Netflix’s Monster Takes on Lizzie Borden With Murder, Sex and a Dark Same Sex Romance
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story arrives on Netflix this September, putting Ella Beatty at the centre of a bloody true crime story with a major same sex relationship.
More than 130 years after Lizzie Borden was accused of one of America’s most infamous double murders, Netflix is preparing to drag the mystery back into the spotlight with sex, repression, revenge and a relationship between two women placed at the centre of the story.
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story arrives on Netflix on September 17, 2026. Ella Beatty takes the title role in the fourth instalment of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s hugely successful Monster anthology, following seasons centred on Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers and Ed Gein.
What is Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story about?
The real Lizzie Borden was accused of murdering her father Andrew and stepmother Abby with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts, in August 1892. She was later acquitted, and nobody else was ever convicted of the killings.
Netflix’s version is deliberately dramatised rather than presented as a straightforward reconstruction. Lizzie is portrayed as the repressed daughter of a wealthy New England family, trapped in an oppressive Victorian household alongside the family’s rebellious maid, Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan.
The two women form an illicit relationship as Lizzie begins escaping the restrictions of her home through fantasies involving sex, power and revenge. Netflix’s own promotional material makes that relationship a central part of the new season.
The LGBTQ+ connection is impossible to ignore
Netflix officially categorises Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story as an LGBTQ+ television series, making this one of the clearest LGBTQ+ storylines yet in the Monster franchise.
There is an important historical distinction. There is no established evidence proving that the real Lizzie and Bridget were lovers. The series is exploring a theory and creating a fictionalised relationship around it, rather than revealing a confirmed part of Lizzie Borden’s life.
That still gives the season an intriguing LGBTQ+ dimension. A same sex relationship between women in the late nineteenth century brings repression, secrecy and the limited choices available to women of the period directly into the drama.
Ella Beatty leads an impressive cast
Ella Beatty plays Lizzie, while Vicky Krieps stars as Bridget. Charlie Hunnam plays Lizzie’s father Andrew, with Rebecca Hall as Abby Borden and Billie Lourd as Lizzie’s older sister Emma.
Jessica Barden appears as actor Nance O’Neil, while Sarah Paulson takes on the role of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in scenes taking place decades after the Borden murders. The season uses Wuornos to explore the wider legacy of women who became notorious through violence.
The limited series contains eight episodes, with all eight currently listed to arrive together on September 17. Filming took place in Los Angeles from September 2025 into March 2026, rather than in the Massachusetts location where the real murders occurred.
Watch the official trailer:
Where can UK viewers watch it?
UK viewers will be able to watch Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story on Netflix from September 17. With eight episodes expected to arrive at once, viewers will be able to watch the complete story immediately rather than waiting each week.
For LGBTQ+ audiences, there is another reason this particular Monster season stands out. The relationship between Lizzie and Bridget is not simply background representation. It forms part of the very engine driving this fictionalised interpretation of one of America’s most enduring murder mysteries.
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story arrives on Netflix in the UK on September 17, 2026.
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