The fourth season of Monster lands on Netflix with a bold reinterpretation of the 1892 Fall River killings. Rather than presenting a straightforward historical retelling, the series frames Lizzie Borden as a secret lover of her family’s maid, Bridget Sullivan, and layers additional violent episodes onto the well-known double homicide. This artistic gamble has ignited a split among viewers: some applaud the daring narrative, while others accuse the creators of rewriting a centuries-old mystery for the sake of shock value.
Lizzie Borden’s real-life case remains one of America’s most enduring enigmas. In 1892, her father Andrew and stepmother Abby were found dead in their home, each struck repeatedly with an axe. Although Lizzie was arrested and tried, a jury acquitted her after a brief deliberation, citing insufficient physical evidence and prevailing gender biases that deemed it “impossible for a woman” to commit such a crime. Modern historians continue to debate her guilt, but the factual record consists largely of circumstantial clues—an attempted purchase of poison, a shaky alibi, and a suspiciously timed dress-burning incident. No forensic science of the era could confirm or refute her involvement.
Creative liberties that stretch the historical record
Against this sparse evidentiary backdrop, the show’s writers have taken considerable artistic license. The series invents a pre-murder killing of a neighbor named Bertha Manchester, portraying it as a rehearsal for the axe murders; in reality, Bertha died nine months after the Borden killings and was never linked to Lizzie. Another dramatized element is the depiction of Lizzie’s beloved pigeons being slaughtered by her stepmother, which the narrative spins into a motive for revenge. Historical accounts, however, describe the birds as ordinary livestock, with her father ordering their removal because they attracted vermin.
Beyond fabricated murders, the series crowns Lizzie a suffragette activist—a label she never bore. By piling on a checklist of Victorian-era oppressions—sexual violence, forced domesticity, painful menstruation—the writers attempt to construct a clear causal chain from oppression to violence. While the theme of “female rage” is compelling, comparable explorations have already succeeded in films such as Gone Girl and The Favourite making Monster’s approach feel both redundant and sensationalized.
The contested lesbian storyline and its cultural fallout
The most contentious addition is the portrayal of Lizzie’s romance with the household maid Bridget Sullivan, played by Vicki Krieps. No contemporaneous documentation confirms a sexual relationship, and the idea only entered popular culture after a 1984 fictional novel by Evan Hunter (writing as Ed McBain) speculated about a lesbian motive. Critics argue that this trope—casting queer women as inherently dangerous—repeats a harmful legacy from the Hays Code era, when non-heteronormative characters were depicted as deviant or punished.
Lead actress Ella Beatty has defended the narrative choice, explaining in an interview that the love story “opens up her eyes to the world and to herself” and that the relationship is essential to the season’s emotional core. She emphasized her intent to humanise Lizzie, describing the character as “vulnerable and soft” despite the series’ violent veneer. Nonetheless, many viewers and scholars contend that such a fictionalized queer backstory eclipses the real historical ambiguity and reinforces outdated stereotypes about lesbian aggression.
Beyond individual disapproval, the series has prompted broader conversations about the responsibility of true-crime anthologies. Unlike previous Monster installments—centered on Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers, and Ed Gein, all of whom confessed—the Lizzie Borden chapter relies on conjecture and dramatized invention. By presenting speculative sexuality and invented murders as fact, the show blurs the line between entertainment and misinformation, raising questions about how streaming platforms should balance artistic freedom with respect for historical truth.
