Netflix’s ‘Monster: The Ed Gein Story’ Forgives the Unforgivable

The good news about Monster: The Ed Gein Story is that Ryan Murphy barely had anything to do with the writing and directing of it. Max Winkler (son of Fonzi) keeps the story on track for the most part, and we are not subjected to an endless parade of new characters and disturbing storylines to keep track of, unlike in a typical Ryan Murphy series.

There are some sharp detours examining Gein’s influence on pop culture. Time is spent on the set of Psycho with Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Perkins. And we eavesdrop on the rumored relationship Perkins had with Tab Hunter. Murphy loves rummaging around in Hollywood’s closet. The Ed Gein Story allows him and the other showrunners to link Perkins to Gein when Hitchcock bullies the actor into taking the role in Psycho because he has “a secret that’s not unlike Gein’s”. Did that conversation happen in real life? Who knows. Probably not. Comparing Gein’s schizophrenia-driven murder spree to being homosexual is a nasty piece of work, but it’s probably a historically accurate sentiment.

We’re also given some insight into Gein’s influence on Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs. Not with the same depth as the link to Psycho, but Winkler and the writers chose the most horrifying imagery from both to connect them to Gein.

Charlie Hunnam gives a mesmerizing performance as the soft-spoken serial killer. It will, briefly, make you rethink your lingering attraction to him from his time on Sons of Anarchy. He spends most of the series embodying an isolated man who has been physically and psychologically abused by his mother (Laurie Metcalf, giving a memorably terrifying performance), and suffering from schizophrenic hallucinations. He carries himself like a meek man would, shoulders round, head down. Overly polite and unable to voice a strong opinion, he easily resorts to violence, which he then disassociates from. Leaving his primary self blameless in all of the horrors he committed. My God, there were so many horrors.

I don’t think it needs to be said that The Ed Gein Story is not for the faint of heart. They do not shy away from the grotesque nature of his crimes, from the horrific nature of the WWII war crimes that influenced him, and the later spree killers whom he possibly influenced.

And, although we may never know exactly how many people Ed Gein killed and mutilated, it’s safe to say it’s a number greater than the two he was convicted of killing.

Suzanna Son (The Idol) also turns in a strong and deeply disturbing performance as Adeline Watkins, who is portrayed as Gein’s girlfriend in the series. Watkins was a real person who initially claimed to have been in a serious relationship with Ed Gein for 20 years. However, she later recanted that story, perhaps out of fear of the scrutiny she faced after the full nature of his crimes was revealed. In the Netflix series, Son portrays Watkins as a deeply disturbed woman, obsessed with true crime and crime scene photography. It’s implied that she was aware, to some extent, of Gein’s “hobbies” and gave tacit approval of them when she thought her career might benefit from them.

The problem is, none of that is true.

That’s the bad news. A lot of Monster: The Ed Gein Story isn’t true. No one was expecting documentary-level, or even True Crime series levels of honesty from a Ryan Murphy production (I hope.) But some of the creative license they took with The Ed Gein Story is unnecessary. While it’s obvious Murphy does his research, he loves to extrapolate and embellish on the truth for greater shock value. Watkins’ characterization and her exaggerated relationship with Gein is just one example of that.

We follow the story of Gein’s crimes and the effects they had on his community closely for the first six episodes or so. The last two episodes veer wildly into a world of complete fiction that attempts to humanize both Gein and Ilsa Koch, the Nazi “Kommandeuse of Buchenwald,” whom Gein was obsessed with and fantasized about.

There’s a made-up scenario in which Gein assists the newly created FBI behavioral unit with catching Ted Bundy. It is not the Mindhunter reboot we’ve been waiting for, and it feels insulting to the work done on that series.

But perhaps the most insulting part of the series’s attempt to make us feel something other than contempt and disgust for Gein is the ending, where Ed Gein, the Butcher of Plainfield, dies and is depicted in pure white, ascending a glowing staircase into the arms of his mother. She is also clad in white and is finally proud of him for making something of himself and leaving such a huge footprint in the world.

What?

My flabbers were ghasted and I’m still not over it. If there is a heaven, no one who did the things that Ed Gein did is going there. No one who did the things that Ed Gein did deserves to have an everlasting life of peace in the bosom of his mother’s love. I am offended by the idea that creators Murphy, Winkler, and Ian Brennan thought it was a good idea to use the conclusion of Monster: The Ed Gein Story to imply that Gein is deserving of forgiveness at a cosmic level. They could have stopped at episode six, when he was finally caught, and written a postscript about how he died in an asylum. I would have written a review about how they took liberties with the story, but ultimately turned in a series worth watching based on Hunnam’s performance alone. But they took it too far, as Murphy almost always does.

In an interview with Netflix’s Tudum, Hunnam explained that the show asked an important question:

Who was the monster? This poor boy who was abused his whole life and then left in total isolation, suffering from undiagnosed mental illness? Or the legion of people who sensationalized his life for entertainment and arguably darkened the American psyche and the global psyche in the process?

That’s a valid question that deserves examination. But that examination doesn’t need to include the blanket of forgiveness the showrunners draped over Gein’s shoulders in the final episodes of the series. It’s also bold of him to credit pop culture for “darkening the American psyche.” Pop Culture is a mirror of society’s fears and desires, not the cause of them. It also exempts Murphy et al from being party to sensationalizing Gein’s life when they might be the most egregious perpetrators.

All episodes of Monster: The Ed Gein Story are available on Netflix.