What about all the dinner parties?

Less than a week after its Netflix premiere, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story has already sparked a fair amount of controversy. Erik Menendez himself was quick to condemn the series along with his family.. In later episodes, it is implied that the brothers (played by Cooper Koch and Nicholas Chavez) were actually lovers and killed their parents to keep it a secret. The series has been accused of re-traumatizing victims with its detailed accounts of rape and child abuse, and creator Ryan Murphy has already made public statements in its defense. Alison Foreman of IndieWire called the series a “vicious piece of on-screen cruelty.”

But what made me angry about this adaptation were all the damn dinner parties.

They begin in Episode 4, with Vanity Fair journalist Dominick Dunne (Nathan Lane) discussing the Menendez brothers in a group session (he previously does so at a private lunch in Episode 3). This was undoubtedly something that was happening across the country at the time of the murders and trial, with the public heavily engaged via Court TV and eager to discuss their own theories, feelings and reactions.

Then it happened in episode 7. And episode 8. And episode 9. The bloated nine-episode season is almost entirely due to the dinner party scenes, in which Dunne is portrayed as having an unhealthy obsession with the Menendez brothers that goes beyond the scheming of a reporter. He starts acting more like a town gossip or a mean high school girl who spits venom and bile just for attention. As details of the case and the brothers' abuse allegations come to light, Dunne – as he is portrayed in the series – feels increasingly out of place.

Episode 7 has the longest dinner party cutscene, as Dunne rehashes the case and presents a series of theories – “Monsters” comes as close as it ever gets to this runner's self-awareness, but it doesn't add any value. Even the guests start to seem uncomfortable and jaded, giving in to their friend's hyper-fixation on it being a free meal, after all. He ends up alone at the table, his mind preoccupied with Menendez, and he shows vulnerability about his daughter's death to one of the party's waiters.

As documented in the series, Dunne's daughter Dominique was killed in 1982 and her ex-boyfriend was convicted of manslaughter (not murder) after citing a history of abuse. “Monsters” uses this to make Dunne a mouthpiece for the prosecution, the doubters, and likely a portion of the Netflix audience. It's a clumsy manipulation and an unimaginative framing concept. Nathan Lane is an actor you use when you have him, and he finds gravitas in Dunne's flashbacks and even descriptions of the murders in Episode 4. But when he – by his own admission – spreads a little gossip, it reflects poorly on both the character and the series. Lane tries hard to keep the memory of Dunne's daughter and her killer alive, but the connection to Menendez never quite comes across.

In Episode 8, the 1994 Northridge earthquake prompts Dunne's character to entertain again, making this elegant segue: “You know who's afraid of earthquakes? Erik Menendez.” He spends 80 percent of his time talking about the Menendez brothers, and the other 20 percent praying that someone else will mention them so he can talk more about them. He (questionably) entertains his cocktail buddies with nuggets like Erik's new girlfriend and the unforgettable Judalon Smyth (Leslie Grossman). He ends this episode by saying that if the jury acquits the brothers, they will be haunted by the ghosts of José and Kitty (Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny).

Episode 9 begins with the conviction of OJ Simpson (Trae Ireland), a verdict that horrifies Dunne – and he says so at the evening's party! This time, it's not hard to get it right; Simpson was imprisoned along with the Menendez brothers and the trials took place in quick succession. “If I'm honest, I'm a bit sick of the Menendez brothers,” Dunne says, before enjoying the opportunity to fill his guests in on the latest news from Erik and Lyle's love lives. As Ben Travers described in his review of the series, Dunne is “always so clearly portrayed as the one in the wrong – like a Bond villain who's constantly monologueing but is having a drink instead of petting a cat.”

Monsters doesn't shy away from trauma, and Dunne is one of many characters haunted by what they've seen and experienced. But he's also on an island, barely interacting with anyone in the main plot and awkwardly present in court proceedings like some sort of fan-fiction interlude. His gossip-spreading dinner parties are a narrative element that makes Monsters seem cheesy. After nine episodes, everything Dunne says and does in these scenes seems exactly as it was portrayed; an attention-grabbing ploy that detracts from the show's more pressing themes.

“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is now streaming on Netflix.