Charlie Hunnam In ‘Monster’ Season 3 What We Know (Mar 2025)

Charlie Hunnam has been missing too long from TV since the Sons Of Anarchy finale with its soap-operatic, green-screened madness on FX. Following the logistical nightmare known as Apple TV+’s Shantaram production, he spent time in Zack Snyder-land, but finally, Hunnam was revealed to be returning to TV bad-dude mode with Prime Video/Amazon’s Criminal, which still doesn’t have a release date. Yet he has already moved into his next killer role, which moves beyond mere baddie status. Hunnam has joined Netflix’s Monster as a notorious murderer who still influences pop culture, so let’s look at the evidence on what to expect from the third season of the Ryan Murphy series.

Plot

As Netflix bingewatchers are aware, the first Monster dramatized Jeffrey Dahmer’s (Evan Peters) tour of terror, and Monsters followed Lyle and Erik Menendez’s murder of their parents. Both of those seasons included the killers’ names in the season titles, but as Ryan Murphy revealed to Collider, they are going in a different direction with this third season, formally titled The Original Monster because that’s kind of what he was.” The “he” is Ed Gein, and this third season began shooting on Halloween last year.

Gein was the inspiration for Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (Hitchcock will be dramatized in this season, too) and Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Literature (and later, cinema) continued to use Gein’s homicidal and sadistic acts as a template, including with Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho. For that reason, Murphy will use this season to make commentary upon how (in the 1950s) Gein became the first murderer (not to mention grave robber) who fascinated the public. And that’s still a phenomenon that occurs today, as Penn Badgley has attested to with discomfort after portraying a lusted-after, fictional serial killer in Netflix You (and also after Badgley noted the fascination surrounding the Dahmer season).

This season should feed that beast, and in all likelihood, we ain’t seen nothing yet in the bingewatching obsession department, given Gein’s ^^^ good looks (Hunnam was surely cast for his eerie resemblance, along with his talent). Also, Murphy told Collider that he had “always” wanted to work with the man who portrayed Jax Teller, “[s]o I met with Charlie and he’s just the most lovely person. He liked what we were doing. He liked what it’s about.” The always-busy showrunner and producer elaborated more:

“We were interested in this idea of, ‘Where did our cultural interest in serial killers begin? Where and how did this all start?’ Based on our research, the very first one who became a celebrity at that level was Ed, who was an instant crazy celebrity from the moment he was arrested … Nobody had ever heard of anything like that.”

A new crime-dramatizing era was arguably born through Gein’s arrest, and this season will touch on his influence that reached into Silence of the Lambs (Gein became known for his “skin suit” fixation) as well as reflect upon his schizophrenia and the countless homicides that he was suspected of, although he only confessed to two murders and spent the rest of his life behind bars.

For a less dramatized version of this story, MGM+ also recently tackled Gein’s crimes with the Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein docuseries.

Cast

Charlie Hunnam will turn heads and stomachs as Ed Gein. His mother will be portrayed by Laurie Metcalf, according to Variety, which added that Tom Hollander is onboard as Alfred Hitchcock with Olivia Williams as Alma Reville, wife to Hitchcock.

The Insneider newsletter has exclusively reported that scream queen Addison Rae (He’s All That, Thanksgiving) and Suzanna Son (The Idol, Red Rocket) have also joined the cast.

Release Date

Monster‘s first two seasons were two years apart, so we might be waiting until Sept. 2026 if the pattern sticks. However, rumors have swirled that 2025 is happening, so we shall see.

Trailer

Hunnam’s Sons Of Anarchy performance contained plenty of straight-up brutal moments that forecast his ability to portray a notorious killer. The below clip, however, comes with Bonus Taylor Sheridan.