Criminal Adaptations

Monster: The Ed Gein Story - Part 2 (Bonus Episode)

• Criminal Adaptations • Season 5 • Episode 7

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This week we conclude our Halloween bonus series on Ed Gein by talking about episodes five through eight of Monster: The Ed Gein Story. How did this season compare to the last two and what creative liberties were taken to bring Ed Gein’s story to our TV screens? Listen now to find out.

You can stream the full season of Monster: The Ed Gein Story on Netflix.

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Theme: DARKNESS (feat. EdKara) by Ghost148


Sheriff :

My head?

Ed Gein:

Yes.

Sheriff :

Did you kill Bernice Warden? I don't remember. Did you kill Mary Hope? I don't remember. Did you kill Ray Burgess and Victor Travis? No.

New Broadcast :

Did you kill an eight-year-old girl?

Sheriff :

Georgia Jean Weckler? No, I didn't. Did you kill your brother, Ed?

Ed Gein:

He died in a fire. Asphyxiation, Lisa. Broke Mother's Heart.

Remi:

And welcome back, everyone, to part three of our special bonus Edgean series that we're doing here. That's not how we initially planned things, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Thank you all so much for joining us here today. If you haven't listened to the previous episodes, we would highly recommend that you do that before listening to this one. And if you have listened to those episodes, please leave a like, a comment, tell a friend, spread the word. It always helps. Ashley, how are you doing today?

Ashley:

I'm doing great. And man, I am relieved that we are finally coming to a close on our coverage of Ed Geen. This turned out to be a much bigger endeavor and experience than we were initially intending or anticipating.

Remi:

Agreed. I am Ed Geened out, but we still have four episodes to go in this Ryan Murphy series. We are not gonna catch everyone up on the first four episodes. We're gonna assume that you guys have already listened to that previous podcast. So should we just dive right in to episode five of Monster the Ed Gean Story? Titled Ice.

Ashley:

We should. You are going to hell! Well, I'll make sure to keep House for your son when I'm there. I'm gonna laugh at your funeral. My tagline for this episode is Winter New York City may be cold, but nothing is as chilly as Adeline.

Remi:

My tagline for this episode is the age of Adeline.

Ashley:

That's good. That's the one you were sitting on for a little bit.

Remi:

The second Adeline showed up, I was waiting for the episode focusing on her to use this tagline, and yep, this is the Adeline episode. We don't really get a backstory, but we get a full taste of the kind of person Adeline is. And spoiler alert, she is a terrible person.

Ashley:

Also, with this episode, I want to point out that I have zero similarities and differences. This is all just thoughts and what the fuck moments. This episode, we just go even further into Crazy Bill than the last one, which is kind of hard to believe.

Remi:

That's been a pattern with this series so far. And this episode starts with Adeline banging some random dude we've never seen before up in her bedroom at her parents' house, and she's apparently been seeing this other dude for quite some time now behind Ed's back. Downstairs, Adeline tells her mom that she doesn't want to be a homemaker or a housewife, so Adeline's mom bitch slaps the shit out of Adeline. And Adeline wants to move out and be on her own, but doesn't have any money, so she has to stay home and do what her mom says, which is prepare for life as a homemaker or a housewife. Back at Ed's place, Ed skins women's corpses while Adeline watches and takes pictures. You know, couple's goals. Ed also really wants to have sex with Adeline, which I keep forgetting they haven't done yet, but Adeline keeps making up excuses. Which brings us to the sewing circle lady, Eleanor Adams. Adeline is forced by her mother to attend a sewing circle hosted by Eleanor, who is a local woman whose gatherings Adeline deeply detests. And FYI, a sewing circle, is a group of people, typically women, who meet regularly to sew or craft together, often for charitable causes such as making garments for those in need, or supporting social movements like anti-slavery or missionary work.

Ashley:

Well, and this is also kind of portrayed as Eleanor teaching younger women how to be good wives. Because they don't only gossip or sew. Eleanor teaches them how to make a candle.

Remi:

Yeah, in the next scene, Eleanor is teaching all the ladies how to make candles. And she also coughs a few times, which is always a sign of impending death from sickness in any movie or TV show.

Ashley:

And I don't know what Adeline has against candles, but she is not having this.

Remi:

Yeah, Adeline begins making some suggestive references to the candle, insinuating that they're dicks, and gets kicked out by Eleanor. On her way out, Adeline promises to laugh at Eleanor's funeral.

Ashley:

And in the next scene, she does just that.

Remi:

Yeah, it's a hard cut to Adeline wearing all red, laughing her ass off at Eleanor's funeral, to the point where her mom even says something to her. I mean, Adeline is really getting a kick out of everything here.

Ashley:

But Adeline doesn't stop there. She has much darker intentions for how to get her quote-unquote revenge on poor, poor Eleanor.

Remi:

Later that night, while driving with Ed, Adeline says that she's going to move to New York City, and invites Ed to come along with her. But Ed is a simple man with simple dreams, who just couldn't imagine life living in the big city. He's never even been outside of Wisconsin. Ed does, however, still desperately want to bone Adeline, leading to the following scene.

Adeline:

That needs to be my choice to do something like that with somebody, and you're taking my choice away.

Ed Gein:

You're the one that was pushing me for it. I just got nervous because of mother and then like distracted, thinking she was gonna holler at me, but I'm not worried about that anymore. I'm sorry, Eddie. I'm just not ready. But what is Sam Heck am I supposed to do?

Remi:

As a compromise, Adeline suggests that Ed start banging corpses as a substitute for her while she's away in New York.

Ashley:

And she knows just the corpse he should start with.

Remi:

Adeline takes Ed to a graveyard where she specifically picks out the fresh grave of Eleanor Adams for Ed to dig up and defile. This is quite the vindictive revenge for a woman that was just trying to teach her how to make candles.

Ashley:

I do not understand why this character acts so differently around Ed compared to everyone else in her life. It does not make sense to me. This motivation is not articulated at all.

Remi:

And I don't want to poo-poo the actress, but I don't think the actress is very good either. Adeline is just a nasty, awful, twisted character who, yeah, doesn't really have any motivation behind what she's doing. She's just twisted and fucked up just because. From here, Adeline moves to New York City for a supposed job interview with famed photographer Ouija, portrayed by Elliot Gould.

Ashley:

And he is a real person. He was a photographer and photojournalist who became known for his stark black and white street photography in New York City. He developed his signature style by following the city's emergency services and documenting their activity. Most of his work depicted realistic scenes of urban life, crime, injury, and death. He published photography books and actually worked in cinema. He collaborated with directors such as Jack Donahue and Stanley Kubrick. Fun fact, if any of you have seen Doctor Strange Love, the accent of Doctor Strange Love was actually based on photographer Ouija. Many believed that the nickname Ouija was a phonetic rendering of the Ouija board because of Ouija's instant and seemingly mystical ability to suddenly arrive at crime scenes.

Remi:

Ouija is an interesting choice of name. It makes me think of Squeegee, like what you use to get stuff off your windshield. It's just a funny word to me. No offense to anyone out there named Ouija.

Ashley:

So he actually did have a nickname of Squeegee Boy when he was in school because of his earliest job being in the photo lab, so it was a reference to like wiping down prints. His real name is Asher Fellig.

