Netflix continues to profit from the darkest archives of true crime. Following the commercial juggernauts covering Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez brothers, the Monster anthology returns with its next installment. This time, the focus shifts to 19th-century America and one of the most enduring crime mysteries in history: the 1892 case of Lizzie Borden, who was accused of hacking her father and stepmother to death with an axe.
Starring Ella Beatty as Borden, the newly released trailer signals a clear departure from sanitized period drama. The series explicitly leans into the repressed queer desire, forbidden intimacy, and suffocating household power dynamics that defined Borden’s domestic life. In the rigid puritanical climate of Victorian Massachusetts, female autonomy and same-sex attraction were systematically erased, pushed into dark corners where frustration eventually turned lethal.
The teaser delivers a dense, psychological atmosphere where patriarchal control collides with forbidden passion and violent desperation. Rather than offering a simple true-crime recap, the production frames the story around systemic confinement and female rage. The real test will be whether this season can meaningfully interrogate historical queer erasure, or if it simply uses repression as a stylized backdrop for peak-TV gore.
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Victorian Repression and an Axe: Ella Beatty Stars as Lizzie Borden in Netflix’s "Monster"
Netflix has released the first trailer for the next installment of its "Monster" anthology. Centered on the infamous 1892 Lizzie Borden case, the series stars Ella Beatty and leans heavily into the repressed queer undertones and relationships behind one of America’s most brutal historical mysteries.
