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Two Netflix Menendez Projects, One Incomplete Story
Both Monsters and new documentary The Menendez Brothers omit and skew essential facts about the case.
The Ryan Murphy/Ian Brennan drama offers multiple explanations for the brothers’ motives, but the central one aligns with what prosecutors argued: that the siblings ruthlessly blew away their parents, José and Kitty Hernandez, with a pair of 12-gauge shotguns so they could inherit the family fortune. While the limited series extensively explores how the boys were molested and psychologically destroyed by their father, the documentary goes a step further by suggesting the pair should have been convicted of manslaughter rather than first-degree murder because they were victims who mentally snapped, not cold killers who premeditated the crime. Monsters certainly acknowledges this — in episode nine, one of their lawyers, Leslie Abramson, played by Ari Graynor, notes that L.A. County District Attorney Gil Garcetti is concerned about re-election and that is why “they are trying to gut our case” — but it doesn’t connect those dots as clearly as the documentary.
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