Monster has spent three installments turning notorious American crimes into television mythology. Its fourth season shifts the point of view. Lizzie Borden is now at the center, played by Ella Beatty in a story that Netflix will release on September 17.
The real case has long outlived the courtroom. Andrew Borden and his wife Abby were killed in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1892. Lizzie was charged and later acquitted. The murders were never solved, yet her name became inseparable from them and eventually escaped the history books altogether, surviving through rhymes, films, books and decades of pop culture.
This Monster is openly building a fictional Lizzie
Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan are not approaching the season as a neutral reconstruction of the trial. Netflix's description frames Lizzie as a repressed daughter inside a cruel household, with Vicky Krieps' Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan becoming a crucial figure in a story of intimacy, power and revenge.
That distinction matters because Borden was acquitted. Beatty has also been unusually clear about the gap between the historical person and the character on screen, describing her work as translating source material into a heavily fictionalized version of Lizzie. The season may use a famous unsolved crime as its foundation, but it is still making dramatic choices on top of it.
It is also the anthology's first female-centered installment. Beatty says the new story explores female rage and repression, giving Monster a different thematic route after seasons devoted to Jeffrey Dahmer, Lyle and Erik Menendez, and Ed Gein.
A cast that keeps the Borden house crowded
Beatty is joined by Vicky Krieps as Bridget Sullivan, Charlie Hunnam as Andrew Borden and Rebecca Hall as Abby Borden. Billie Lourd plays Lizzie's older sister Emma, while Jessica Barden appears as actor Nance O'Neil.
Hunnam's presence is particularly curious. After leading the previous Monster story as Ed Gein, he immediately returns as Lizzie's father. The anthology is starting to behave less like four completely isolated productions and more like a repertory series willing to bring familiar performers back in entirely different forms.
Sarah Paulson brings Aileen Wuornos into the same conversation
Then the season jumps far beyond the Borden household. Sarah Paulson plays Aileen Wuornos in scenes set decades later. Wuornos was convicted of six murders in Florida, and Monster uses her presence to connect Lizzie's cultural afterlife with a broader discussion about women who have been branded as monsters.
There is no historical meeting to recreate here. The connection is thematic, deliberately imposed by Murphy and Brennan. It gives the season room to ask why certain crimes become folklore, why particular women become symbols and how much of the person eventually disappears behind the story told about them.
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story arrives on Netflix on September 17, 2026.
