Ava Alexopoulos – Social Media Director
You may be familiar with the rhyme “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty wacks…” It all comes down to the infamous 1892 murders of Andrew and Abby Borden in Fall River, Massachusetts. Their daughter Lizzie was accused of whacking them to death with an axe and was tried, but she was found to be not guilty. To this day, this case remains unsolved and her story is still relevant in movies, televisions, and nursery rhymes.
Ryan Murphy has depicted Lizzie Borden as a serial killer in his new Monster services on Netflix that came out on September 17th, 2026. The cast includes Ella Beautty, Charlie Hunnman, Vicky Krieps, Rebecca Hall, Jessica Braden, and Billie Lourd. There are eight episodes that go through a series of events from Lizzie planning the murders, to being in court and dealing with the aftermath. However, audiences argued that this fictional series is the least historic because of the inaccurate details about Lizzie and how the crimes played out.
This season follows the Borden case in what showrunner Ian Brennan calls “a legacy of female rage” The story is changed multiple times just so we understand what women have had to go through such as domestic violence and rape. We also see that the majority of the actors are younger than their characters and come across as attractive, even though they are attempting to give off the plain look. Lizzie is supposed to be someone that can’t find a man to marry and then eventually grows to become more of a confident woman after dealing with the tension from her father and step mother. We learn more about Abby and Andrew throughout the show to understand why they are the way they are. Abby is portrayed as an evil stepmother who doesn’t care for Lizzie. Andrew is portrayed as a wealthy man and hates being the only man in the house. We aren’t sure if they were like this in real life. Upon the murders, it almost makes you have mixed feelings about whether or not they deserved this.
The one thing that stood out was connecting Lizzie’s story to serial killer Aileen Wuornous (played by Sarah Paulson.) After the murders happen, we suddenly time travel to the 80’s to meet Aileen Wuornous, who appears in four episodes. Aileen is heavily fascinated by Lizzie Borden and many visuals show her and Lizzie together through hallucinations. One sequence includes both Lizzie and Aileen dancing to the song “Smalltown Boy” by Bronski Beat. There’s one part where Aileen visits the Lizzie Borden house in the show, but that didn’t happen in real life because Aileen had been in prison at that time. Paulson even reenacts Aileen’s trial in court and the camera quality is almost identical to real life footage. Murphy’s creative turn showcases how female serial killers had to deal with society judgements associated with female rage
The housemaid Maggie plays a big role in the series where she helps Lizzie with the murders. Both of them poison Lizzie’s parents with oysters in a disgusting vomit scene. This isn’t entirely true since they did get ill in real life. Lizzie and Maggie are given a love story out of nowhere as they grow closer with one another. In one instance where Lizzie kills the neighbor for abusing Maggie during her chores. There’s no evidence that it happened in real life. After the trial, Maggie plans on staying with Lizzie when she divorcing her husband, but Lizzie had lived alone after the trial.
This dark comedy gives us the perspective of if Lizzie Borden truly committed the crimes. No one knows what truly happened that day, but there have been many theories. Murphy clearly makes these Monster series for entertainment purposes for his creative twist. People are questioning why he is glamorizing serial killers and making us have sympathy for them. One thing is for sure, this is not a documentary, but rather a fun watch.
