After four episodes exploring the difficult lives of Lyle and Erik Menendez, Netflix’s ‘Monsters’ undergoes an intense style change in the fifth episode.
The 33-minute segment, titled ‘The Hurt Man’, plays out in one take, as Erik (Cooper Koch) gives a detailed, emotional account of the child abuse he suffered. Erik’s speech comes after he and his brother are arrested for the murder of their parents Jose and Kitty (Javier Bardem and Chloe Sevigny), during a conversation with his lawyer Leslie Abramson (Ari Graynor).
It’s a striking departure for the series, splitting the nine-episode season with a noticeably shorter episode that gives Erik an uninterrupted spotlight to articulate the darkness at the heart of the story – but also deprives him of the support of his elders brother, Lyle (Nicholas Chavez). In her review of the series, Variety TV critic Aramide Tinubu called “The Hurt Man” a “highlight” of the series and the culmination of an “excellent” first half of the story.
With no cuts or edits to the episode, and Abramson’s character seen only from behind, “Monsters” rests on Koch’s shoulders for those 36 minutes.
“We shot it eight times – four times a day for two days,” Graynor said. “We had a big rehearsal planned. Cooper and I had played it a few times by ourselves, just to do it out loud, and then we did it in rehearsal. I think we had both spent so much time preparing and cared about it so much that we walked into the room and did it once and Michael Uppendahl, our wonderful director, said, ‘Let’s not rehearse it, let’s just film it .’
Koch remembered the rehearsal: “It was so beautiful. It went better than I could have imagined.”
However, he didn’t feel the same way when they shot the first two takes. “I went to Michael and said, ‘I need help. I have to figure out why I’m not unlocking it, or what I’m not getting,” Koch recalls. “And he says, ‘You’re chasing the dragon, you’re chasing the dragon of that first rehearsal. So move on to the next one and just keep an open mind for Ari. Be open to what she will say. Find light in everything you can and try to defend your parents.’ That really opened everything up. I felt great after the third shot.
The eighth and final take is the one featured in the episode. “To look [Cooper] That was extraordinary, and we got through it every time. We never stopped, there were no problems,” Graynor said. “Every time it was completely different. I think we both knew what an incredible gift it was as actors, and also that episode was so much bigger than us. We just really wanted to make space for Erik’s story and for me, as Leslie, to model that kind of listening and love that I think she gives him.”
Koch became emotional when talking about working with Graynor. “The fact that you don’t see her face, you just hear her voice, and she carries him through the whole thing and holds space for him, Ari is just so generous with her performances,” he said, holding back tears wiped from his face. .
“I’m sorry,” he said. “This happens every time I talk about her.”
Murphy said he and co-creator Ian Brennan were determined to let Erik tell his side of the story. “Everything he said in there was based on things he had said, written, discussed, written transcripts, etc., so it was very true to his position,” he explained. “When we were writing it, I thought the most powerful way to do this would be to do it in one take, so you couldn’t look away. You just couldn’t look away.”
Murphy said, “You could have heard a pin drop” while they were shooting. He praised Graynor’s performance as “incredible backacting.”
“They were both so committed to what they were talking about and basically gave victims of sexual abuse their day in court,” he said.
Shortly after the series premiered on Netflix, Erik condemned “Monsters” and Murphy for its “ruinous character portrayals” of himself and his brother. The siblings are currently serving life sentences at the RJ Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, California, after being convicted of murdering their parents in 1996.
In his interview with VarietyMurphy defended the series, saying the show is “the best thing to happen to the brothers in “30 years.”
Koch met the brothers after the series premiere during a prison visit with Kim Kardashian. He believes the brothers deserve a new trial: “I really hope they can get parole and have a great rest of their lives.”