'Monster' Hates Its Audience

This article discusses the full season of Monster: The Ed Gein Story.

Somewhere around the halfway point of Monster: The Ed Gein Story , the title character stares into the camera and warns: “You shouldn’t be watching this.” In a literal sense, he’s talking to a pair of strangers who have interrupted him in the bloody aftermath of a murder. But the head-on closeup makes it clear that the so-called Butcher of Plainfield, played with eerie gentleness by Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam, is also speaking to his rapt audience of Netflix viewers. Then he revs up his chainsaw and starts chasing the men. Of course, we keep watching. In the next scene, Ed treats his first fan—his sometime girlfriend Adeline Watkins—to the spectacle of a dead, nude woman, eviscerated and strung up li