Remi:

Okay, so it wasn't too far off with the whole Squeegee reference there. Back to our story, Adeline has her meeting with Mr. Ouija and shows him some of her photographs. You know, the one she's been taking of the dead bodies that Edgeen has been carving up in his free time. However, Ouija does not react to Adeline's work how she had hoped. He basically says that she has no talent and that she must be the sole resident of a small town called No Talentville.

Ashley:

It's actually pretty funny, because she asks him to like repeat it, because she's kind of flabbergasted at what he's saying. And not only does he repeat it, he repeats it slowly with more descriptions. So he's really telling her, Well, I asked if you were from a town called No Talentsville, and if you are the only person that lives there. Photographer Luigi just schools Adeline.

Remi:

It's also kind of funny because when she first shows up to the meeting, his response to her is, Why do you keep writing me so many letters? So it seems like she basically pestered this guy into having a meeting with her, and he just shut her down immediately. So Adeline is forced to go back to her freezing apartment in New York City, which doesn't come with heat or water because she cannot afford it.

Ashley:

It is so cold, her tears freeze to her face.

Remi:

And that is the last draw for Adeline. She is pretty pissed that it's so cold, her tears are freezing on her face. So she goes down to complain to the landlady. They get into an altercation, and Adeline ends up beating the landlady with her shoe and robbing her. Meanwhile, back in Wisconsin, we get a scene of Ed wooing Eleanor's corpse, as if it were a date.

Ashley:

And the next 10 to 15 minutes are just so disturbing. All my notes are like, oh my god, no, gross, no, this is disturbing. I hate this.

Remi:

Ed seems like a bashful person on a first-time date with this corpse. Ed offers her some Chianti, which is of course a Silence of the Lambs reference.

Ashley:

Speaking of Silence of the Lambs, there are moths flying in the corner of the screens throughout this entire episode. Before this, we've really only had one moth, and now they are not all over the place, as they will be in the next episode, but they are noticeable. So Remy and I at this point are thinking we're getting into the Silence of the Lambs part of this movie, where we will have a little scene of Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Demi and a young Jodie Foster.

Remi:

Yeah, I'm waiting for it at this point. They keep dropping all of these subtle, well, not so subtle hints about it, but that's not where we end up in this or the next episode. We then get Ed playing the lovely song Love Vienne Rose on the accordion, serenading the corpse on the table. Then Ed has sex with Eleanor's corpse. It is needlessly graphic, it is needlessly long, and I am not happy I ever saw it in the first place.

Ashley:

And unfortunately, this will not be the last time we see Ed Gean in a compromising position with poor, poor Miss Eleanor.

Remi:

We then cut back to Ashley's favorite character, the bitch of Buckenwald, Ilsa Koch.

Ashley:

And I'm very mad at this point. I hate this character. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

Remi:

She wasn't in episode four, and I remember you saying that was your favorite episode so far because there were no scenes of this Nazi lady.

Ashley:

It's just completely unnecessary.

Remi:

It really doesn't have much to do with anything, especially knowing what we know now after the research from our previous episode, that a lot of these accusations turned out to not be substantiated in any way. So she was a cruel, horrible woman who was awful to Jewish internment camp prisoners. But the stuff about her making the lamps and other things of that nature were never proven.

Ashley:

And if you want to still include this character, just show a prolonged scene of him reading the comics that he has or reading something about her, and that's all you need.

Remi:

Yes, this is the fourth episode she's been out of five so far, which is a lot for this character. That again has nothing to do with anything.

Ashley:

And we certainly do not need the scene that comes to send this character off.

Remi:

We see Ilsa being captured and tried for her crimes, then imprisoned. While imprisoned, she apparently starts having sex with one of the prison guards on a regular enough basis to claim that she has been impregnated. Now, the real story of Ilsa Koch's downfall was that she was convicted in the 1947 U.S. Buckenwald trials for crimes against humanity. Her initial trial took place at the former Daschu concentration camp in Germany, conducted by an American military court.

Ashley:

And we just visited there.

Remi:

We did. We just recently had a trip to Germany, and this was amongst the places that we visited. It was a very powerful, moving experience.

Ashley:

It was one of the first internment camps. It was kind of like Hitler's prototype for all of the ones to come, and it was one that a lot of prisoners actually started at. So if you ever find yourself in Munich, we highly recommend you paying a visit. It only took us about 50 minutes, maybe an hour, to get there via public transportation.

Remi:

Well, back to the true story of Ilsa. She is sentenced to life imprisonment that is later reduced, then reinstated by German courts. She died of suicide in prison in 1967. So 20 years after she was initially imprisoned. And there's no reports of her being impregnated by any guards.

Ashley:

And Remy's leaving out a very disturbing part. As Ilsa is being essentially raped by this prison guard because she is not in a position where she can provide consent. We also flash to Ed having sex with deceased Eleanor, insinuating, not even insinuating, telling her that he is fantasizing about Ilsa Kodch. And at this point in the episode, I am thinking, is Charlie Hunnam's career gonna survive this?

Remi:

It is one of those scenes that makes you look at everyone else in the room and be like, should we keep watching this?

Ashley:

There are also buzzing sounds and a couple minutes where he's like spraying her with perfume. So it is being made explicitly clear here that Eleanor is decomposing.

Remi:

There's also flashes of his mother during this scene, and there's flashes of the living Eleanor's body in place of the corpse during several parts. It's very distasteful and unnecessary, and it didn't happen.

Ashley:

Especially because it didn't happen. It would be distasteful to put this in if it did happen, but it didn't.

Remi:

Yeah, this is just another reminder that Edgean did not have sex with any of the corpses that he dug up. At least there was no evidence found of that.

Ashley:

But, anyways, back to Adeline coming back because we end here on another just very disturbing interaction.

Remi:

Slowly creeping towards the finale of this episode, Adeline returns to Plainfield, and she is none too happy about it. She goes back home for dinner with her mom, and they are both drinking milk, which I always feel the need to point out. It's only creepy characters drinking milk or infantile characters drinking milk in movies. A lot of the times it's serial killers or psychopaths that are drinking milk.

Ashley:

You think mom would be thrilled to see sweet, sweet daughter Adeline, but she's really not.

Remi:

Not at all. In fact, mom basically hates Adeline and tells her the story of how when she was pregnant with Adeline, she used to throw herself down the stairs over and over and over again, attempting to miscarry. And she tops it all off by calling Adeline a batshit Nimrod daughter, amongst other things.

Ashley:

And at this point, I'm asking myself, why are all the moms in not just this season, but this entire series so horrible?

Remi:

So from here, Adeline, furious at her mom, runs over to Ed's place and basically throws herself at him, finally ready to consummate their impending marriage. Another reminder that Ed and Adeline are engaged.

Ashley:

But at this point, Ed wants nothing to do with Adeline, at least sexually.

Remi:

Yeah, Ed won't go through with it because Adeline's body feels too warm. So the episode ends with Adeline taking an ice bath to lower her body temperature.

Ashley:

And that brings us to episode six, Buxom Bird.

Ed Gein:

Oh, I sure could use a slice apple pie.

Ashley:

Let's just sit down and we can talk about it. Remy, what is your tagline for episode six?

Remi:

My tagline for this episode is Frank Discussions. What is your tagline, Ashley?

Ashley:

It is also about Frank. Mine is Frank Warden's Thanksgiving Plans Are Disrupted.

