Season 4 of Monster just came out, but showrunner Ian Brennan is already weighing in on whether The Lizzie Borden Story offered a hint at who will be the next focus of the show.
“No [it does not], but we’ve ended up doing that in the past,” Brennan, 48, exclusively told Us before Monster started streaming on Netflix Thursday, September 17.
Brennan recalled several previous teases, saying, “The Ed Gein Easter egg in [Jeffrey] Dahmer, we didn’t know at the time. It’s because these things are always on our minds. Then sometimes you see a little glimpse of that other story and you’re like, ‘That’s really interesting.’”
He continued: “John Wayne Gacy shows up in Dahmer as well in a way to contrast because Dahmer was a very troubled, dark soul, but he wasn’t a sadist. A lot of things he was, but he wasn’t a sadist — and that’s all Gacy was. Gacy was just human garbage.”
Brennan reflected on the show’s journey so far.
“It’s interesting these sequences of murderers. You end up sort of forming an emotional opinion about them when you work on them,” he noted. “That’s the most interesting part of the process of growing to like these people. It’s strange, and that was unexpected.”
Ryan Murphy‘s Monster has spotlighted some of the most infamous true crime cases with the first season centered on Evan Peters‘ portrayal of Dahmer. Peters, 39, later opened up about how his mental health was affected after taking on the complicated role.
“I’m going to take a little break from darker roles and explore the light,” he told Variety in December 2022. “It would be interesting to me to play something that is a little closer to home, a little more mundane and to explore the details of those kinds of experiences.”
The actor subsequently earned a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Dahmer.
“Doing the role, I wanted to give it 120 percent the whole way through, so I brought in a lot of darkness and negativity,” he explained on a panel in November 2022. “It was just having that end goal in sight, knowing when we were going to wrap and finally being able to breathe and let it go and say, ‘OK, now it’s time to bring in the joy and the lightness and watch comedies and romances and go back to St. Louis and see my family and friends and watch Step Brothers.’”
Season 2 made headlines as well when subject Erik Menendez slammed Murphy’s portrayal of him and brother Lyle Menendez. Murphy, however, stood by his work and even argued that Monsters created renewed support in the Menendez case.
Monster continued on with Charlie Hunnam taking on the role of Gein while Laurie Metcalf was cast as Gein’s mother and Tom Hollander played Alfred Hitchcock. Season 4, meanwhile, centered on Ella Beatty‘s role as Lizzie Borden.
Monster is streaming on Netflix.
