MMonster Anthology
Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story backdrop

Season 1 · Episode 4 · September 21, 2022

The Good Boy Box

Ohio State, the Army, and his grandmother's house: every rescue attempt fails on schedule.

Updated

Season
Season 1 — Dahmer
Episode
Episode 4 of 10
Premiere
September 21, 2022
Platform
Netflix
Rating
TV-MA
Part of
Monster anthology

Watch

Monster Season 1, Episode 4 — The Good Boy Box (video)YouTube

Official featurette: Evan Peters breaks down his performance.

The episode

Lionel Dahmer keeps trying to reroute his son — Ohio State, then the Army, then a room in his mother's house — and the episode tracks how each attempt fails in turn: expulsion, an alcohol-related discharge, an indecent-exposure arrest at the state fair, a firing for drinking blood at the phlebotomy lab.

The escalating record ends with Steven Tuomi, killed in a hotel room in 1987, and a body carried back to his grandmother's basement. The title's good boy box — the locked box his grandmother gave him — becomes the episode's coldest image: the family providing storage space for what they cannot see.

Show vs. the record

The outline matches the biography. Dahmer lasted briefly at Ohio State, was discharged from the Army, and later lived with his grandmother Catherine in West Allis. He was arrested for indecent exposure. Steven Tuomi was killed in a hotel room in 1987.

The locked box is a prop the series leans on. The family conversations around it are written, not recorded.

New to the season? Start with the Season 1 guide for the full picture, or the watch order to see how the anthology fits together.

Keep watching

Browse every guide on the seasons index or jump to the Season 4 hub for the newest chapter of the anthology.