Remi:

Now this episode opens with Bernice Warden and her son, Deputy Sheriff Frank Warden, played by Charlie Hall. They are planning a Thanksgiving together. Frank has been feeling really lonely lately and wants to have a family Thanksgiving with his mom. And mom is not on board at first, but she gives in and they are happy to start planning this joyous family event together. The next time we see Frank, he is with his partner, Sheriff Arthur Schley, played by Tyler Jacob Moore. And they are popping into his mother's hardware store sometime later during the morning. What they find there is blood-streaked floors and a missing cash register. But that's not all. Frank discovers a note written by his mother to Ed Gean in the back room of the shop, which she had included with her gifted pair of underwear.

Ashley:

So we're getting some similarities and differences here. Frank Warden was the person who found the crime scene after his mother was killed by Ed Gean, but he was by himself. He went to the shop after the opening day of hunting season. And it was not a box of gifted undergarments that led deputies to Ed Geen. It was a receipt written for Antifreeze.

Remi:

And that is the end of the opening part of this episode. And it is by far the tamest opening the show has had so far. I was actually pretty impressed. From here, Frank and Arthur follow up on the lead back to Edgeen's home. They let themselves inside through the unlocked front door, and the place is disgusting and filthy, and there are moths everywhere, and I mean everywhere. There is like thousands of moths fluttering around this place. Exploring deeper into the home, they discover fingernails on the kitchen table, a few skin lamps here and there, a nearly complete woman suit hanging on a clothing line, several skin masks, a pile of guts on the floor, and last but not least, a human heart boiling on the stove.

Ashley:

And at this point, I'm thinking they better have had a warrant to be able to stroll into the house, or none of this shit would be admissible.

Remi:

Ashley, I said the door was unlocked.

Ashley:

I know, but they went in without permission, and there was nothing outside that they could have seen that would have drawn their attention inside the house where it would have been okay for them to go in, and they really didn't have any suspicion that he had anything to do with Bernice's murder, other than this note that wasn't even a note, it just said Eddie.

Remi:

Well, Frank is pretty desperate to find his mom. He is really torn to pieces about her being missing. He is in denial that she is dead, but after making the discoveries in Gean's home, they call what appears to be every single police officer in the entire state of Wisconsin, who all come swarming Gean's home, searching inside, taking pictures, and discover Gean's drawer full of dried vulvas.

Ashley:

A lot of the discoveries they show here are the same. They do show the box of dried vulvas. They do a quick cut to a pair of curtains that have lips for the drawstrings, and then they also show some face masks, even though these ones don't have hair.

Remi:

Well, outside of the House of Horrors, Ed comes casually cruising up the driveway without a care in the world. Seemingly completely oblivious to the multitudes of police officers surrounding him, and he's just like, hey fellas, what's going on?

Ashley:

Two comments here. One, Ed didn't just drive onto his property by happenstance as a search was well underway. In reality, they actually found him at a neighbor's home and he agreed to go with them to his house. Second, if they found all this shit in someone's house, you're trying to tell me there wouldn't be an extensive manhunt tracking down Ed Gean. There would be so many detectives just out in the town looking for him. They seemed genuinely surprised, like, oh yeah, someone owns this home, and here he is.

Remi:

Well, all of this seemingly happened very quickly. It seems like Ed maybe just went to the store or something and came back, and all of this had gone down.

Ashley:

No, it would take a good chunk of time to get that many police over to this house to the point where they are well within their search of photographing and getting this stuff out of the house. They've been doing this for at least an hour.

Remi:

Well, Ed is arrested by Arthur while Frank goes in to investigate Ed Gean's barn. Inside, Frank finds his mother's headless, gutted corpse hanging from the rafters, and becomes totally enraged, loses control, and starts beating Ed senselessly while Ed is in handcuffs. Here's a quick rundown of the real story of Frank Warden. Frank Warden was a deputy sheriff and was the first to discover the crime scene at his mother's hardware store, just like you said, Ashley.

Ashley:

I did not know he was a cop. I thought for sure that was fake.

Remi:

He actually led the investigation that led to the arrest of Ed Gean.

Ashley:

That would be such a conflict of interest, but I will say if it's a small town, that kind of thing could happen if they didn't have enough people of his status to run it.

Remi:

Frank was also unfortunately actually the one to discover his mother's body hanging in Ed Gean's barn. Though he did not beat up Ed Gean while Gean was being arrested, but Geane was physically assaulted during his interrogation by the other officer who is depicted in this episode, Sheriff Arthur Schley.

Ashley:

That is shocking. I was convinced. I was positive. I was 100% positive that them showing Frank Warden finding his mother in the barn, which is how she was strung up, was complete fabrication. I'm floored. And I think this might have been when in the episode we both commented on how different the vibe is already feeling. This for the first time all season, we're on episode six of eight here. For the first time, we are getting an episode that represents what we were expecting from this entire season. And I thought maybe the director was different, so I looked it up, but no, this makes no sense. This director, Max Winkler, directed all but two episodes of this entire series. The only two he did not direct were the last two we covered for this podcast. Those were directed by the writer, Ian Brennan.

Remi:

We did mention several times to each other while we were watching this episode how we wished that this was the feel of the whole season. But before this, everything's been very over the top, and this one just seemed a bit more grounded in reality. There's some loony shit that comes in here and there, but I really appreciated that this episode showcased one of the victim's family members and had you actually sympathize with them, as opposed to what they did with Bernice, which was just shit all over her legacy. I mean, I would be deeply offended if I was a member of Bernice's family and saw her depiction in this series as having some kind of a sexual relationship with Ed Gean and giving him her underwear.

Ashley:

I'm sure we'll mention this in our final summary of the series, but this really truly is, for the first time all season, the only time, the first and only time where we actually like and feel for someone who is not Ed Gean. I like these two detectives. I feel so bad for Frank Warden. That changes in the next episode, which is such a disservice, but I'm really enjoying this episode, and it just makes me nostalgic for what we could have gotten.

Remi:

And as soon as you start thinking that way, a little bit of ridiculous shows up in the form of our girl Adeline. She is informed of Ed's arrest and is soon being hounded by relentless press and the media.

Ashley:

Which is a good little nod to the fact of how quickly reporters descended onto this small town after news of Ed Gean and his crimes broke.

Remi:

Adeline makes a statement to the press, completely decked out in red, again, and plays down her relationship with Ed, while also claiming that she had absolutely no involvement in his crimes. And at this point, I am kind of hoping and wondering if this is another bit of Ed's fantasy and this is not a real relationship, but time will tell.

Ashley:

I was hoping that Ed Gean would somehow hear this interview and be like, that's bullshit. She put the idea to do all of this in my mind. Because I like Ed more than Adeline.

Remi:

Adeline is horrible. She is a twisted, awful little woman, and a huge embellishment of the real woman. Because none of this is true. Everything with Adeline is ridiculous, and all of it is completely made up. Next we head to Ed's interrogation. Ed says he doesn't remember murdering anyone, and he also claims that he never ate anyone either. But does admit to having a bit of a hobby of digging up dead bodies.

Ashley:

And this interrogation, or kind of the overall vibe of it, is pretty reminiscent. Ed did say, at least initially, that he didn't remember killing Bernice. Actually, not initially. That's something he maintained throughout the entirety of his life. And when he was talking about grave robbing and how he was being accused of murder, he spoke about these things nonchalantly, almost as if he didn't appreciate the gravity of his situation.

