My Exercise In Misery Watching ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’

It was somewhere in the middle of the second episode, when the scheming bisexual maid dyed her hair purple and casually administered a medical abortion, that I realized “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” is not just bad but the worst television show ever. It was atrociously written, with mediocre acting and a downright disgusting sensibility, but that specific moment cemented its complete artistic and moral rot. The show has next to no entertaining quality, and the evil it emanates is hard to overstate.

The series is wildly unpleasant throughout, its tone oscillating between disgusting and fetishistic. Anything gory or gross that can be shown is,often undercutting the tension or character development for a cheap gross-out shock.

In episode one, the father’s defining moment sees him selling a coffin to a grieving family, promising dignity in death, only to chop the man’s legs off at the shins in order to make him fit. Rather than experience character development, the camera zooms in on the cross-section of the leg, leaving the gore, not the development, as the lingering image.

When the series isn’t trying to nauseate anyone who watches, the camera plays voyeur, sharing more than I’d like to know about the predilections of the writer, director, or both. Sexuality remains as nasty as the rest of the series, exploitative or shock-reliant. All men are presented as boorish at best and more often predatory, an odd “man-bad” perspective where the killers are women. Lesbianism doesn’t fare much better, as the show highlights perversions as part of its broader commitment to unpleasantness.

The Aileen Wuornos diversions had potential to provide interesting parallels between the killers, but she’s used for little more than off-putting graphic sex scenes, some surface-level feminist posturing, and playing into the show’s fetishistic romanticization of Lizzie. Her inclusion added nothing of value and took needed time that could’ve been spent fleshing out the central murderer.

The shoehorned feminism is particularly galling in the final episode, where Lizzie Borden and her lesbian co-conspirator are presented as suffragettes, an entirely fabricated effort to further drive sympathy to this axe murderer.

The dialogue is so abysmal it strains credulity. The characters bluntly state every thought that passes through their heads, absent any art or subtlety. The acting, as such, is neither a point for nor against the series.

Star Ella Beatty is barely adequate as the eponymous murderer. Her performance is one-note, either wide-eyed and cloying or blood-soaked and aroused in a murderous frenzy. In Beatty’s defense, the script gives her nothing to work with, but she brings nothing beyond the surface to the material.

Vicky Krieps, the aforementioned bisexual maid Brigitte “Maggie” Sullivan, sleepwalks her way through a dull performance. She’s meant to be the seductive, modern force of chaos that lures Lizzie to the dark side, but between her boring performance and utter lack of chemistry with Beatty, it’s hard to imagine her compelling a kiss, much less multiple murders. The gimmick of changing her hair color each episode is an off-putting anachronism, and unflatteringly brings to mind the far better-written and better-acted Ramona Flowers and Clementine.

As Lizzie’s wicked stepmother, Mrs. Borden, Rebecca Hall tries her best to inject some life into this abominable script, leaning into a campy, over-the-top sensibility. But with dialogue so cartoonishly evil it would make Cinderella’s stepmother balk at the wanton cruelty, Hall can only do so much. One wishes the show was as fun to watch as it clearly was for Hall to create.

Charlie Hunnam, whose performance was among the only bright spots of the previous “Monster” entry featuring Ed Gein, is similarly lackluster as Lizzie Borden’s father.

Jessica Barden’s recurring turn as Nance O’Neil, a delightfully melodramatic actress with a mean-girl streak, provides some of the only enjoyment in this abject failure of a series. Barden’s charm and screen presence, along with an actual character to play and limited screen time, make her character fun to watch.

The show’s one unqualified strength is its production design, which is impeccable. The costumes are beautiful, feeling historically grounded and lived-in — clothes these people would plausibly select and wear. The sets and furniture are lovely, with the Borden house a well-constructed ecosystem for the story. This gorgeous world deserves a better-written show.

The wild ahistorical nature of the series means viewers will not walk away knowing much about the real Lizzie Borden, but I felt I learned little even about this fictionalized version. The series is so shallow in its depiction of the eponymous woman beyond a mean stepmother and absent father and general anti-male sentiments that any deeper exploration of her psyche or what drove a seemingly sweet young woman to brutal murder is ignored in favor of shock and exploitation.

Watch anything else instead.

***

Paulina Enck is a media specialist in Washington, D.C.

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