A Victorian Axe Murder Recast as Prestige Obsession
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is the fourth season of Netflix’s true crime anthology Monster, reframing the infamous 1892 axe murders of Andrew and Abby Borden as a stylized character study driven by female rage, class tension, and psychological pressure inside a brutal Victorian household. This is not a neutral retelling of a dusty case file; it is an argument about what makes a “Monster” and why Lizzie’s legend refuses to die. Netflix has handed Ella Beatty the axe, putting her front and center as Lizzie in a blood‑splashed first look that signals the franchise’s new direction toward women’s stories. By premiering September 17 as a fully period‑crafted Netflix drama series, the Monster Lizzie Borden chapter positions itself as the moment the anthology stops gawking at killers and starts interrogating the mythology around them.
Ella Beatty’s First Female Monster and the Power of Casting
The choice to have Ella Beatty lead the cast as Lizzie Borden is the clearest sign that Monster wants its first female “Monster” to feel unsettling and modern, not quaintly historical. Netflix selected Beatty after an extensive search, and the early images show her staring straight at the viewer, face streaked with blood, refusing to play the haunted waif. Beatty has called the role “a dream come true” and emphasized that this season examines female rage and repression that still feels relevant today, treating the Borden case as “almost mythic in proportion.” In a franchise previously dominated by men like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein, positioning Beatty as Lizzie is a deliberate pivot: the true crime anthology finally asks what happens when the killer archetype is a woman hemmed in by wealth, propriety, and humiliation rather than a loner lurking in the shadows.
Vicky Krieps, Rebecca Hall and Feminist Friction Behind the Scenes
If Monster Lizzie Borden is going to say something fresh about women and violence, the show cannot rely only on its male writers and directors—and the cast knows it. Vicky Krieps, who plays Bridget Sullivan, admits she was wary that a female‑focused season was largely created by men and often found herself acting as “the adviser for feminist questions” on set. Her insistence on swapping “some Christian book written by a man” from Bridget’s nightstand for something that matched the character’s progressive streak is a small but telling rebellion against lazy period tropes. Rebecca Hall, as stepmother Abby Borden, joins a group of performers—alongside Charlie Hunnam and Billie Lourd—who are clearly being used not as costume drama furniture but as pressure points in a home defined by humiliation and cruelty. The friction between male authorship and female perspective may be exactly what keeps this Netflix drama series from feeling like another tidy true crime reenactment.
A True Crime Anthology That Finally Questions Its Own Gaze
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story arrives after three seasons that treated male killers as the franchise’s default: Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers, and Ed Gein. By turning to Lizzie, accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe in their Massachusetts home and then acquitted the following year, the series tackles a crime kept alive for more than a century by theories, pop culture retellings, and a schoolyard rhyme. Netflix describes this season as crawling inside Lizzie’s head, reframing the case through desire, repression, and the fury within the Borden home. That approach, plus ornate period images and a clear release date of September 17, signals a commitment to reimagining true crime through prestige drama instead of simple reenactment. The anthology is finally less interested in shock value and more interested in how Lizzie “changed what the world believed a killer could be”—and what it means to call a woman a Monster at all.
Why This Lizzie Borden Matters Now
The timing of Monster Lizzie Borden is not accidental. The culture is saturated with true crime, yet far less willing to accept uncritical worship of killers. By centering Ella Beatty’s Lizzie and Vicky Krieps’s Bridget as women who, in this retelling, rage against a system that would leave them moneyless and powerless, the series taps into contemporary anger at gendered injustice. Krieps says she was drawn in when she learned that Bridget and Lizzie use that system against itself to escape “not only get away, but get away with the money”—calling it “the best plot.” That mischievous relish hints at the dark streak running through the season: violence and fantasy as a twisted mode of liberation inside a home built on cruelty. When Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story premieres on September 17, it will test whether audiences want their true crime anthology to keep asking hard questions about who gets labeled a monster—and why.