Remi:

Ed does have a pretty laissez faire attitude towards the whole interrogation thing, but he does agree to take a lie detector test. In fact, it's his idea. And surprise, surprise, he passes with flying colors.

Ashley:

In reality, he actually did take two polygraphs, but during them, he wasn't asked about Bernice Warden or Mary Hogan. It was just about the other unsolved cases in the state. And at this point, I'm asking myself, do you think the murders of the two men and the babysitter were just metaphorical and a way to tie in Texas Chainsaw Massacre? I have no clue.

Remi:

I do not think that that was included just to rope in Texas Chainsaw, because the real case, there is no proof a chainsaw was ever used. So they just needed a crime with Ed using a chainsaw. He uses it a few more times throughout the series. So I don't think that was the primary motivation. From here, we head to Bernice's funeral, where we see Frank heartbroken and mourning the loss of his mother, while Adeline watches from the back row. Outside, Adeline runs up to Frank, pretending to be a reporter of some sort, and starts asking him pretty insensitive and offensive questions about his recently deceased mother.

Ashley:

And about what it was like to find her.

Remi:

She is shooed away by Frank's partner, Arthur, and Arthur feels bad for Frank. You know, he was gonna spend Thanksgiving with his mom, and now that's obviously not happening. So Arthur invites Frank over to his place for Thanksgiving to share the holiday with Arthur and his family. Frank agrees and goes over there, and everything's looking pretty swell for the most part. And I am legitimately feeling sorry for Frank. Like, this guy seems so sad and forlorn, and I just really sympathize with him in this scene. It's the only character throughout the entire series that I ever have any sort of emotional reaction to. So Arthur starts cutting up the turkey using his new electric carving knife. And everything seems fine at first, even though Arthur is doing a really shitty job cutting the turkey. He's just cutting it in like every direction. And this causes Frank to have some horrific visions of his mother on the dining room table there, being carved up like a turkey by Ed Geen. And that is the end of this episode.

Ashley:

And so we end on a what the fuck moment, and that is kind of a signal to me that, okay, we got one normal episode, and now we are about to launch back into Crazyville for the last two.

Remi:

And the next episode negates some stuff about Frank, like the sympathy that I was feeling for him. But I was legitimately surprised at how much I liked this episode, and it really did leave me craving this sort of tone for the rest of the series, and it's sort of ridiculous that it took us five episodes to get here. Spoiler alert, it doesn't stick around. Now let's get into episode 7, Ham Radio.

Ilsa Kotch :

Come.

Remi:

Ashley, what is your tagline for this episode?

Ashley:

Ed acclimates to life at Central State Hospital.

Remi:

My tagline for this episode is Charlie Hunnam acts his ass off.

Ashley:

We have to wait until the very end to get that, though.

Remi:

This episode opens in 1958, where we see Frank is now a drunk drinking in his car in the morning. Frank is also suing the Edgean estate and selling all of Gean's property at an auction. Now, a bit of a reality check here. Frank is portrayed as struggling with alcohol after the tragedy, which is true, but the show also implies that he somehow participated in or condoned the auction of Edgein's belongings, which is completely false.

Ashley:

Yeah, it does not make sense that this crime victim, because Frank is a crime victim, would be somehow able to gain complete control over his mother's murderer's estate and then to just sell it off on his own. There was an auction, and it was to help pay off lawsuits, but it was done by like an auction company.

Remi:

Exactly. Frank did not participate in the auction in any capacity, and in reality, he stayed as far away from any attempt to turn the Geen case into a spectacle as possible. At the auction, Frank is promoting the event like a flea market sale, selling Ed's belongings and even charging admission. Like literally, he is in front of the auction with a big megaphone. Well, I guess it's the olden day version of a megaphone. And he's calling out to people come see Ed Geen's property. It's all for sale. Extra, extra.

Ashley:

This did happen. There was admission that was charged to view the items before the auction, and the auctioneer said they did this to help weed out the people that were just coming as tourists and ones that were actually serious in making purchases.

Remi:

Frank claims that roughly 200 people are attending the auction that day, and they are planning on auctioning off Gean's 1949 Ford Sedan, which in real life sold for $760, the equivalent of $8,300 today.

Ashley:

And throughout the whole opening of this scene, Frank is just being really nasty to everyone he's interacting with, especially his old pal Arthur. And it just makes me sad that the director or the writer thought we had to like bring this character down a notch, because now I don't like Frank anymore.

Remi:

I totally agree. So, well done, writers. However, in the show, Frank does not get to profit off of the Geen estate as much as he anticipated, because we cut to the Geen estate completely burned to the ground, with Frank looking on with a sad expression on his face.

Ashley:

And the Geen house really did burn down. So most of the belongings were destroyed. They were still able to auction off some items in the show. They just auctioned off the car. So I think that that barn, perhaps, that was attached still had stuff in it that they could sell.

Remi:

We also see that Adeline is apparently a reporter now, or pretending to be one, while also still pretending to be a victim of Ed Gean herself. From here we go to Central State Mental Hospital, where things are going great for Ed Gean, and he seems to be loving life. He even gets $300 from the auction mailed to him there. Oh, and he was even featured in an article in Life magazine. So doing pretty well for himself. Ed's nurse is a lady named Salty, and Ed gives Salty his estate auction money in exchange for three ham radios and a pair of women's underwear.

Ashley:

Fun fact, he did use some of the money that he earned through his job as like a carpentry helper at the hospital to buy one ham radio, but he never gotta use it.

Remi:

So not three and no women's underwear. We quickly learn the reason why Ed wanted three ham radios when we cut back to your favorite character, Ashley, the bitch of Buckenwald, who is in prison and receives one of Ed's ham radios. Ed talks to Ilsa over the ham radio while wearing the women's underwear he was also given. But Ilsa says that the stories about her are all lies, though she still is a hardcore Nazi. When Ed tells Ilsa about the things he's done, Ilsa thinks he's sick in the head. But we quickly learn that all of this is just apparently a therapy session with Ed and his psychiatrist, and all of this ham radio stuff is in his mind or some sort of a hallucination.

Ashley:

But it's really done poorly, because we're not really sure if it is just supposed to be representing the therapies having with a psychiatrist. At the end of the episode, they insinuate that it was all a hallucination, but these scenes are just so drawn out, and there is like maybe two, maybe three clips, brief clips of the psychiatrist. So the metaphors just fall flat.

Remi:

The bitch of Buckenwald has definitely overstayed her welcome. She has been in almost every episode of this series, and I reiterate, has nothing to do with Ed Gean.

Ashley:

She was in a total of six out of eight episodes. That's the most, other than Ed Geane, of course, and maybe Adeline.

Remi:

Well, after Eddie gets off the ham radio with Ilse, he is diagnosed as a deviant, full stop, and then has a seizure. Wrapping up Elsa's storyline, she has the prison guard's baby, which is immediately taken away from her. Then there is some random shit with her in her prison cell and a little mouse. Then she eventually hangs herself. And I also just realized that Ilsa is being played by Vicky Kreps, the same actress who co-starred with Daniel Day Lewis in the Paul Thomas Anderson film Phantom Thread. And I'm wondering if she actually shaved her head for this role, and if so, does she think it was worth it? Next up, Christine Jorgensen, a transgender singer and actress, who receives Ed's second ham radio in the mail. This conversation with Christine is also another therapy session with Ed hallucinating while he is talking to the doctor. Ed tells Christine that they have a lot in common, which is then interspliced with clips of Ed wearing his full lady suit, dancing around naked in the snow without a care in the world. This leads into the infamous Silence of the Lambs Buffalo Bill Tuck scene to the song Goodbye Horses by Q Lazarus.

