First Thoughts on Netflix’s Dahmer

I was very worried about the Jeffrey Dahmer series coming out. I even wrote an article a long time ago why there’s never gonna be a movie or TV series about him.

To my surprise it came up out of nowhere and I had forgotten about the production. I decided to give the series a shot and see for myself how were they going to play out this series knowing the past history of bio topics being presented in a way that the shock value is backed by intelligence.

So far it feels like we’re getting the main points. The show is not wasting any time telling us something that we already know.

I knew that this series was going to be helmed by the same creator of American horror story, Ryan Murphy. I knew there was gonna be an accuracy to the story because of Murphy’s running success of portraying real life people even if they exist in a fictional world or if it’s entirely a biographical series.

The Dahmer series is another one that follows the same blueprint of other true crime bio topics. It doesn’t waste time to tell us something we already know. Other various serial killer documentaries have to go from the very beginning before the first kill, but because of the other Jeffrey Dahmer documentaries, people know what they’re getting into. The first episode opens up with what led to his arrest, it honestly made me think of the other Netflix movie where Ted Bundy’s life was talked about and it started up with him in prison as opposed to observing the recreation of one of his first kills.

It was a relief to have a series start with how they were caught then what would lead up to them being caught, again it’s already known about what he did

My mother was the one that told me who Jeffrey Dahmer was, She never went into details about his horrific actions he did on the men and boys. But she told me the story about how his father stood by him.

I was told that his father was present during interviews and still came to see him in prison. To see at the end of the first episode that Lionel Dahmer is horrified and heartbroken. It does provide that part of the story, it made me remember about how my mom told me his father stood by him. That scene just emphasizes more, and it made me think about how there’s never really been a father in criminal history that has stood beside his child.

I do have to admit that Evan peters gives a great performance, I had no doubt but I had no idea how much he looked like Jeffrey Dahmer. Evan peters is like a master of disguise with the way that they have created him to look different in every season of American horror story, but what he can do to bring out that outer appearance. This is the most accurate depiction of Jeffrey Dahmer next to Jeremy Renner.

Evan peters revealed the rule for how the Jeffrey Dahmer story is shown. It is not told from Jeffrey Dahmer’s point of view. You don’t get into his head, You’re watching it from the outside.

Having the story go into other accounts of people that were in Jeffrey Dahmer’s life whether they were family or victims. His story has never been shown from an outside perspective before, the other times it’s always been going in his mind, now you’re outside of his mind for this. His mind is filled with madness, It’s a rough place to be there, and the people that I’ve had to do documentaries about him and do extensive research, it can take a toll on the brain.

In a way, the series does do our psyche a favor for knowing what we know and going from there.

Bravo, Ryan Murphy.

That’s my first thoughts on what I’ve seen so far in the first couple of episodes of Dahmer, I’ll have some more thoughts about it when I finish the show.