To be radically honest here, I know almost nothing about Lizzie Borden, save for the fact that she allegedly had an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks (and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41, etc.). Luckily, the Ryan Murphy Televisual Complex has stepped up to fill the gaps in my knowledge with Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, the fourth installment of Murphy and Ian Brennan’s biographical crime drama anthology series.
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is comprised of eight episodes starring Ella Beatty (as the titular Lizzie Borden), Vicky Krieps, Charlie Hunnam, Rebecca Hall, Billie Lourd, and Sarah Paulson—a veritable murderer’s row (heh) of talent!
Below, find absolutely every thought I had about the series’ first episode, titled “Bloodbath”:
- Thank God for this show, because now that The Shards is over, there’s a real hole in my “shows I’m too scared to watch alone at night” calendar.
- Hey! It’s the Lizzie Borden song!
- Being played to terrifying effect on a weird little vintage piano!
- We’ve really lost the art of the carefully crafted (yet seemingly effortless) braided female updo over the years.
- Everybody get more late Victorian, now!
- Hi, Rebecca Hall 🙂
- Ugh, I hate when eerie tones rise.
- Oh shit, they really opened with the stepmother axe murder.
- And they spared us no visual detail, too.
- In fact, it seems that was just a warm-up for her father’s axe murder.
- How does Ella Beatty still look beautiful covered in blood?
- We get it, show! Even accepted standards of femininity used to be violent!
- Truly, if I’d existed in the era of corsets, I would have a) looked amazing and b) died very young, probably from my internal organs being slowly strangulated.
- That said, Lizzie is rocking that corset.
- Does this show get gay, or…?
- I don’t really want to think about how a Victorian-era woman got her hands on “Congolese mahogany.”
- As with The Gilded Age, I continue to be confused about how all-over-the-map everyone’s period accents are.
- Should I be perfuming my handkerchiefs?
- Should I own handkerchiefs?
- Or perfumes that aren’t roll-ons I got for free in beauty PR press packages?
- Aw, Lizzie loves birds!
- So do we, here at Vogue.com.
- Diva, if he doesn’t want to hear about your dovecote, move on.
- Well, this guy is mean.
- Getting your period on a really important couch…likely thing to happen.
- What does “powfagged” mean, exactly?
- Ditto “flapdoodle.”
- I mean, I can gather from context clues, but…
- Well, that soup throw was unnecessary (and very proto-Real Housewives).
- Mrs. Borden going through six maids in a year…welcome back, Emily Gilmore!
- Aw, I hope nothing bad happens to this little orange bird.
- Vicky KRIEPS 💜
- As a former fellow “heavy menses” sufferer, I feel you, Lizzie! If only you’d been able to blog about it!
- “Mentally sluggish stepdaughter”?
- Okay, starting to see why Lizzie killed her stepmother first.
- Excellent needle drop on “Cherry Bomb” by the Runaways while Vicky Krieps tries to scrub period blood out of the sofa (although I might have opted for the Bratmobile cover).
- Vicky Krieps, drop the cleaning routine!
- Ooh, we’re meeting the axes!
- Vicky Krieps is rocking some real Bushwick-DJ hair.
- Mrs. Borden’s meltdown about the doves is so Carrie Bradshaw insisting her rooster neighbors be moved.
- Okay, things are indeed getting gay!
- With a vibrator that appears to be fashioned out of a pepper mill, no less!
- Sorry, is Lizzie’s dead birth mother played by…Lily-Rose Depp?
- Or just someone who looks like her?
- Yeah, no, that’s just a lookalike.
- I’m no Victorian doctor, but would drinking formaldehyde and ammonia not…kill you, somewhat instantly?
- I want Vicky Krieps saying “décolleté” as my new ringtone.
- Remember ringtones?
- Okay, this cherry-tree shot is lovely.
- I want “dark red Carpathian wine.”
- That said, I don’t want what happens next to happen to me.
- Well, those are some…beheaded women.
- Gay-adjacent cherry juice bath? OK, yay!
- Granted, I’ve only seen one episode, but my final thoughts on this series are as follows…not everything needs to be IP! And that’s okay!
