When Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Storydebuted in September 2024, it was clear right away that Episode 5 would be a standout of the season that would be talked about for a long time.

Clocking in at 33 minutes, “The Hurt Man,” written by co-creator Brennan, is noticeably shorter than the eight other episodes, and remarkably, it’s all shot in one take without any cuts or creative editing. It consists of one intimate conversation between Erik Menendez (Cooper Koch) and his defense attorney, Leslie Abramson (Ari Graynor), as he details the alleged abuse he suffered at the hands of his parents, José and Kitty (played by Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny), before he and his brother Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) brutally murdered them.

In an interview with Tudum in September, just a week after Monsters debuted on Netflix, co-creator Murphy said, “It’s already a...