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Netflix dropped Evan Peters-starrer Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story on Wednesday, September 21, 2022. The limited series follows the crimes of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer from 1978 to 1991. Dahmer was killed by a fellow inmate in 1994 while serving his 15 prison terms.
Peters, who won the Emmy Award for his performance in Mare of Easttown, is seen stepping into the shoes of the Milwaukee serial killer in Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story begins on a personal note with a neglected child who suffered abandonment issues and a couple of personality disorders. This causes him to commit some of the most gruesome murders in the history of mankind.
The limited series then segues into the larger narratives of racism, homophobia, police brutality, and others to throw light on how the murders of 17 males went unnoticed by a blindfolded system. Towards the end, the series comes full circle as it returns to the personal.
Read on for a detailed review/recap of episode 9 of Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story episode 9: A quick look at what happened
Episode 9 of Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story seems like the makers' attempt at wrapping up Dahmer's story by hitting all the bullet points that they might have penned down on paper.
The episode begins with Jeffrey Dahmer behind bars, where he is heralded a celebrity. Here, Dahmer starts receiving fan mail seeking autographs for comics based on him and his killing sprees. Some fans even send him money.
Meanwhile, Dahmer's father authors a book titled A Father's Story, which is picked up for a feature film but eventually dropped due to the victims' families stepping in. However, the book garners him recognition, with interviews featuring the father-son duo.
One such interview sees Dahmer talk about homicidal tendencies sprouting during his teenage years. That apart, the interviewer also throws light on the victims of Dahmer's experiments, who were turned into "living zombies" after Dahmer would drill their skulls and pour acid into them.
At one point, Dahmer's neighbor Glenda Cleveland rightly remarks:
"I don't know why he gets to go on national TV to tell his side of the story. This is not some Halloween story."
The episode chronicles how Dahmer turned into a pop-culture figure who inspired Halloween costumes and cards. One fan even likens him to Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger, fictional characters from slasher films.
Despite the fanfare surrounding Dahmer, episode 9 does splendidly in capturing the suffering endured by his victims' families, many of whom could not even give their deceased a proper memorial because their bodies were not recovered in their entirety.
Although the episode struck the right notes, it did not bother to let them breathe. Episode 9 is just one instance piling on another in the aftermath of Dahmer's imprisonment, and has an almost documentary-like plot progression.
The racist intonations continued in the episode, with director Jennifer Lynch delivering the most moving sequence in the series, which shines light on the treatment of Black communities in the U.S. back in the '90s when the case came to light.
On the one hand, there is a small audience for the Chief of Police acknowledging Glenda for her efforts to flag Dahmer's actions, while on the other, the two white police officers who handed Konerak Sinthasomphone back to Dahmer despite Glenda's complaints were awarded for their "bravery" in front of a hall-packed audience.
Another instance of this racism is depicted when Glenda's daughter breaks a white man's camera after he is caught trepassing near Oxford Apartments. While she is arrested promptly and taken to the station, police are blind to Konerak's father receiving racist phone calls from unidentified callers.
It makes matters even worse when these callers turn out to be two white police officers seeking fun out of the situation.
The treatment meted out to people of color makes one wonder what the police's swift action for each of Glenda's complaints against Dahmer could have done. As has been the series' focus in the second half, it was the systemic oppression of non-whites in the U.S., and not a lone psychopathic killer, that led to the detrimental state of the non-white communities there.
However, Dahmer does seem to pay for his actions when he is attacked in the prison chapel. Although he survives the attack, by the end of Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, the serial killer is bludgeoned to death by an inmate.
All the episodes of Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story are currently streaming on Netflix.
