As we saw in the first episode of Monster: The Ed Gein Story, Ed killed his brother, and then after his mother passed away, he started exhuming corpses in an effort to resurrect her. He was suffering from all sorts of mental illnesses, and the scary thing was that nobody in Plainfield had a clue about what he was up to. So let’s find out what happened in episode 2, why Ed’s friend decided to distance herself from him, and why Alfred Hitchcock was so fascinated by the story of a psychopath.
Spoiler Alert
Why did Adeline Watkins stop talking to Ed?
Adeline was probably the only girl who talked to Ed Gein. As we saw in the first two episodes, she felt that he related to her weirdness, and he never judged her for her rather peculiar interests. But poor Adeline had no clue who the real Ed Gein was and what he was capable of doing. At times, there were conversations about Adeline in the Gein household, and Augusta Gein, Ed’s mother, strictly told him to not go near that “Jezebel.” She told Gein to stay away from women, as that was what he was supposed to do to prove that he was a devout Christian. But Ed just couldn’t resist his impulses. He wanted to talk to Adeline, bring her home, and introduce her to his mother. After exhuming corpses and using the skin of the deceased to create a human suit, which he treated as his mother, Ed decided to take charge of his own life. He decided to go against his mother’s wishes and express his feelings to Adeline. Ed was with Adeline when she told him how she was fascinated by the profession of one Mr. Weegee. She told Ed that that man was a crime photographer who was called by the law enforcement authorities to take pictures of crime scenes. She told Ed with a lot of excitement in her eyes that at times Mr. Weegee took pictures of victims who had died just hours before, whose bodies were still warm. She said that there was something really intimate about being around the people who had just passed away. Adeline might have been a curious soul with some strange sensibilities, but still she was nowhere close to the sinister and malevolent nature of Ed Gein. Ed brought her home, and she was a bit surprised to see how messed up his place was. Ed took her upstairs to meet his mother. Adeline was probably a bit surprised by the kind of interest he was showing in her and how sure he had become of her in such a short span of time. She had no clue that Augusta Gein had passed away a few days back. Once Adeline went upstairs, she saw somebody sitting in an armchair, facing the other side. She greeted Ed’s mother but soon realized that something was terribly wrong. Ed had already told her how, just like the “Bitch of Buchenwald,” he too had made a bowl out of a human skull. She thought that he was joking, but once she reached his house, she realized that he was actually up to something. Adeline ran away from there, and she wanted nothing more to do with him. I believe Ed killed Adeline in the end, and that’s what inspired the famous shower sequence in Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Why Did Ed Kill Mary Hogan?
The stories about the “Bitch of Buchenwald,” aka the “Concentration Camp Murderess,” had a huge impact on Ed Gein. He had come across stories of how Ilse Koch used the skin of Jewish prisoners to make lampshades and other decorative items. It was claimed that she was more sinister than even the most brutal Nazis, and her sadistic deeds drew global media attention. Ed felt that Adeline parted ways with him because his mother didn’t respond to her properly. His mental condition didn’t let him see reality. He felt that, for the first time in his life, he had the chance of going “steady” with a girl, but his mother just couldn’t see him happy. The whole experience pushed him over the edge, leaving him desperate to release his bottled-up rage. With a gun in hand, he thought he might satisfy his bloodlust by shooting a few squirrels, but it didn’t cut it. He then went to a local bar, where he came across Mary, the bartender who was the wife of the owner. He noticed how Mary looked exactly like his mother, and the latter was a bit weirded out by his comment. He told her that he didn’t mean to disrespect her and got up and went to the washroom. Ed’s troubled mind transported him to one of the Nazi gatherings, where he saw Ilse Koch and her husband, Karl, sitting right in front of him. That vision fueled something inside him, and that’s when he decided what he wanted to do. He came out of the washroom, aimed his gun at Mary, told her that she was not worthy of being compared to his mother, questioned her character, and then shot her point-blank. He took Mary’s body and left the scene. The next day, the police arrived at the scene, and the husband of the deceased told them that he had seen Ed entering the bar just moments before he left for work. I believe that the police will find out in subsequent episodes what Ed was up to and put him behind bars.
Why did Hitchcock choose Perkins for his film?
The second episode shifts focus to a conversation happening between the great Alfred Hitchcock, his wife, and Robert Bloch, who had written a novel named Psycho about Ed Gein. Hitchcock seemed rather fascinated by the character of Ed Gein, and he had decided to make a film on him. Hitchcock aimed to portray who we truly are as a species, rather than what we aspire to be. He felt that Ed Gein’s story marked a tectonic shift in the perceptions of people. He felt that by making a film on Ed Gein, he would change the very definition of a monster for American society. He had chosen Anthony Perkins to play the protagonist in his film, and there was a very strong reason why he hadn’t gone for a popular actor instead. Hitchcock was aware of Perkins’ homosexuality, and he felt that that gave him a better understanding of who Ed Gein was as a person. Hitchcock didn’t mean to offend Perkins in any manner, but he did feel that Perkins would understand the duality that existed with Gein, because he was also experiencing something similar. Though Perkins’ homosexuality was an open secret, he still couldn’t talk about it openly, because it was considered to be a taboo.
Perkins wanted to deep dive into the mind of the character he was playing. He was very excited for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity he got. He cross-dressed just to understand the psyche of Ed Gein, and his partner felt that he was stretching the limits, as that was not how one approached a character. Hitchcock took Perkins to the set that his team had created. Hitchcock had made sure that Ed Gein’s house looked exactly like how the cops found it back in the day. Hitchcock even created props like the preserved vulvas, just to make everything look realistic. Perkins felt nauseous at the sight, and he went outside and puked. He told Hitchcock that the censor board wouldn’t ever allow him to make such a film. But Hitchcock told him to focus on getting into character and leave the rest up to him. The audience couldn’t bear sitting through the entire duration of the film: some of them came out feeling nauseated and some criticized Hitchcock for his sadistic creation. Hitchcock, on the other hand, felt a strange sense of satisfaction if his sole motive was accomplished. I believe Hitchcock deliberately wanted to make his audience feel uncomfortable, provoke them, and disturb them because he knew that redefining and rebranding the very concept of who a “monster” truly is was not something people would easily accept. He understood that society preferred to keep monsters at a safe distance, imagining them as something supernatural and grotesque. But he held a mirror in front of them, suggesting that monstrosity could lie within ordinary people, perhaps even within us. That unsettling truth, the audience was not ready to accept.
