00:00Why did you kill your parents? Because we were afraid.
00:04Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the darkest moments from
00:08Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan's shocking true crime drama Monsters, the Lyle and Eric Menendez story.
00:14Given the disturbing real-life details of the Menendez case, viewer discretion is advised.
00:26Number 10. Lyle confronts Jose
00:29I know what's going on between you and Eric. What? What did you say?
00:32The elder Menendez brother, after having been arrested for the deaths of his parents,
00:36tearfully confesses to a childhood of unfathomable abuse.
00:40In one particularly painful moment, Lyle expresses disgust and regret at his own actions,
00:45especially with regard to how he claims to have treated his brother Eric.
00:48This is done. This is done. You understand? No more between you two.
00:54And you are never, never to touch him. Not ever.
00:58Lyle recalls a particular instance in which he confronted his father Jose
01:02and demanded that the latter put an end to Eric's abuse.
01:05While Lyle initially seems to have the upper hand,
01:08Jose flips the encounter by, as Lyle interprets it, threatening his son's lives.
01:13I mean, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you, Lyle, because finally you are doing something.
01:18Great! That's my boy. Good! Eric made his choice. You made your choice.
01:26Number 9. Athlete's Foot
01:41It's well known by this point that Eric Menendez was an aspiring tennis champion,
01:45showing a remarkable aptitude for it, and even at times competing on a professional level.
01:50Jose Menendez exploits this in multiple ways, not only putting grinding levels of
01:55pressure on both of his sons to excel, but using it as an opportunity to subject Eric
01:59to further abuse. I remember when you were a baby,
02:04the only thing, the only thing that would make you sleep was rubbing your feet, actually.
02:10They were so tiny, tiny, tiny.
02:12In this scene, Jose, in his domineering, condescending way, forces his younger son
02:16to endure a foot massage, during which Eric turns the tables on his father by
02:20informing him that he intends to become an actor. Jose doesn't take kindly to being disobeyed,
02:26and nefariously forces his son upstairs.
02:29I'm doing modeling and acting, and I'm gonna major in theater,
02:34because I did Shakespeare, Dad, and I'm a good actor. I'm not living here.
02:38I'm going to stay in the dorms. That's what I want to do.
02:40Number 8. The Wire
02:42Total game changer. Like, my bench press has gone up by like 50 pounds.
02:46It's really improved my performance on the court.
02:49Nice!
02:49And I, uh, I started seeing this girl.
02:54While the first season of Monsters stuck pretty closely to the horror genre,
02:58the second delves more into crime drama territory.
03:01That's no more apparent than in this scene from the season's second episode,
03:05in which Eric's old friend Craig Signorelli is recruited by local police
03:08in hopes of securing a confession to Kitty and Jose's slaying.
03:12I think with a few quick rewrites, like, we could totally sell it.
03:16Yeah, maybe.
03:17And now, you know, we could, uh, we could make it more believable.
03:21In a moment that feels like it's straight out of The Sopranos,
03:23Craig attempts to goad Eric into confessing to him again,
03:26using the excuse of dusting off their joint screenplay friends.
03:30Unfortunately for the authorities, Eric doesn't bite.
03:33But not before he puts the fright of a lifetime into Craig.
03:37Because there's no way that we could have done that,
03:39especially in the way that it happened.
03:43Do you think Lyle might have?
03:44No, Lyle didn't do it.
03:46Okay, it has.
03:46I was with him the whole night.
03:48Number 7.
03:49The Last Day.
03:50Meet me at the car.
03:50I need you to be there in one minute, okay?
03:52Stay calm.
03:53A running theme throughout Monsters is the unreliability of memory,
03:57and that no matter who's telling the story at hand,
04:00the viewers should take their statements with a grain of salt.
04:02This is no less true than when Lyle is asked to recount the final day
04:06that he and his brother Eric spent with their parents.
04:08Where are you going?
04:12We're just going to the movies.
04:13Oh, no, you're not.
04:14You're not leaving this house.
04:15We just want to go to the movies.
04:17You're staying right here, and you, Eric, get upstairs.
04:20As noted earlier in the show,
04:22part of the argument that makes up the brothers' defense
04:24is the fear that their father Jose would take drastic measures
04:27if they came forward about their abuse.
04:30In Lyle's recounting, the two are stopped by Kitty and Jose
04:33before being brutally executed by them.
04:35Leslie Abramson, Eric's lawyer,
04:37quickly notes that this is not what occurred in reality.
04:41Your brother is my son and I can do whatever I want with him.
04:43Move away.
04:46Kitty attempts to find the truth.
04:48I love you, Jose.
04:52I love you.
04:54Okay.
04:55It was honestly difficult to decide between this bone-chilling scene
04:58or the one immediately before it,
05:00in which Jose's fear of STDs results in Kitty inspecting Eric for them.
05:05Ultimately, we had to go with the moment in which Kitty
05:07uncharacteristically attempts to openly communicate with Jose.
05:11I need to know what's going on with you and the boys.
05:16What do you mean?
05:19Do you have...
05:22proclivities?
05:23While it's clear that as seen in the rest of the show,
05:26Kitty wouldn't dare to betray or defy her husband,
05:29this scene depicts her mustering up the courage
05:31to take a stand against Jose's abuse.
05:33Of course, Jose, ever the master manipulator,
05:36turns the tables on Kitty, gaslighting her once again
05:39and demonstrating that twisted, deceitful behavior
05:41comes naturally to him.
05:43Oh my god, are you drunk?
05:45You must be drunk in order to ask this kind of question.
05:48Are you?
