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Lizzie Borden

  • Why Does Monster Turn Lizzie Borden Into a Women’s Rights Symbol in the Ending?

    TTK Original — Beyond the Headlines

    Warning: Major spoilers for Netflix’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story.

    The ending of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story makes a strange choice.

    After spending most of the season telling a story about murder, suspicion and whether Lizzie Borden killed her father and stepmother, the finale suddenly seems to become a story about something much bigger.

    Women’s freedom.

    Lizzie and Maggie become involved in the women’s suffrage movement.

    Their story is connected to Aileen Wuornos.

    And a woman remembered for one of America’s most infamous murder cases is suddenly placed inside a much larger story about women trapped by the societies around them.

    For some viewers, the reaction is understandable:

    Why is Netflix connecting Lizzie Borden to women’s rights?

    The answer is important because this part of the ending is not really trying to solve the Lizzie Borden murders.

    It is explaining what Monster thinks Lizzie Borden means.

    First, the Ending Is Not Simply History

    This distinction matters.

    The real Lizzie Borden was tried for the 1892 murders of her father Andrew Borden and stepmother Abby Borden.

    She was acquitted in 1893.

    The murders remain officially unsolved.

    Netflix, however, makes a much more definite choice inside its fictional version of the story.

    The series portrays Lizzie and Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan as responsible for the murders and also invents or dramatically expands major parts of their relationship.

    The suffrage storyline should be understood in the same way.

    The finale shows Lizzie and Maggie becoming involved in the fight for women’s voting rights and eventually celebrating the movement’s victory.

    But this is not simply Netflix revealing a forgotten chapter of Lizzie Borden’s biography.

    It is part of the series’ interpretation of her.

    And that difference changes the entire ending.

    The Show Turns Lizzie’s Cage Into a Political Metaphor

    Throughout the season, Lizzie is repeatedly shown as a woman living inside different kinds of cages.

    There is the literal Borden house.

    There is her father’s authority.

    There are expectations about sexuality.

    There are expectations about marriage.

    There are expectations about how a respectable woman should behave.

    Even the murder trial becomes connected to those expectations.

    The historical Lizzie Borden case has long fascinated scholars partly because gender mattered enormously to how people perceived her.

    Could a respectable Victorian woman really commit such a brutal crime?

    The series takes that historical question and pushes it much further.

    Instead of treating Lizzie only as an individual murder suspect, Monster turns her into an example of a woman trying to escape a social structure built around her.

    That is why the suffrage movement appears at the end.

    The show has already given Lizzie personal freedom.

    Now it connects that freedom to political freedom.

    There Is a Dark Irony Here

    And this may be the most interesting part of the finale.

    Lizzie benefits from the very ideas about women that restrict her.

    The society around her expects women to be passive, delicate and incapable of extreme violence.

    Those stereotypes confine women.

    But in the series, those same stereotypes also help Lizzie escape punishment.

    That creates a disturbing contradiction.

    Sexism is both Lizzie’s cage and, eventually, part of her escape route.

    The finale then takes that contradiction one step further.

    The woman who escaped a murder conviction in a deeply unequal society is reimagined as someone participating in the movement to change that society.

    That does not necessarily make Lizzie a hero.

    It makes her a deliberately uncomfortable symbol.

    Then Aileen Wuornos Changes the Meaning Again

    This is where the finale becomes even stranger.

    Monster connects Lizzie Borden with Aileen Wuornos, the serial killer executed in Florida in 2002.

    Historically, the two women lived in completely different eras.

    But the show deliberately places them inside the same thematic story.

    Why?

    Because the series is less interested in saying that these women were the same than in asking a recurring question:

    What happens to women shaped by violence, abuse, repression and a society that has already decided what kind of women they are allowed to become?

    The contrast between Lizzie and Aileen is crucial.

    Lizzie is acquitted.

    Aileen is executed.

    Lizzie eventually receives comfort and financial security.

    Aileen’s life ends on an execution table.

    One woman becomes a legend.

    The other becomes another kind of monster.

    The finale asks us to notice the difference.

    “All Is Forgiven” Is the Real Ending

    The strangest moment comes after Aileen’s execution.

    The series imagines Lizzie and Maggie waiting for her.

    They lead her toward another place where, as the finale puts it, everything can finally be forgiven and understood.

    This obviously isn’t history.

    It is symbolism.

    And it reveals what the finale has really been building toward.

    Not innocence.

    Not guilt.

    Understanding.

    That does not mean the series is saying murder should be excused because someone suffered.

    Instead, Monster appears to be asking viewers to separate two questions that true-crime stories often collapse into one:

    What did someone do?

    And what made that person become capable of doing it?

    Those are not the same question.

    That Is Why Some Viewers May Hate This Ending

    There is a legitimate reason the ending feels uncomfortable.

    The series takes a real woman who was acquitted of murder and gives her fictional crimes, a fictionalized relationship, and a heavily dramatized political meaning.

    Then it places her inside a broader narrative of female oppression.

    For viewers expecting a historical true-crime story, that can feel like the show has changed genres.

