Netflix premiered Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story on Thursday, the fourth season of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan's true-crime anthology, and the first to center on a woman accused of murder. Ella Beatty stars as Borden, the Massachusetts woman acquitted in 1893 of the axe murders of her father and stepmother, with Charlie Hunnam as her father Andrew Borden, Rebecca Hall as stepmother Abby Borden, Vicky Krieps as the family's maid Bridget Sullivan, and Sarah Paulson appearing mid-season as serial killer Aileen Wuornos.
The season follows three prior installments of the Monster anthology, which has previously dramatized Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers and Ed Gein, each drawing large Netflix viewership alongside criticism over how the franchise treats real victims and perpetrators. Where earlier seasons leaned into grim procedural detail, reviewers describe the Borden season as a swerve into gothic melodrama and camp, opening with an episode titled "Bloodbath" that leans on modern musical cues and stylized excess rather than a straightforward whodunit.
Critical reaction has split along familiar lines for the franchise. TheWrap's review called the season an "outrageously engaging" departure that finally finds a workable tone for the format, praising Hall's performance in particular. Other outlets were harsher.
The result is delirious, whether it's the over-the-top dialogue, musical cues...or the characters' heightened relationships and behaviors.
The A.V. Club, reviewing the premiere episode
The A.V. Club's review argued the series offers little psychological insight into why the killings happened, dismissing it as visually sensational but thin — "nothing to add to its worn-out story beyond a fresh coat of red." As of Friday, the season sat at a 42% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes, with a somewhat higher 63% audience score, figures that are likely to shift as more reviews of the full season are published.
Murphy and Brennan have been open that the season departs from the historical record rather than attempting to resolve the case, which remains formally unsolved despite Borden's acquittal. The choice has fueled the show's split reception: fans of the franchise's operatic style have embraced the season's theatricality, while critics who wanted a closer procedural reading of the Borden case have been left cold.
Netflix has not announced a fifth Monster season or confirmed which case it might cover, though the franchise's viewership history — each prior season has ranked among Netflix's most-watched English-language series in its debut week — makes a renewal likely. The Lizzie Borden season's own opening-weekend viewership figures had not been released as of Friday morning.