05:48Tonight? No, I'm not.
05:54No, I never do that.
06:00I'm different from most of your clients.
06:04I don't do this much.
06:07You'd be surprised.
06:08The source of the Menendez family's seemingly vast wealth,
06:12Jose Menendez, as played by Javier Bardem,
06:15frequently contrasts his difficult upbringing
06:17with that of his sons,
06:18whom he considers to be spoiled, lazy, and entitled.
06:21The elder Menendez, as described by Eric and Lyle,
06:24denies that his abuse of them
06:25is in any way related to sexuality.
06:28Instead, he compares it to Greco-Roman, quote, bonding.
06:32What do you know about ancient Rome?
06:34The Greeks, the Spartans,
06:36they created this man in different ways than we do now.
06:42In one scene, Menendez is seen closing a deal
06:45to sign Puerto Rican boy band Menudo to RCA Records.
06:48In the next, Jose celebrates by hiring a young male escort,
06:52donning winged headgear
06:54that evokes the aforementioned Greco-Romans.
06:56The tense, chilling scene gives the audience
06:58a disturbing look into what it is
07:00that makes Jose Menendez tick.
07:02Oh, bring it on!
07:04Bring it on!
07:05Yeah! Yeah!
07:07Number four, Lyle opens up to Leslie Abramson.
07:11Why didn't you tell anybody about the abuse by your father?
07:17You're telling us everything else,
07:19but you're not telling us that.
07:21If you didn't think things had gotten real up to this point,
07:24chances are they started to sink in at this point.
07:27Following a series of scenes
07:28in which the viewer is given glimpses
07:30of Jose Menendez's verbal and emotional abuse of his son Lyle,
07:34kill or be killed goes all in on the allegations
07:37that formed a substantial part
07:38of the Menendez brothers' defense.
07:40Told my cousin she was living with us,
07:44and I wanted to sleep in the basement with her
07:49so that my dad couldn't come down there.
07:51One of the most stomach-churning scenes
07:53in a series full of them
07:54is hearing about the alleged abuse
07:56that Lyle suffered cuts right to the bone,
07:59in no small part thanks to up-and-comer Nicholas Chavez's
08:02captivating, intensely lived-in performance.
08:06She couldn't even understand what I was saying.
08:10How old were you when this started?
08:12Six, I think.
08:14Number three, Lyle takes the stand.
08:16Why did you kill your parents?
08:19Because we were afraid.
08:21Lyle Menendez's testimony is hard to take,
08:23even if viewers are familiar with the details
08:26of his alleged abuse at the hands of his parents,
08:28but particularly his father Jose.
08:30What makes Lyle's time on the stand
08:32even more difficult to watch, though,
08:33is seeing his confident, braggadocious facade melt away.
08:36Once again, Nicholas Chavez shines
08:39as Lyle's over-the-top persona begins to crack,
08:41revealing the depraved depths of the behavior
08:43that Jose exposed him to.
08:45We can't help but feel sympathy for Lyle,
08:47particularly because of his climactic,
08:49tearful apology to brother Eric.
08:51Admittedly, some may feel differently about this scene,
08:54especially given the nature of Lyle's correspondences
08:57with his so-called friend, Norma Novelli.
09:04Number two, the entire fifth episode.
09:07Well, that's when I had Coach Wadlington.
09:09I was six when I started with him,
09:11and I remember it was happening around then,
09:16or, well, the massages did.
09:19How long did it take you to realize
09:21that this episode was going to be executed
09:23as a single jaw-dropping take,
09:25showcasing the mighty acting talents
09:26of Cooper Koch and Ari Grainer?
09:28In any case, it's inarguable that this creative choice
09:31produced one of the best television episodes of 2024.
09:35Well, I knew that my dad didn't like me.
09:39How do you mean?
09:40Just, he was always so mean.
09:44You know, he loved Lyle, but he didn't love me.
09:48Over 40 harrowing minutes,
09:50Leslie Abramson peels back the layers
09:52of Eric Menendez's years of hurt and trauma.
09:55The Hurt Man speaks to the show's larger themes
09:57in raw, heartbreaking fashion,
09:59contrasting the public's hunger for sordid details
10:02with the anguish of the real-life figures
10:04at the heart of the case.
10:05I can't tell what I am,
10:06and I never will be able to tell,
10:08is what I'm saying.
10:09And yeah, maybe I am a sociopath,
10:11and maybe I should have got AIDS,
10:13and maybe I'll only like it this way,
10:14because with girls, it was like,
10:16how could I even know?
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10:34Number 1. Executing the Plan
10:36So, it was set.
10:39And it was Sunday.
10:42So we had to do it then.
10:44The inciting incident
10:45that sets the series' wheels into motion,
10:48you might not be shocked to find
10:49this act of extreme violence atop our list.
10:52The scene in which the Menendez brothers
10:54take their parents' lives,
10:55as written by monstrous showrunners
10:57Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan,
10:58and expertly directed by Carl Franklin,
11:01is at once both gripping and appalling.
11:04Are we really going to do this?
11:11Yeah.
11:12The filmmakers depict the events
11:13of August 20th, 1989
11:15so brutally and so viscerally
11:17that you almost can't believe
11:19Netflix let them get away with it.
11:20The fallout of the brothers' infamous crime
11:22set the stage for the rest of Monsters,
11:24and cast a shadow over the nascent 90s.
11:27Okay, let's go do this right now.
11:30Which Monsters moment shocked you the most?
11:32Let us know in the comments below.
11:34We know what we have to do now.
11:37What?
11:41We have to kill him.
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