    The question suddenly stops being:

    Did Lizzie Borden do it?

    And becomes:

    What does Lizzie Borden represent?

    Those are very different stories.

    The first is about evidence.

    The second is about interpretation.

    Netflix ultimately chooses the second.

    So Why Does Monster Connect Lizzie Borden to Women’s Rights?

    Because the finale is not trying to turn Lizzie Borden into a straightforward feminist hero.

    It is trying to turn her into a symbol of female rage, repression and freedom.

    The suffrage storyline completes the metaphor the series has been building from the beginning.

    Lizzie begins the story as a woman trapped inside a house, a family and the expectations of Victorian womanhood.

    The fictional Lizzie escapes all three.

    Then the finale expands her personal escape into a larger historical struggle by women seeking political freedom.

    Whether that transformation is convincing is another question.

    And historically, viewers should be careful not to mistake Netflix’s symbolism for Lizzie Borden’s documented biography.

    But once you recognize what the finale is doing, its strange final act becomes easier to understand.

    Netflix is no longer asking whether Lizzie Borden was a monster.

    It is asking something more uncomfortable:

    What if the society that created the cage is also part of the story of how the monster was made?

    That is why the series ends with women’s rights.

    And that is why the ending feels less like the conclusion of a murder mystery than an argument about who gets called a monster — and why.

    Read More on True Taste Korea

    Monster: The Lizzie Borden True Story — What Did Netflix Change?

    Separate Netflix’s version from the real Lizzie Borden case, including Bridget Sullivan, the murders and the series’ biggest inventions.

    Monster: The Lizzie Borden True Story — What Did Netflix Change?

    Netflix’s Lizzie Borden Was Acquitted — So Why Does Monster Treat Her Like a Killer?

    Why does the Netflix series give a definitive answer to a murder case that history never solved?

    Netflix’s Lizzie Borden Was Acquitted — So Why Does Monster Treat Her Like a Killer?

    TTK Original — Beyond the Headlines explores the questions viewers ask after the credits roll — not just what happened, but why it matters.

  • Netflix’s Lizzie Borden Was Acquitted — So Why Does Monster Treat Her Like a Killer?

    Netflix has returned to one of the most famous murder mysteries in American history.

    But this time, the biggest mystery may not be who killed Andrew and Abby Borden.

    It may be this:

    How much can a true-crime drama change before it stops feeling true?

    Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, the fourth installment of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Netflix anthology, began streaming on September 17.

    Lizzie Borden was accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1892.

    But there is one fact viewers should know before watching:

    Lizzie Borden was acquitted.

    No one was ever convicted of the murders.

    Yet Netflix’s version makes much stronger dramatic choices.

    And judging by the reaction on Reddit, many viewers are not comfortable with them.

    Reddit Viewers Keep Asking the Same Question

    One of the biggest discussions on r/netflix came from a viewer frustrated by the series’ decision to leave the historical period and introduce a storyline set decades later.

    That post received more than 1,400 upvotes within days.

    Another discussion with hundreds of votes complained that the series mixed too much speculation into the historical story and wished it had stayed closer to the known facts.

    The complaints vary, but they repeatedly return to the same issue:

    Viewers came expecting the Lizzie Borden case.

    Instead, many felt they were watching a modern interpretation built around the case.

    That’s an important distinction.

    Netflix Never Claims This Is a Documentary

    To be fair, Monster is a scripted drama.

    Netflix describes the series as telling the story of a young woman trapped by repression who becomes an icon after gruesome murders.

    The official description is clearly dramatic rather than documentary in tone.

    And because the real case remains unresolved, any dramatization faces an obvious problem:

    There are enormous gaps in what we actually know.

    A television writer has to decide what happens inside those gaps.

    But Monster goes further than simply filling them.

    It constructs its own interpretation of Lizzie.

    The Real Lizzie Borden Was Found Not Guilty

    This is where the series becomes especially interesting — and controversial.

    Lizzie was charged with the murders.

    She went to trial.

    A jury acquitted her.

    And the murders remain officially unsolved.

    That doesn’t prove Lizzie was innocent.

    But it also doesn’t prove she was guilty.

    More than 130 years later, historians, writers and amateur investigators still debate what happened inside the Borden house.

    Netflix therefore isn’t adapting a case with a legally established killer.

    It is dramatizing a mystery.

    And that creates a very different responsibility for the storyteller.

    How Much of Monster Is Fiction?

    Quite a lot.

    A recent fact-check of the series concluded that this season contains substantially more invention than historical fact, partly because so much about the Borden case remains unknown.

    Reddit viewers noticed immediately.

    One discussion complained about discrepancies involving relationships, the murder timeline and other elements of the story.

    But another commenter made an important counterargument:

    This is a Ryan Murphy drama inspired by historical events, not a documentary promising a literal reconstruction.

    And that may be the real debate.

    Not:

    “Is every scene historically accurate?”

    Obviously, it isn’t.

    The better question is:

    How much invention should audiences accept when real people and real murders are being used as entertainment?

    Then Aileen Wuornos Appears

    This is where The Lizzie Borden Story becomes even stranger.

