Will There Be A Third Season Of Ryan Murphy’s Monster Anthology?

There’s nothing Ryan Murphy enjoys quite as much as an anthology TV series: a television series where each season follows a different story with different characters but, in Murphy’s case, often with a few of the same actors. Think American Horror Story, which kicked off in 2011 with ‘Murder House’ and has run for 12 seasons, each delving into a different chilling story. There’s also American Crime Story, with ‘The People v. O. J. Simpson’, ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ and ‘Impeachment’ exploring real stories with a celebrity angle told by a starry cast.

But Murphy’s latest obsession (along with his collaborators) is monsters: monstrous, real-life killers with a harrowing story behind them. First came ‘The Jeffrey Dahmer Story’, with Murphy’s long-time collaborator Evan Peters portraying the infamous serial killer. And now ‘The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’ is casting a new spotlight on the 1989 parenticide of José and Kitty Menendez. It’s topping the Netflix charts for English language TV, and the internet is alive with debates about the dark story.

If you’ve already raced through all nine episodes, only one question remains: will there be a Monster season 3? And whose story will it tell? We’ve got the details.

Netflix Monsters Season 3: Plot, Cast, Release Date & More

(L to R) Nicholas Chavez as Lyle Menendez, Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez in episode 201 of Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story. Miles Crist/Netflix © 2024

Will There Be Monster Season 3?

Yes, a third season of Netflix’s Monster anthology series is officially in the works, with Charlie Hunnam on board to play notorious murderer Ed Gein. The news was revealed by series co-creator Ryan Murphy at the premiere of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, but a third season has been on the cards since the global success of season 1, DAHMER – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which racked up 1 billion viewing hours on the streaming platform in its first 60 days. Production on Monster season 3 will commence next month.

What Will Happen In Monster Season 3?

The third season of Monster – which we assume will be subtitled ‘The Ed Gein Story’ – will delve into the harrowing crimes of Edward Theordore Gein (1906–1984). Also known as the Butcher of Plainfield, the Plainfield Ghoul, The Mad Butcher or, simply, Eddie, Ed Gein was an American murderer, body snatcher and suspected serial killer. No details just yet on what exactly we will cover, but we imagine we will begin with Gein being caught.

Here’s what Gein did for an insight into what the series might cover. Warning: harrowing details to follow…

What Did Ed Gein Do?

In November 1957, Ed Gein was arrested under suspicion of the murder of Bernice Worden, a hardware store owner in Gein’s hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin. He was the last person seen at the store before Bernice’s disappearance. While Gein was under arrest, the Waushara County Sheriff’s Department searched his farm and discovered Worden’s decapitated body in Gein’s shed, hanging upside down by her legs like a deer. She had been shot and mutilated after she had died. But that’s not all the police found.

Entering Gein’s house, the Sheriff’s Department found a whole host of haunting objects, including (amongst other things) human body parts, masks made from human faces, skulls, human bones, and chairs upholstered with human skin. When questioned, Gein admitted that, between 1947 and 1952, he had made up to 40 nocturnal visits to the local Plainfield Cemetery and pillaged at least nine graves. He said that on at least 30 occasions, he awoke from a dazed state, left the grave in good order and left empty handed. He also said, on other occasions, he dug up the graves of recently-buried middle-aged women he thought resembled his late mother (who died in December 1945, leaving him alone after the deaths of his father and brother, too), took the bodies home and tanned their skin to make his objects.

In Gein’s house, authorities also found the face and skull of Mary Hogan, a 51-year-old woman who had been missing since December 1954. When asked, Gein admitted to shooting her, but he couldn’t remember the details of her death. Bernice’s head was also found in a burlap sack, and her heart in a plastic bag in front of Gein’s stove.

Gein was questioned by police on all of these discoveries, which Sheriff Art Schley found so disgusting, he reportedly banged Gein’s head and face into a brick wall. Gein’s initial confession was thus ruled inadmissible. When it came to Gein’s plea on the count of first degree murder of Bernice Worden, he pleaded not guilty on the grounds of insanity. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, found mentally incompetent and ruled unfit to stand trial. He was then transferred to the maximum-security Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane (now called the Dodge Correctional Institution), before being transferred to the Mendota State Hospital in Madison where he remained until 1968 when doctors determined him mentally able to stand trial. The trial began in November 1968, 11 years after he was caught and questioned. Just before the trial commenced, Sheriff Schley died of heart failure; those close to him said he was traumatized by the horror of Gein’s crimes ever since he questioned him, and was fearful at having to testify in court after having assaulted him). The trial lasted one week and Gein was found guilty. Because of his insanity, he was sent back to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and again to Mendota, where he died of lung cancer in July 1984.

Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer in episode 102 of Dahmer. Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. (Courtesy Of Netflix © 2022)

Impact

Gein’s harrowing crimes were incredibly twisted – but writers and filmmakers have drawn on them for inspiration nevertheless. Robert Bloch refers to the story in his 1959 novel Psycho, which was adapted into Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film of the same name. Many fictional serial killers are thought to be inspired by him, including Norman Bates (Psycho), Leatherface (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs), Garland Greene (Con Air) and the Dr. Oliver Thredson in Murphy’s own TV series, American Horror Story: Asylum.

Speaking of Murphy, Ed Gein actually appears in Monster season 1, framing his crimes as inspiration for Jeffrey Dahmer (also from Wisconsin) who killed and dismembered 17 men between 1978 and 1991 and preserved some of their body parts  – though this connection between the two killers is merely speculation.

Monster Season 3 Release Date

No official news just yet on when we can expect to see Monster: The Ed Gein Story, but if previous seasons are anything to go by (released in 2022 and 2024), we anticipate it will land on Netflix in 2026.

When it is released, all episodes will be available exclusively on Netflix. netflix.com