Ashley:

I love that song.

Remi:

And sidebar here. So, technically speaking, I am a gynaphiliac, and I know several other people who are too. However, the way it's stated in the show made me assume that it meant something way different. Now, let's get into a quick history lesson on the real Christine Jorgensen. She was an American transgender woman who became the first widely known person in the United States to undergo gender-affirming surgery in Denmark 1952. Her transition made international headlines and she became a symbol of transgender visibility, later working as a performer, author, and lecturer advocating for gender identity acceptance. So she was a pioneer and definitely had nothing in common with Ed Gean.

Ashley:

And I do want to say, even though I've been shitting on this show all season now for how they have poorly executed their metaphors, I actually really liked this one. They made it much more apparent that this was supposed to be either in his head or based on discussions with his therapist. And Christine is just a way more likable character than Ilsakotch.

Remi:

In reality, Ed Gean was reportedly fascinated by her, and magazine articles about Christine's reassignment surgery were discovered by police in Gean's farmhouse. Meanwhile, Salty the Nurse gets demoted, and Ed gets a new super strict nurse named Roz.

Ashley:

I did look up both of these nurses. I was hoping at least one of them would have been based on a real person, since that does seem to kind of be the trend that we've been encountering, but nope, they're both just entirely made up.

Remi:

And yet they went with the name of Salty. Anyway, before being reassigned, Salty sneaks into Ed's room later that night and gives him the keys to his room so he can get out and stretch his legs once in a while.

Ashley:

Yeah, Salty definitely has some good and bad characteristics here.

Remi:

Ed then, of course, leaves his room, grabs a chainsaw from the mental hospital's chainsaw closet, corners Nurse Roz in the bathroom, and slaughters her mercilessly using the second biggest chainsaw I've ever seen in any movie or TV show. And in case anyone was wondering, the first is from a Nicolas Cage fight in the film Mandy.

Ashley:

This is obviously a what the fuck moment, and I'm just kind of annoyed with this show at this point. We've moved on from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You've already done some mentioning of Silence of the Lambs. Why are we going back? Edgeen was not this crazy in the hospital to the point where he was having these like intense hallucinations all day, every day. So it's just sensationalism. They're trying to get a reaction. I don't know what they're going for here, but I don't like it.

Remi:

Well, this time Ed realizes that all of this is in his head because the next day he sees Nurse Roz alive and well with zero chainsaw scars. During Ed's next therapy session, Ed tells his therapist that he's been talking to a face in the ceiling, which he calls the devil. From here, we get to Charlie Hunnum's big emotional scene, where Ed breaks down after realizing that he can no longer tell what is real anymore. And Charlie Hunnum fucking nails this. He is absolutely phenomenal in this scene. He really gave this performance 110%. I just think that the screenplay and material let him down. But he was phenomenal in this role and specifically extraordinary in this scene.

Ashley:

Yeah, two episodes ago, I did pose the question to Remy of if you think this might be the end of Charlie Hunnam's career. And I want to make it clear that I really, really, really hope that is not the case. Despite us shitting on this season throughout these episodes, Charlie Hunum is giving it his all. If this show somehow does get an Emmy or Golden Globe nomination, it better be for him and only him because he does such a good job throughout the whole season, and especially in this scene. It is really emotional. He is really crying, and he is just doing a great job portraying someone who is realizing that everything they have thought was real could possibly not be. And then in the next scene, he seems so at peace and calm for the first time in his life. And that is often what happens to people when they first get a diagnosis and start to make sense of aspects in their life that have just seemed so unsensible for so long.

Remi:

And he keeps the voice, that weird Kermit the Frog voice that he's been doing the entire season. He maintains that throughout this emotional breakdown. And I've been thinking about the voice recently because I've been editing a lot of our Ed Gean episodes. And I gotta say, it is an unusual choice, but I kind of dig it. I think he created a very unusual, memorable voice for this character that at least me and Ashley have been impersonating throughout the entire week. So Charlie Hunnam is a standout in this show. I just think the show is not up to the level that he is on.

Ashley:

And finally, folks, episode 8, and it is titled The Godfather. Remy, what is your tagline for the season 4 finale?

Remi:

Welcome to the Ed Gean Fan Club. Let me introduce you to our other members. What is your tagline, Ashley?

Ashley:

Ed's crimes inspire more than just Hollywood.

Remi:

Our episode begins in Lake Samamish, Washington, which is about eight miles outside of Seattle. We then see Ted Bundy tricking a helpless woman into helping him by wearing a fake cast and speaking with a British accent. Bundy then bashes the unsuspecting girl in the head with a blunt instrument, knocking her unconscious. The girl wakes up sometime later, hogtied next to another girl, and Bundy plays eeny meeny miny moe to pick his first victim. We then cut to sometime later, where we see Bundy returning to the scene of the crime so that he can have sex with his murdered victims, rotting corpses.

Ashley:

These women were Janice Ott and Denise Masland. They were kidnapped at Lake Samamish about four hours apart on July 14, 1974. And it is believed that he forced one to watch as he raped and killed the other. Their bodies were found on September 6, 1974, along with a third woman who had gone missing from the University of Washington before them. Two of them had their heads missing. During his final confessions before his execution on January 24th, 1989, Ted Bundy did admit to revisiting the bodies of some of his victims to perform sexual acts. Sometimes he even did decapitate them and keep their heads as mementos in his apartment.

Remi:

Well, to be fair, that movie was from the perspective of his wife, who knew nothing of his crimes. But this had me wondering why they didn't choose Ted Bundy as the focus of this season instead of Ed Gean. Clearly, Ted Bundy has a lot more stories woven into the real life events than a loner like Ed Gean had. And I also gotta say I did not expect that Ted Bundy would be showing up in this series at all.

Ashley:

And if they would have done someone like Ted Bundy, they could have done what they did in season one with Jeffrey Dahmer, which is give us information about the victims.

Remi:

Which is one of the things that I loved about that Dahmer season. Almost every single victim had an episode dedicated to them. We got to know who they were before they met Dahmer. And that made it so much more of a powerful experience when viewing because you cared about these characters. And in this show, people are just introduced and dispatched as if it was a scream movie. Continuing on our road trip, we end up in Salem, Oregon, where FBI agents John Douglas and Robert Ressler, previously depicted on the Netflix series Mindhunter, have come to interview a big, tall serial killer named Jerry Brudos, in the hopes of gaining some insight into the Bundy killings, as he remains at large and his identity is still unknown, garnering him the nickname the Pacific Northwest Killer. Here's a bit of background on the real Jerry Brudos. Jerry Brudos was an American serial killer and necrophile who murdered at least four women in Oregon between 1968 and 1969. He had a lifelong fetish for women's shoes and underwear, often stealing them as a teenager, and he later kept them as trophies along with the body parts of his victims. Brudos would strangle or bludgeon women, photograph their corpses, and sometimes dress them up before disposing of their bodies. He was eventually caught after one victim's body was found in a river, and he confessed to the murders. Brudos was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2006. Good riddance. Returning to Jerry and the Mindhunter Guys, we learn that Jerry loves huffing panties, jizzing in shoes, and claims to have been inspired by the crimes of Ed Gean. While in reality, there is no direct evidence that Jerry Brudos was ever inspired by Ed Gean.

