Monster Doesn't Know When to Quit

"Much like the other installments of Monster, you can guess the point The Ed Gein Story is making: We don't know the full story of killer Ed Gein, and maybe if we did, we'd sympathize instead of judging him, and we'd better understand America, its crassness and consumerism. Creators Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy aren't implicating themselves in that formula, of course, because they're doing the important work of pointing out all the other filmmakers, law-enforcement authorities, and media professionals who spun the Gein story"

"But their pointed fingers would feel a little cleaner if they weren't delivered alongside lengthy scenes of Charlie Hunnam's Gein having sex with a corpse or dancing around in the snow while wearing a suit made of women's skin. Brennan and Murphy could've ended the season with its fourth episode, which features its most insightful observations about the United States' blinkered perspective on political violence."

"The pair's routine basically goes like this: She screams at him that he should never have sex, catches him masturbating while wearing her underwear and choking himself with a belt, then screams some more Bible quotes at him until the cycle starts again. Ed's repressed and lonely, a cowed boy trapped in a broad-shouldered man's body, and Hunnam's falsetto-voiced, wide-eyed performance is a little bit Lennie from Of Mice and Men, a little bit Gollum from The Lord of the Rings."

Monster: The Ed Gein Story presents Ed Gein's life, emphasizing his abusive upbringing on a failing Wisconsin farm under his religious mother Augusta (Laurie Metcalf). Charlie Hunnam portrays Gein with a falsetto, wide-eyed performance likened to Lennie and Gollum. Creators Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy foreground how filmmakers, law enforcement, and media shaped the Gein myth. The series stages explicit scenes—necrophilia and a suit of women's skin—that conflict with its critique of sensationalism. Episode four delivers the season's sharpest observations on America's blinkered perspective on political violence. The series flirts with a thought-provoking critique of cultural complacency but ultimately overstays its welcome.

Read at Vulture