What time is Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story out on Netflix?
NetflixRyan Murphy’s back with Monster Season 2, officially titled Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. With its Netflix release date just around the corner, you’ll no doubt want to know exactly what time to tune in.
After all, even though the first season faced accusations of “romanticizing” cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, it was a global sensation. The true crime show joined the likes of Stranger Things and Squid Game by passing the billion-hour mark in viewing time.
Monster Season 2 is dramatizing a different case, focusing on brothers Erik and Lyle Menendez’s 1989 murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty. Among the many shocking details is the ongoing debate as to whether they were victims of abuse or cold-blooded killers.
As the Menendez brothers now fight for freedom while serving life in prison, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story will shed more light on their family life and the events leading up to the double-homicide.
Monster Season 2 release date & time
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story lands on Netflix on Thursday, September 19, at 12am PT / 3am ET.
All episodes will release on the streaming service at once, meaning you won’t have to wait a week for new installments to drop. We’ve listed several time zones below so you know exactly when to hop in:
- 12am PT
- 3am ET
- 4am Brazil
- 8am UK
- 9am Central European Summer Time
- 12:30pm India Standard Time
- 5pm Australia
- 7pm New Zealand
How many episodes are there?
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story has nine episodes in total. Although the runtime hasn’t been revealed, we can expect each episode to be between the 50-60 minute mark.
The episode titles are as follows:
- Episode 1: ‘Blame It On The Rain’
- Episode 2: ‘Spree’
- Episode 3: ‘Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?’
- Episode 4: ‘Kill Or Be Killed’
- Episode 5: ‘The Hurt Man’
- Episode 6: ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’
- Episode 7: ‘Showtime’
- Episode 8: ‘Seismic Shifts’
- Episode 9: ‘Hang Men’
The new chapter is different to Monster Season 1 in both subject matter and length, as the latter featured ten episodes as opposed to nine.
Monster Season 2 cast is packed with talent
The cast members playing Jose, Kitty, Kyle, and Erik Menendez are Javier Bardem, Chloë Sevigny, Cooper Koch, and Nicholas Chavez, respectively.
NetflixOther actors and their real-life counterparts include:
- Nathan Lane as Dominick Dunne, the investigative journalist who covered the trials
- Ari Graynor as Leslie Abramson, Erik’s lead counsel on the defense team
- Dallas Roberts as Dr. Jerome Oziel, Erik’s controversial therapist
- Leslie Grossman as Judalon Smyth, a former patient and mistress of Oziel, who initially sided with the prosecution before joining as a defense witness
- Jason Butler Harner as Les Zoeller, the Beverly Hills PD detective leading the murders case
- Enrique Murciano as Carlos Baralt, Lyle and Erik’s uncle and executor of the Menendez will
Bardem is bringing his acting talents to the role of the Menndez family patriarch, with previous credits including No Country for Old Men, Dune, and Mother!, to name a few.
Similarly, Sevigny has appeared in a wide range of revered movies and TV shows, from Gummo and Kids to American Psycho and American Horror Story.
Koch and Chavez are up and coming actors, with the Netflix series set to raise their profiles as they take on the titular roles. Koch has appeared in Swallowed and They/Them, while Chavez is best known as Spencer Cassadine on General Hospital.
What to expect from the Netflix show
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story will shed light on the brothers’ abuse claims, while dramatizing the events leading up to and following Jose and Kitty’s murders.
As per the official synopsis, “While the prosecution argued they were seeking to inherit their family fortune, the brothers claimed – and remain adamant to this day, as they serve life sentences without the possibility of parole – that their actions stemmed out of fear from a lifetime of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of their parents.
Netflix“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story dives into the historic case that took the world by storm, paved the way for audiences’ modern-day fascination with true crime, and in return asks those audiences: who are the real monsters?”
At a screening for the Netflix series, Murphy discussed (via IndieWire) the unexpected social media response and the “thousands and thousands and thousands of TikToks from young people, specifically young women, talking about the Lyle and Erik Menendez case.”
Co-creator Ian Brennan added, “I think one of the things is we finally have a vernacular to think about and discuss sex abuse and mental health that did not exist at the time.
“I was a kid when the case happened, and we didn’t have cable, so I wasn’t watching it on Court TV. I knew the case from Saturday Night Live, which the sketch is that they cried on the stand.
“That was the level of people wrapping their heads around this: ‘Oh, look at those guys. Look at those men crying on the stand.’ Not really a thought to why they might be crying. It was just not a sophisticated way of looking at trauma, which I think we just understand better now.”
A&EAs for what to expect from the show, Murphy discussed Dahmer, and how it examined “different forms of social injustice…. And I felt the same way about this season.
“This season was about abuse. Who is believed, who’s not believed… All the stuff in here, by the way, is true. We spent many, many, many years researching this. Things you really can’t make up.”
He highlighted how the anthology series is connected in its focus on “how monsters are made, as opposed to born.”
For more true crime news, read about the most shocking moments in Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter, whether Brenda Bowman was ever arrested, and how to watch the Huw Edwards documentary in the US.