Ashley:

This is gonna be a trend that's gonna continue throughout this entire episode.

Remi:

Jerry tries them on, but loves them so much that he just has to start jerking off right then and there.

Jerry Brudos:

Yeah, I don't think I'll be able to concentrate with these on. I might have to jerk off. You guys mind if I jerk off? I don't mind if you watch.

Remi:

Since Jerry wasn't very helpful, the FBI go to Ed Gean for help instead. These days, Gean is old, wrinkled, and gray, but still gets fan mail. However, his delusions and sexual impulses have diminished with age. And he is also being presented as much more of a Hannibal Lecter type. Gean is shown crime scene photos of the Pacific Northwest killer's victims, and Ed tells the agents what tools he would have used to commit the same crimes.

Ashley:

So in reality, Detectives Douglas and Riesler did not talk to Ed Gean while investigating Ted Bundy. But John Douglas did briefly speak to him once early in his career, but described the meeting as, quote, so psychotic that it really wasn't much of an interview. This prevented Geane from being unhelpful in the Mindhunters' attempts at building criminal profiles for serial killers.

Remi:

Our next stop is Crest Hills, Illinois, where we meet the birdman, Richard Speck, a male inmate with large breasts who prostitutes themselves to other inmates for cold hard cash and the occasional crack rock. He also reportedly killed eight student nurses in a Chicago townhouse while tripping on LSD. One woman survived by hiding under the bed, which led to Richard's arrest.

Ashley:

He was convicted of all eight murders on April 15th, 1967, and sentenced to death, but his sentence was later reduced to life without the possibility of parole, and he died of a heart attack on December 5th, 1991.

Remi:

And according to the show, after he was sentenced to death, that was eventually overturned because Illinois abolished the death penalty. Oh, and Richard also claims to have been inspired by Ed Geane.

Ashley:

Not only inspired by Ed Geane, he calls Ed Gean his idol. But as you can probably guess, there was no evidence that Richard Speck took any inspiration from Ed Gean at all.

Remi:

Back at the mental hospital, we see Ed Geane making himself a snazzy nipple belt, which probably isn't real, or maybe it's a flashback. I really don't know at this point.

Ashley:

He's making nipple carvings, and at another point, he's in his little office, and there's just newspaper clippings about murders all over his workstation, and no hospital would let either of these things happen. This is very, very unconducive to recovery.

Remi:

He's teaching the other patients leatherworking in this mental hospital. That is the last thing in the world that they would have this particular patient teaching.

Ashley:

Well, he actually did work as a carpentry assistant, was making little handiwork things.

Remi:

That's totally different than leatherworks. Come on. After finishing up his belt, Geen casually strolls through the hallway, minding his own business, when an incredibly agile mental patient jumps on his back and starts biting his neck like a rabid chimpanzee. After this, Ed decides that things have gotten a little too crazy for him in the mental hospital, and he is ready to leave. But deep down he knows that that will never happen. However, Ed isn't too happy knowing that what he did is now inspiring others to do far worse things. Ed next gets a visit from Deputy Sheriff Will Stanton, who is visiting after receiving a letter from Ed. Ed wants to help the sheriff catch a killer currently on the loose in Florida. Which does turn out to also be Ted Bundy. Ed decided to reach out to Sheriff Stanton because he doesn't think that the FBI took him very seriously during their meeting, but still is eager to help. And surprisingly is able to reveal that the killer's name is Ted, and he also knows the exact type of vehicle Ted is currently driving. Apparently, Ed got this information from Richard Speck, who received a revealing fan letter from Bundy and forwarded it to Gean upon his request. Both you and I actually immediately called bullshit the second that this scene happened.

Ashley:

This probably comes as a surprise to literally nobody, but Richard Speck did not get mail from Ted Bundy, and Ed Gean did not get mail from Richard Speck.

Remi:

None of these people were communicating with each other despite what the show would like you to believe. Ed later learns while watching the news one day that his tip led to Ted Bundy's capture.

New Broadcast :

A tip from a yet-identified informant who gave police a very accurate and thorough profile of a rapist and murderer, who authorities believe is rebounded to be a good thing.

Remi:

And that was, of course, Lois, the mental patient, who tells everyone that she meets to go suck cocks.

Ashley:

In reality, Ted Bundy was captured during a just routine traffic stop in 1978 after he did the Tri-Omega sorority murders at Florida State University. Evidence leading to his arrest was not from an unidentified informant. And right after the scene, Ed is boasting to everyone who will listen to him that he helped catch a serial killer, and everyone just kind of looks at him and is like, sure Eddie, sure, Eddie. So now I'm asking myself, is this supposed to be another hallucination? Again, unclear.

Remi:

Ed then passes out in his wheelchair, and both Ashley and I thought he was dead at this point, but no, he's just asleep, and we get a fun dream sequence featuring Charles Manson, Ed Kemper, Jerry Brudos, and Richard Speck, all fangirling out over Ed Geen. After this absurd sequence, we get a scene with Ed and Roz, who are now friends, after Ed realizes that he didn't kill her with a chainsaw. However, Roz has some bad news for Ed and reveals that he has stage 4 cancer. The two have a bit of a discussion about how Ed's story has been misinterpreted and embellished over the years. And the show seems to be insinuating that Ed Gean is the quote-unquote godfather of serial killers.

Ashley:

I had two thoughts with this whole scene. One is it's actually pretty endearing because Ross is the nurse he wanted to murder with the chainsaw in last episode, and she is really treating him with kindness, and they do seem to have developed a genuine respect for each other.

Remi:

They're like best friends now.

Ashley:

The other thing is what she is telling him about people twisting the story and sensationalizing it, I found very ironic because isn't that exactly what this series has been doing all season? Was this intentional? Is this supposed to be a commentary? Is this supposed to be the director saying, Fuck you all? I don't know.

Remi:

Took the words right out of my mouth because next Ed is paid a visit by Adeline. Hey, she's back.

Ashley:

And bitch has not aged a day, despite Ed being 30 years older. They just threw some glasses on her face and were expecting us to think that this was supposed to be a 60-year-old, 70-year-old woman.

Remi:

Ed is far grayer and wrinklier than Adeline, which made me think that Adeline might end up being one of his hallucinations. But spoiler alert, she does exist. She is not a fantasy. She is still just as crazy as ever, and even has a death list that she shows to Ed. However, years of mental illness have left Adeline far less energetic and boisterous than she was in her younger days. Ed and Adeline share a tender moment together, and then that's the end of Adeline. Which brings us to the finale of Monster, the Ed Gean story, where we see Ed slowly passing away while watching Owner of the Lonely Heart by Yes. Of course. Wasn't that exactly what you were expecting?

Ashley:

And then we still have four to five minutes left.

