Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story opens not on the titular serial killer but on his neighbor Glenda Cleveland (Niecy Nash), who is unable to enjoy her nightly TV ritual due to the incessant drilling and banging occurring in the apartment next door.

From there, we cut to Dahmer’s one-bedroom unit, where he is at the tail end of a post-dismemberment cleanup.

It’s then that we, for the first time, see Dahmer’s face (and that of his portrayer, Evan Peters, in full dead-in-the-eyes mode).

The next faces we see are affixed to myriad missing persons posters dotting the neighborhood, which intimates that the 10-episode limited series begins near the end of Dahmer’s murderous timeline.

Dahmer’s subsequent arrest closes out the episode, but any relief one might feel is quickly replaced by fury when we are reminded that were it not for a series of systematic police failures, fueled by racism and homophobia, Dahmer would’ve — and could’ve — been captured much sooner.