But there’s a deeper reason to believe that their moments of untrustworthiness are not ultimately to be trusted, one that goes beyond even the testimony of the friends, family, teachers, and coaches who back them up and are ignored. Even in relatively mundane circumstances it can be hard to recall moments of great pain in exact detail, or tempting to strengthen your case by stretching or hiding the truth to back it up. Imagine if you’d had your brain repeatedly pulped against a wall of cruelty and abuse your entire life. 

If Lyle and Erik are liars, if they are weird, if they embellish and prevaricate and try to cover their tracks and their bases, if they are unsympathetic and unpredictable and hard to love, if they are killers, it’s because José and Kitty Menéndez made them that way. They lived in a monster factory, the end-product of which was two young men on a boat with their parents, sharing shotgun secrets, saying “Let’s fucking do it.” The monsters turned on their creators.

I reviewed the finale of the very impressive Monsters for Decider.

To borrow a phrase from George R.R. Martin, misogyny — like racism or transphobia or any other baseless hate — is a sword without a hilt. True, it’s a dangerous weapon, and you’re going to hurt your targets and hurt them bad. But there’s no safe way to swing a weapon like that without doing damage to yourself.

I reviewed the penultimate episode of Monsters for Decider.

But the real thing Dunne can’t wrap his mind around though is why they never told before, and why they lied after. There’s a simple reason for that, I think: Having not been sexually abused, he doesn’t understand the rancid cocktail of guilt, shame, doubt, and self-incrimination that results. He doesn’t get that people would rather lie to their friends, their therapist, and the cops than provide the excuse that could save them from the gas chamber until it was absolutely necessary to do so. 

I reviewed episode 7 of Monsters for Decider.

Are José and Kitty monsters? Yes. But they weren’t born that way. They were turned, like vampires. To put it another way, they were healthy, until they were exposed to their families’ nuclear waste. José can cut the boys in and out of his will however often he wants: He has already passed on their true inheritance, and the sickness is in their bones.

I reviewed the sixth episode of Monsters for Decider.

Written by series co-creator Ian Brennan, filmed by director Michael Uppendahl and cinematographer Jason McCormick, acted by Ari Graynor and Cooper Koch like people’s lives depended on it, “The Hurt Man” is one of the best episodes of television I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot. Jesus Christ Almighty. Absolutely breathtaking work. Absolutely harrowing work. Absolutely vital work.

I reviewed the fifth episode of Monsters for Decider. One of the hardest things I’ve ever written.

There’s no point in burying the lede: This episode of Monsters is the most unflinching, and therefore the most respectful, treatment of the sexual abuse of boys I’ve ever seen on television. I say it’s respectful for good reason. Without belaboring it — I’ve done that elsewhere — I am a child sexual abuse survivor myself. Unfortunately, so much of the rhetoric surrounding the fictional handling of lives like mine seems designed to make us feel we suffered a fate worse than death, something so horrible that decent filmmakers should neither depict nor discuss it in detail. But personally I’d rather be alive than dead, and I refuse to treat my experience as verboten. So does Monsters, and I’m very grateful for that.

I reviewed episode four of Monsters for Decider.