Remi:

At the end of this absurd music video sequence, Ed finds his mother waiting for him atop a grand staircase, just like Leonardo DiCaprio at the end of the film Titanic. Augusta tells Ed that she's proud of him for what he's done to the family name. And then Ed Gean finally dies. Halloween years later, Gean's grave is being desecrated and torn apart by a group of rowdy teenagers. One of the teens is dressed as a Boy Scout and wanders off into the graveyard. While he's out there, he sees Norman Bates, Buffalo Bill, and Leatherface all hanging out together. And he gets freaked out, so decides to hightail it out of there. As he drives off with his friends, Norman, Bill, and Leatherface all disappear, leaving only Ed Gean standing there holding a chainsaw, as he begins to dance around like Leatherface at the end of Texas Chainsaw. We get one final scene here with Ed and his mom chilling on their front porch, enjoying a beautiful day, as Ed's mom tells Eddie, only a mother could love you.

Ashley:

God, it was literally the episode that would never end.

Remi:

It started to feel like Lord of the Rings there for a while. It seemed like it could have ended multiple times, but just kept going. We had more than one music video in this episode. Which seems unnecessary for an Ed Geen miniseries. But call me crazy. And that thankfully brings us to the end of Monster the Ed Geen Story. Now I'm sure you have a lot of things to say about this miniseries, Ashley, as do I. But before we get into all of that, what did critics and audiences think of the previous seasons of Monster?

Ashley:

So season one of Monster, the Jeffrey Dahmer story, got mixed to average reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, critics gave it a 57% rating versus the 82% audience approval rating. The critical consensus read while Monster is seemingly self-aware of the peril of glorifying Jeffrey Dahmer, creator Ryan Murphy's salacious style nevertheless tilts this horror story into the realm of queasy exploitation. Season one of Monster was nominated for four Golden Globes, including Best Limited or Anthology Series or Television Film, and Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Television Film. And as we mentioned in the beginning of part one of the bonus episode reviewing this series, Evan Peters won the Best Supporting Actor category. It was also nominated for five Emmys with Nisi Nash taking home the award for Best Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology series or movie.

Remi:

Who did she play in the Dahmer season?

Ashley:

She played the mother of one of the victims.

Remi:

Ah, yes, you just showed me a picture of her, and I remember her well from that season.

Ashley:

I remember she was only in maybe two episodes. Possibly three, but I feel like it was only two and not for very long, but she gave a very convincingly emotional portrayal.

Remi:

This was probably my favorite season amongst the three so far. I thought that Evan Peters was brilliant as Dahmer, and I don't think it was glorifying him. I don't think anyone walked away from that series thinking, wow, Jeffrey Dahmer is cool. It wasn't showing him in a positive light at all. And I really admired the fact that they spent several episodes highlighting the victims and making us know who they were and understand them as a human being before meeting their end, as opposed to other seasons like the current one that don't really bother to do that.

Ashley:

And that was something we had talked about as we were watching this. Of all three seasons, the Jeffrey Dahmer story is the one I knew the most about. I knew a lot about Jeffrey Dahmer. There wasn't a lot of new stuff that I gained from this season from his perspective. But what this season did that was unique is it did focus so much on so many of the different victims, and we learned a lot about them. And on each episode, we would do a cursory Google search. I'll bet, not as deep as a dive as we've done for this season. But we did Google a lot of things, and a lot of things turned out being true. Well, and that takes us to season two. This one was Monsters, the Lyle and Eric Menendez story.

Remi:

This was a story I had heard of, but was far less familiar with than the Jeffrey Dahmer story.

Ashley:

Well, similar to season one, it got mixed or average reviews from critics. It got 45% from critics and 58% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. So we are going down here.

Remi:

That's surprising to me. I thought it was a pretty well-made season, and I thought Javier Bardem and the two leads did a fantastic job.

Ashley:

The critical consensus read: well acted, but off-puttingly sorted. Monsters leaves viewers feeling guilty without enough pleasure to compensate. It was nominated for three Golden Globes and four Emmys, but did not win any.

Remi:

It seems like these series get a lot of flack for showing the things that maybe you shouldn't show on a miniseries like this. These shows really do seem to get into the nitty-gritty, and they don't shy away from telling the audience what happened. That is not in reference to this current season. However, I feel like the previous seasons did a good job of doing that. Was it salacious? Yes. But I still feel like they captured the emotional essence needed while also making us not sympathize for the criminals in this situation.

Ashley:

Well, and this season would also have episodes that were kind of geared towards the different brothers' perspective of things. So it was illustrating right off the bat that whatever episode we are focusing on, whoever is kind of portrayed as the main character, this is coming from their perspective, not necessarily saying this is fact or fiction.

Remi:

And this season was a lot less over the top than the first and third season. This was the most grounded of all seasons, in my opinion, as far as crazy out there imagery and things like that.

Ashley:

And it also led to a whole movement to get these guys out of prison. That is beyond the scope of what we're going to talk about in this podcast. But this series, even though it by Ron Tomato standards wasn't very well liked by critics or audiences, it put the Menendez brothers back in the spotlight and they were able to petition for release. Both of them were denied, but nonetheless, it really boosted them into the spotlight. Well, now let's get to season three. Monster, the Ed Geen story. Now we're at 17% by critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 53% by audience. Slight dip from last season. It's still pretty new, so there's no critical consensus yet.

Remi:

17% for a mini-series? I can't even think of a TV show or miniseries that scored that low. That is horrendous. And you know what? I kind of agree with it.

Ashley:

Looking back at all the ratings for these, I have to say I think I agree most with the audience scores. 82% for season one feels right. 58% for season two feels pretty low, in my opinion. I thought the acting in that was just absolutely superb across the board. 53% for season three feels about right, possibly even a little high.

Remi:

17% though, that is the rock bottom. I mean, I expected a low rating, but wow, that's really, really, really a step down for this show.

Ashley:

Well, let's kind of talk about some of our biggest qualms about this season. And I want to do that because we chose to do this as our season five bonus episodes because we were genuinely so excited for season three of Monster. And I'm just so disappointed by what we got. So, Remy, what are kind of some of your biggest takeaways, qualms you have with the season, things you wish would have gone differently?

Remi:

First off, I don't think that the story of Ed Geen is enough to fill an eight-episode miniseries where each episode is one hour. He was a guy who was pretty lonely and spent all of his time alone with dead bodies or his mother. That doesn't really give a lot of room for a full story. You can't just have a guy alone with dead bodies.

Ashley:

It also doesn't give you any other characters to latch on to and root for.

Remi:

Exactly, which is why this miniseries decided to embellish that and basically take any rumor or urban legend about Ed Gean and incorporate it into the story. In the end, I do think all of that was supposed to be in Gean's head and be some sort of hallucination. However, I don't think it was differentiated enough to really make that sort of impact.

Ashley:

Everything was in his head. By everything, what do you mean by everything?

Remi:

I think all the crazy exaggerated shit like him with a chainsaw, him killing the babysitter, him killing those two random dudes that were on his property. I think all of that was supposed to be in his head. The problem was the way that it was portrayed on screen did not accurately convey that, in my opinion.

Ashley:

Well, and the problem is, I don't think Ed Gean was hallucinating himself, killing people with the chainsaw.

Remi:

I do not either. I do think that Ed Gean had a lot of psychological issues going on and quite possibly visual hallucinations as well. However, I don't believe that Ed Geane was reading things about himself and then immediately starting to envision himself do those things as if it was part of his own reality, which is what the show portrays.

