistakes. However, the line “we alone know the secrets of our family’s past” is something that’s caught Leslie’s attention. She wants to know precisely what this means.

Erik can’t look her in the face, but Leslie believes he needs to talk to a therapist, Dr William Vicary. Unlike Oziel, he’s much more professional. This time, Erik admit there’s a proper reason behind why they killed their parents. Hearing this, Vicary immediately hands over the notes he’s taken to Leslie, who realizes they have a proper case here.

Erik admits that he was molested by Lyle when he was little but never blamed him. Why? Because Jose molested Lyle and then turned his attention to Erik and did the same thing to him.

Erik goes into sickening detail about the abuse, and hearing this confession, Leslie realizes this case is far bigger than she thought.

The Episode Review

That confession at the end, with Erik admitting to the abuse he and his brother suffered at the hands of Jose, now contextualizes the murders in a completely different light. It’s shocking and heartbreaking, but also adds more depth to Erik’s ties with Tony behind bars. These small additions are well implemented and add extra depth to this series.

The pacing overall has been solid too and seeing the contrasting fortunes of Lyle and Erik behind bars is well executed, especially how the pair deal with life in prison.

Everything here is poised on a tentative knife edge, and the next set of episodes promise to be even more dramatic.