    Sarah Paulson appears as Aileen Wuornos, a real serial killer born more than 70 years after the Borden murders.

    Netflix’s own cast information confirms Paulson’s role.

    The series uses Wuornos to create a thematic connection between women, violence, public fascination and the way female killers are perceived.

    Some viewers appreciated the ambition.

    Others thought it completely distracted from Lizzie Borden.

    One Reddit viewer who otherwise enjoyed the season said the Aileen material didn’t fit, while another major discussion argued that mixing the two periods simply didn’t work.

    This is exactly where the show stops behaving like a traditional historical crime drama.

    It wants to say something larger about women who kill — or are believed to have killed.

    Whether that idea works is another question.

    Even the Tone Is Dividing Viewers

    Historical accuracy isn’t the only complaint.

    Viewers have criticized the modern music, exaggerated scenes and tonal shifts.

    One Reddit discussion described the production as visually impressive but said the contemporary feeling repeatedly broke the illusion of Victorian America.

    Another viewer actually enjoyed the series but still felt that its later episodes should have treated the subject more seriously.

    Even Episode 2 has generated its own controversy because of an extended vomiting sequence that some viewers found extremely difficult to watch.

    So the criticism isn’t simply:

    “Netflix got the facts wrong.”

    It’s broader.

    Some viewers seem to be asking whether the series is using one of America’s most famous unsolved murders primarily to tell the Lizzie Borden story — or to create the most provocative television possible.

    And That Leads to an Uncomfortable Question About Monster

    The franchise is enormously successful.

    Netflix says DAHMER — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story passed one billion viewing hours within its first 60 days.

    The Menendez season followed.

    Then came Ed Gein.

    Now Lizzie Borden.

    And that progression has started another conversation.

    A recent r/netflix post criticizing Netflix’s promotion of the new season argued that the franchise increasingly makes notorious killers feel like characters belonging to the same entertainment universe. The post registered roughly 4,400 net upvotes.

    That’s a fascinating criticism because Monster now faces a problem created partly by its own success.

    The more seasons Netflix produces, the more recognizable the brand becomes.

    But the stronger the brand becomes, the easier it is to forget that these aren’t fictional villains created for a franchise.

    They came from real deaths, real families and real criminal cases.

    Maybe That’s Why Lizzie Borden Is the Perfect Test

    There is a strange irony here.

    Lizzie Borden became a pop-culture character long before Netflix existed.

    The famous rhyme about the axe murders helped turn her into an American legend even though she was acquitted. Netflix itself notes that the case transformed her into one of America’s earliest celebrity murder suspects.

    So Monster isn’t the first piece of entertainment to turn Lizzie into something larger than the historical woman.

    But Netflix is doing it at enormous global scale.

    And that leaves viewers with a question that may be more interesting than whether the show is good or bad:

    When the truth is uncertain, should a true-crime drama preserve that uncertainty?

    Or is a storyteller free to choose an answer and build the more entertaining story?

    More than 130 years after the Borden murders, nobody can definitively tell us what happened inside that house.

    Netflix can give us its version.

    But its version should not be confused with a verdict.

  • How Much of Netflix’s Lizzie Borden Story Is Actually True?

    If you finished Netflix’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story and immediately searched, “Wait… did that really happen?” you are definitely not alone.

    The series uses one of America’s most famous unsolved murder cases — but it takes major creative liberties with what happened.

    So where does history end and Netflix begin?

    The basic crime is real. In 1892, Lizzie Borden’s father Andrew and stepmother Abby were brutally murdered in their Massachusetts home. Lizzie was charged with the murders and went on trial.

    But here is the crucial fact:

    Lizzie Borden was acquitted.

    No one else was ever convicted, and more than 130 years later, nobody can say with certainty who committed the murders.

    Netflix therefore has a huge historical blank space to fill — and Monster fills it aggressively.

    The series presents an intimate relationship between Lizzie and housemaid Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan and gives Maggie a major role in the murders. But this is not an established historical fact.

    Lizzie’s sexuality has been the subject of speculation, particularly because of her later relationship with actress Nance O’Neil, but the series turns uncertainty and rumor into a much more definite story.

    Then there is Aileen Wuornos.

    Sarah Paulson’s appearance has left many viewers wondering whether the real Wuornos was obsessed with Lizzie Borden.

    According to Netflix’s own explanation, there is no evidence that she was.

    The writers deliberately connect the two women as part of a larger theme about female rage across generations. It is a storytelling device, not established history.

    That distinction has become one of the biggest arguments among viewers.

    Some Reddit users say Monster goes too far, turning a real murder case into something closer to historical fan fiction.

    Others argue that the series never promised to be a documentary. Because so much about the Borden murders remains unknown, they see the show as one possible fictional interpretation rather than a reconstruction of the truth.

    And perhaps that is the best way to watch it.

    The murders were real.

    The trial was real.

    Lizzie Borden was real.

    But much of the story connecting those facts is Netflix imagining what might have happened.

    So if you finished Monster believing you finally knew the truth about Lizzie Borden, there is one final twist:

    More than a century later, we still don’t know the truth.