…in Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Monsters: The Lyle and Eric Menendez Story (Netflix, 9.19).

Within a soiled demimonde of selfish, calculating characters, Dunne is pretty much the only one you can relax with…the only fellow who charms and soothes by speaking plainly, candidly, wittily. I sat up in my seat when Lane finally appeared late in episode #3 (or was it #4?). The nectar of human relatability…finally!

Murphy and Brennan, by the way, have totally fallen for the Menendez brothers’ imaginative legal defense, a claim that Javier Bardem’s Jose Menendez was not just a domineering tyrant but also a sexual abuser of his younger son, Erik. And yet Bardem’s performance leaps right over this — it feels as furious and complex and honestly pained as it gets; ditto Chloe Sevigny’s performance as Kitty, Jose’s anguished, alcoholic wife.