14/31
You don’t really get into his predicament
Narrative
An anthology series about high-profile crimes or killers that captured the public’s attention and notoriety. Evan Peters [Jeffrey Dahmer] says they had a rule, from Ryan Murphy [creator] for the series: that it would never be told from Dahmer’s point of view. “As an audience, you don’t really sympathize with him. You kind of, you know, look at him from the outside.” In many episodes, a 3M Command(TM) comic book is shown in the kitchen of Jeffery Dahmer’s apartment, this is set in 1991 at the latest.
Featured in Jeremy Vine: Episode #5195 (2022)
3M released its first wave of Command(TM) products in 1996. There are two monsters in this heartbreaking and gripping story, but they are not Erik (Cooper Koch) and Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez), they are José (Javier Bardem) and Kitty (Chloë Savigny). I don’t want to get into the legalities of this case too much, because this is not a documentary, it is a drama series. However, let me start by saying that if Erik and Lyle had been Erika and Lyla, two girls, they would never have spent a day in prison.
He was sort of a pure-play Truman Capote
That’s not to say Erik and Lyle were blameless, but the mitigating circumstances were so overwhelming and compelling that they should have been convicted of voluntary manslaughter with a 10-year sentence. Then there is Dominic Dunne (Nathan Lane), a despicable man who trafficked in gossip and threw celebrity cocktail parties. I want to highlight episode 5, “The Hurt Man.” There are only two characters in the entire scene: Leslie Abramson (Ari Gaynor) and Erik. Director Michael Upendahl places the camera about 12 feet from the table where the two are sitting.
Nicholas Chavez is also great as Lyle
Abramson has his back to the camera (we never see his face) and Lyle faces him. Slowly, imperceptibly, the camera moves closer to Erik until it passes Abramson and ends with a close-up of Erik as he explains the title of the episode. Captivating! Cooper Koch does a great job throughout the film, but especially in this episode.