Dan MedeirosThe Herald News
Sept. 17, 2026, 4:06 a.m. ET
- The new Netflix series “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” is a fictionalized take on the 1892 murders.
- Unlike previous seasons of the anthology, this show does not adhere to historical facts or locations.
- The series is framed as a dark comedy and contains graphic scenes of sex and violence.
- It portrays Lizzie Borden and maid Bridget Sullivan as lovers who conspire to commit the murders.
Netflix has finally dropped all eight episodes of “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story,” the fourth season of the hit Ryan Murphy anthology series.
This season takes on Fall River’s infamous 1892 Borden murders, in which the well-to-do Andrew and Abby Borden were slain with what’s believed to be a hatchet. Andrew’s prim 32-year-old daughter Lizzie was the prime suspect in the gruesome double homicide. But she was acquitted in what became an internationally famous trial.
The Netflix show stars Ella Beatty as Lizzie Borden and Vicky Krieps as maid Bridget Sullivan, who become lovers conspiring to murder the Bordens.
The Herald News screened the first two episodes of “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” in advance. Here are five things to expect from the show, including one surprise you may not have expected at all.
But beware:Major spoilers ahead.
‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’ is not historically accurate at all
If you’re expecting a sober examination of the world’s most infamous unsolved true-crime case, “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” is not that.
The first season of “Monster,” which covered serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, was a mostly straightforward attempt to adhere to established facts in that case; actors even recreated original 911 calls.
“The Lizzie Borden Story” doesn’t bother with established history.
The Bordens’ house doesn’t look anything like the Bordens’ real house in Fall River – in fact, it wasn’t shot in Fall River and doesn’t resemble the city in the slightest.
This Andrew Borden is a middle-aged woodworker obsessed with his collection of axes, when the real one was an elderly landowner and businessman. This version of maid Bridget Sullivan is shown joining the Borden household only months before the murders, when in reality she had been working for them for several years.
Even the infamous hatchet slayings aren’t staged the way we famously know to be true. Here, Abby gets a hatchet to the gut, a wound that doesn’t exist; Andrew is killed while standing up, not lying on the couch.
But it’s obvious the creators of the show weren’t aiming to depict reality – the first thing shown is the parting of a stage curtain, spotlighting the show’s theatricality.
‘The Lizzie Borden Story’ is chock full of shocks
The show begins with the double murder itself, with Lizzie swinging the hatchet – so unless the show has twists up its sleeve in the remaining episodes, it seems committed to solving the unsolved crime.
Blood comes up often in “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story,” as you’d expect, but not just from hatchet wounds. Lizzie is depicted as having “irregular menses,” leaving menstrual blood all over the famous murder couch. She’s spurred to action by the wholesale slaughter of her beloved pet doves. And there’s an extended depiction of the myth of Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian noblewoman accused of slaughtering virgin girls so she could bathe in their blood, which Lizzie mimics in a unique way.
But “Monster” includes plenty of other fluids, too. Abby Borden is shown as an alcoholic who sneaks nips of paint thinner and formaldehyde. And after the Bordens suffer food poisoning, there’s an extended sequence featuring geysers of projectile vomiting and diarrhea.
Sex galore in ‘The Lizzie Borden Story’
As a tale of two lovers plotting a murder, “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” drips with sexual innuendo.
Expect to see maid Bridget Sullivan perform much more than just housekeeping services for the Bordens — and not only Lizzie.
The events of the story are like a sexual awakening for Lizzie as she becomes aware of the power of her body, and familiar with various 19th century wind-up and steam-powered gizmos whose purpose cannot be described here.
‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’ is a comedy
Despite containing florid depictions of murder, sex, alcoholism, domestic abuse, prostitution, animal cruelty and abortion, “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” aims for dark comedy more than horror.
Actress Rebecca Hall plays Abby as a preening, status-obsessed snoot. As Andrew, actor Charlie Hunnam stammers and growls in a voice recalling Daniel Day Lewis’ in “There Will Be Blood,” fuming over being the only man in a house full of squabbling women.
And Jessica Barden shows off her comedic chops as an impossibly high-maintenance Nance O’Neil, the stage actress who the real Lizzie befriended post-trial.
‘The Lizzie Borden Story’ is largely Bridget’s story
Though it’s ostensibly Lizzie’s story, the first two episodes largely focus on Bridget Sullivan, played by Krieps – whose impossible to ignore thick German accent is explained in the show.
Sullivan is played less as a stolid Irish housemaid and more like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way from bloodstain removal to sexual favors. Her presence completely changes the trajectory of Borden family, drives the plot forward, and sets the family on its tragic course.
All four seasons of “Monster” including “The Lizzie Borden Story” are available only on Netflix.