Ashley:

I think they needed a way to link in these movies, which I do appreciate they did, and they tried to do it in a creative and unique way, but it just fell flat for me because of something I've drilled home throughout this entire series. In my opinion, it's really unclear when something is supposed to be a metaphor and when it's not supposed to be a metaphor.

Remi:

And as we discussed in our Ed Gean and Hollywood episode, when it comes down to it, these actually don't take a lot from the real Ed Gean. They take pieces here and there, but they do embellish them and make them much more horrific.

Ashley:

Well, and that was another qualm I had when they were even telling us about the directors of Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Masker, they made it seem like these guys were obsessed with Ed Gean and like engrossing themselves in Ed Geane, and that these characters were 100% Ed Gean, and we also know that's not true.

Remi:

Exactly. Ed Gean was more of a side note in these writer-directors' creative process. Some of the stuff they heard about Gean was incorporated into these characters, but when it comes down to it, Bates, Leatherface, and Buffalo Bill are all completely different than Ed Gean. So trying to weave those characters into the actual story as it's going on doesn't work. Ed Gean never used a chainsaw. He never kept women in a pit. He never owned a hotel. He had very little in common with these characters, yet the miniseries is trying to incorporate them as if certain things that Gean did is leading to the film's interpretation. When in actuality, all of these films took influence from multiple sources besides Gean.

Ashley:

Well, now that we've aired our grievances, let's channel one of our favorite podcasts. They end each of their episodes saying what went right about a movie set. So, Remy, what went right, in your opinion, about Monster Season 3?

Remi:

Charlie Hunnum. Charlie Hunnam gave 110% to this performance. And the material and directing let him down. But this guy was on board and he gave it his all. He created a very unique character, and he was able to, in the moments that allowed him, portray real emotion. And I'm kind of sad that he was saddled with the worst out of all of the seasons. Because if he was given the right script, this could have been phenomenal. But like I said, the story of Geen really doesn't warrant an eight-episode miniseries.

Ashley:

I agree. Usually the hosts of What Went Wrong try to pick two different things, but honestly, I feel like Charlie Hunnum went so right with this that he deserves both of our votes. Like that second to last episode, the end scene, where he is just giving it his all and so emotional, it was really heartbreaking. And that kind of brings me to another point. It's kind of a fault of Charlie Hunnam that I'm even mentioning this. But something I disliked about this whole season is the only character I liked or ever felt for, except for Frank, in one of the two episodes he was in was Ed Geen. That's it. I didn't feel anything for anyone else. Or if I did feel something for any other character, it was disdain.

Remi:

That is another thing that I would say went right. The episode focusing on Frank dealing with the fallout of the death of his mother, and how he is just completely torn up about it and so sad and lonely. It is the only time in the season, besides the scene that you mentioned where Ed Geen is realizing he's crazy and Charlie Hunham is just giving it as all, that I actually feel for a character. And I should feel for every character that has been in this show. I should especially feel for all the victims. I should feel for Mary from Mary's Tavern, who barely got any sort of screen time or backstory or anything in the show. And Bernice Warden, whose actual story is just shit on in this show. I would be furious if I was a descendant of her or any of her family living today that saw this show. It is offensive.

Ashley:

Something else that was so interesting to me is that they did not include even a single scene with anyone who had a family member that was dug up. All of those people that were related to a person that Edgeen dug up and desecrated, they are also all crime victims. And that would be extremely alarming and unsettling if someone did that to a loved one of yours. And the fact they didn't include even a montage of a cop trying to talk to these people to figure out who they were, that's such a disservice.

Remi:

Well, that's because they were spending a bunch of time with Adeline, a character who is very tangenally related to the true story, that the miniseries decided to turn into a full-fledged character with a crazy ass backstory.

Ashley:

Adeline and the bitch of Buckenwald and all of these crazy hallucinations linking in movies and serial killers, and this was just not what we were expecting from Monster Season 3 when we decided to do this as a bonus episode.

Remi:

Ed Geen helped catch Ted Bundy. Who the hell saw that coming? Not me, because it is crazy historically inaccurate.

Ashley:

Remy, what are you hoping for for season four? For those of you who don't know, season four has already been announced. It apparently is already filming, or at least in the stages where it's about to start filming. It is going to be about Lizzie Borden, and Charlie Hunnam is returning as her dad.

Remi:

I honestly do not know a ton about the Lizzie Borden story. I haven't seen any of the movies or miniseries or any of those things about her.

Ashley:

For those of you who don't know, there are two movies about Lizzie Borden. One with Christina Ricci, and a second one with Chloe Savenier as Lizzie Borden and Kristen Stewart as her house servant maid, and they basically insinuate that the reason Lizzie Borden did this was because, and when I say did this, I mean kill her parents, was because she was having a lesbian relationship in the 1800s with her housemaid.

Remi:

And I'm sure season four of Monster will be leaning into that heavily. However, I haven't seen any of these different versions. And it's a story I don't know a lot about. So I will watch the new season, but I am much more skeptical and less excited about it than I would have been.

Ashley:

Well, I called it. I told you that the next season was gonna be a woman. I didn't think it was gonna be Lizzie Borden. I'm kind of concerned about it because this is an old, old, old crime. So there's gonna be even less solid fact for them to draw on. I guarantee you they're gonna lean into that lesbian rumor storyline.

Remi:

You thought it was gonna be Eileen Warnos, right? That was one of the stories that you thought that they might be doing.

Ashley:

That was one I thought could have been a possibility, yeah. I definitely thought it was gonna be a woman.

Remi:

I'm surprised they're not going into any of the bigger serial killers here. Starting off with Dahmer and then going to the Menendez brothers, and then this latest season with Geen, which in my opinion was a loner who did horrible stuff with corpses mostly. It's interesting that they didn't turn the attention to one of the other serial killers out there.

Ashley:

I think they're trying to keep it quote unquote fresh by featuring different types of monsters.

Remi:

It has been very different each season, so I will give them that.

Ashley:

Well, one thing I will say, I'm gonna be very hopeful that Ryan Murphy kind of has a more active role in season four. If he does, I'm gonna have a little more hope for it. I think many people might not remember, but as I mentioned in part one of this bonus episode, Ryan Murphy was completely hands-off on this. He has a created by and producing credit. In season one and two, he had a directing and writing credit.

Remi:

I'm gonna call it right now. Season five is going to be the guy from the Don't Fuck with Cats documentary, Luca Mignata. I think that is primed for a monster series.

Ashley:

Well, and another one they could do is Carla Homoca and Paul Bernardo. They were a couple that killed several people in Canada. So plenty of ways to include new quote-unquote monsters. And based on what we've seen thus far, I think that's kind of what they're going for here.

Remi:

I think the series started off really strong with Dahmer. And then when the Menendez Brothers were announced for the second season, I know you and I were kind of like, oh right, I don't really know a lot about the Menendez brothers, so we went into that with an open mind and were pleasantly surprised. And when we heard this season was Geen, we were very excited hearing that Charlie Hunnam was on board for this and the quality of the previous two seasons. But if the show keeps up at the quality of this past season, I don't know, man. I don't think I'll even be able to make it through Lizzie Borden.

Ashley:

Yeah, we'll close this by just saying that Ian Brennan, possibly Ryan Murphy. Step it up, you guys. And until then.

Remi:

Court is adjourned. And join us next time for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Completely different.

Contributor

Ashley

Host
Contributor

Remi

Host