On August 20, 1989, Lyle and Erik Menendez brutally murdered their parents. They were shot at so many times that when Lyle returned to his car to reload his gun, their bodies were more or less mutilated.

That crime is central Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendezthe second installment in Ryan Murphy’s Netflix anthology series (after Dahmer—Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story), and so there are competing theories about why they committed the horrific act. Lyle and Erik claimed they acted in response to a lifetime of sexual abuse by their father, as well as out of fear of imminent death. Prosecutors, meanwhile, argued that their motivation was simple greed, as the boys coveted the enormous inheritance their father would deny them.

Murphy’s nine-episode show, however, offers an even juicier explanation: The boys wanted to kill their parents to keep secret the fact that they were having an incestuous sexual relationship with each other.

Often scored to the sounds of Milli Vanilli, Lyle’s (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) favorite band, Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez (out now) is characteristically Murphy, at once deep and shallow, sharp and bizarre. It is also, unsurprisingly, flashy, culminating in a fifth episode consisting of a single, unbroken 33-minute take—the camera zooming ever so slowly into close-up—in which Erik (Cooper Koch) recounts in graphic detail the torment inflicted on him by his father, José (Javier Bardem), and ignored by his mother, Kitty (Chloë Sevigny).

Miles Crist/Netflix

But lest it seem like the show is merely a sympathetic portrait of its subjects, this latest ripped-from-the-headlines story – Murphy’s second this month, alongside American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez— swings wildly between condemnation and sympathy, spreading his disapproval to ultimately reach the same conclusion as the jury in the siblings’ second criminal trial: they were as guilty as the sin.

Regardless of the competing perspectives, there are a few things that are the same everywhere Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez. José was a wealthy entertainment businessman who was demanding, if not terrifyingly domineering, and his marriage to Kitty had been somewhat rocky due to an extramarital affair on his part. Lyle and Erik were upper-crust kids who wore their arrogant pretenses like a badge. And after the murders of their mother and father, the brothers sent wild speculation (maybe the Mafia killed their parents!) and went on a spending spree of a staggering $700,000 worth of clothes, Rolex watches, cars and more.

Moreover, there is no question that they were pinned down for the executions when Erik – who had already confessed to his friend Craig (Charlie Hall), who was unable to extract a confession via wiretap – spilled the beans to his therapist Dr. Jerome Oziel (Dallas Roberts), all of which plays out in a compelling way in Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez.

Erik does this because he is gripped by thoughts of suicide that stem from guilt, and the series suggests that Oziel kept quiet about this revelation less because of doctor-patient confidentiality (as he told Lyle and Erik) than because he saw them as potential investors in his company. Such deals are ruined, however, when Oziel tells his mistress Judalon Smyth (Leslie Grossman), who—apparently out of anger at her lover for not wanting to leave his wife—reports it to the police.

Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez‘s first few episodes cast Lyle and Erik as unrepentant sociopaths, who describe their ugly behavior with withering disgust. But that changes once they’re behind bars and hire attorney Leslie Abramson (Ari Graynor), at which point they suddenly have a new story: José had been abusing first Lyle and then Erik for years, and Lyle had similarly raped Erik in a twisted expression of rage and confusion.

This defense earns them the vitriol of reporter Dominick Dunne (Nathan Lane), who periodically shows up in the courtroom and in living rooms to criticize the boys and their “abuse excuse,” the very tactic that previously got his daughter’s killer a prison sentence. Poltergeist actress Dominique, a slap on the wrist. Lane is a mouthpiece for anti-Menendez sentiment during the show’s middle passages, a counterbalance to the otherwise detailed and mournful dramatization of Lyle and Erik’s abuse, and the actor bites into his role with the same eagerness Graynor displayed as the objection-happy Abramson.

Dunne suggests that Lyle and Erik committed parricide not in response to trauma, but because they were terrified that José would find out they were lovers. He suggested this in a shot where they meet face-to-face at a party, Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez is strikingly depicted in a short scene where Kitty accidentally catches them in the shower, soaping each other lustfully.

Such sensationalism is typical of Murphy’s course, and extends to a brief conversation between Erik and O.J. Simpson, who appears in the cell next door to hear the boy Menendez’s helpful advice about taking a plea deal. Moreover, it presents long stretches of material about José and Kitty that it either makes up out of thin air or gets from Lyle and Erik—the least reliable narrators on the planet when it comes to their own stories.

Miles Crist/Netflix

Aside from a few episodes focused on José and Kitty, Bardem and Sevigny act like cartoonish ghosts or innocent victims, he scowling and raging with a comic ferocity, and she callously dismissing her children’s accusations and drinking wine whenever possible—even when she’s waking from a seizure. Whether they portray them as cold-blooded killers or damaged souls, Chavez and especially Koch are compelling as the infamous brothers. Along with the slick, attention-grabbing direction of Carl Franklin, Paris Barclay, and Michael Uppendahl, their performances ensure that Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez is never boring and, every now and then, makes you think.

Nevertheless, Murphy plays all over the place, not because he believes any of his assumptions, but because he is interested in creating intrigue and suspense, and the events are ultimately more successful in holding one’s attention than in providing new insights. It is no surprise then that Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez ends exactly where it begins: with the unavoidable reality that Lyle and Erik, currently serving life sentences without parole, are exactly where they belong.