Netflix’s Monster anthology series is taking a surprising turn with its fourth season. Instead of playing the 1892 axe murders straight, Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story leans into dark comedy. The cast and creators recently explained how they found humor in one of America’s most infamous unsolved crimes.
The show, created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, arrives on Netflix on September 17, 2026. All eight episodes will drop at once. This season marks the first time the anthology focuses on a female “monster” — Lizzie Borden, played by Ella Beatty.
Previous seasons covered Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers, and Ed Gein. This time, the story centers on a Sunday school teacher accused of killing her father and stepmother with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts.
Finding Comedy in Victorian Rules and Restrictions
Co-creator Ian Brennan said the darkly comic tone came naturally from the Victorian setting. The rigid social rules, strange family relationships, and over-the-top personalities created moments that were both uncomfortable and funny.
Brennan pointed to one key reason for the comedic approach: the absurd beliefs about women in the 1890s. Lizzie Borden was acquitted because the all-male jury thought a woman was too weak to swing an axe.
“They literally thought that a woman was too weak to pick up an axe. To be a woman in that period was to be almost a completely different species. You were treated like you were incapable of not only actions, but thoughts that a man was capable of.”
That ridiculous idea — that a 32‑year‑old woman could not possibly commit such brutal murders — became the show’s comedic anchor. Brennan explored how the suffocating expectations placed on unmarried women created situations that were both tragic and strangely funny.
Rebecca Hall Calls It “Ryan Murphy Does Cinderella”
Rebecca Hall, who plays Lizzie’s stepmother Abby Borden, described the season with a memorable comparison.
“It’s Ryan Murphy does Cinderella.”
Hall joked that she plays the wicked stepmother in this version. But instead of a glass slipper, the story features a bloody hatchet. The show presents Lizzie and her maid Bridget as escaping a house “built on humiliation and cruelty” into a “fantasy of sex, power, and revenge.”
Modern Music and a Bold New Direction
The Victorian-era story gets a modern twist through its soundtrack. The series features songs from Kate Bush, Wet Leg, and UK punk duo Lambrini Girls. One sequence involving an attempted poisoning uses Lambrini Girls’ song “Cuntology 101.”
This isn’t the first time Lizzie Borden’s story got a campy treatment. The 2014 Lifetime film Lizzie Borden Took an Ax starring Christina Ricci also used high doses of camp. But Murphy and Brennan are pushing the tone further with a explicitly darkly comic approach.
The Cast Brings the Story to Life
Ella Beatty leads the cast as Lizzie Borden. She is the daughter of Hollywood legends Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. Beatty previously appeared in Feud: Capote vs. The Swans.
“I am so excited for viewers to experience our exploration of Lizzie Borden’s story and the questions that her life animates to this day,” Beatty said. “It has been a dream come true to investigate this complicated person’s psychology and to examine an American crime that feels almost mythic in proportion. This season gives us our first female Monster and delves into female rage and repression which I’ve found to feel strikingly relevant.”
Charlie Hunnam plays Andrew Borden, Lizzie’s wealthy father. Hunnam earned an Emmy nomination for playing Ed Gein in the previous Monster season. Vicky Krieps plays Bridget Sullivan, the Bordens’ maid. Billie Lourd plays Lizzie’s sister Emma. Jessica Barden plays Lizzie’s friend Nance O’Neil. Sarah Paulson also appears as serial killer Aileen Wuornos.
The show also suggests a romantic relationship between Lizzie and her maid Bridget, a theory explored in previous adaptations like the 2018 film Lizzie starring Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart.
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What the Show Explores
The season asks the central question of the entire Monster anthology: Are monsters made or born? For Lizzie, the answer seems clear.
“With Lizzie, if she’s a monster, she wasn’t born that way.”
Brennan said the show explores what it was like to be a “rudderless young woman” in an unhappy household. The series examines how Victorian society’s views on women likely played a role in Lizzie’s freedom. Upon leaving the courthouse after her acquittal, Lizzie reportedly told reporters she was “the happiest woman in the world.”
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story premieres on Netflix on September 17, 2026.
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