- Netflix’s Monster anthology is returning for a fourth installment.
- Season 4 will star Ella Beatty as Lizzie Borden, who was tried for the murders of her father and stepmother in 1893.
- Charlie Hunnam, Vicky Krieps, and Rebecca Hall will also appear in the new season.
Monster, an anthology series about “monstrous figures” created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, is getting a fourth chapter from Netflix.
On Oct. 9, just days after Monster: The Ed Gein Story debuted on Netflix, the streamer revealed that production was officially underway on season 4 of the true crime drama.
Titled Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, this installment will be the first to feature a woman at the center of the series. Here’s what to know so far about the upcoming season, from plot details to who’s playing the titular role.
What is Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story about?
Sally Montana/Netflix
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story delves into the case of Lizzie Borden, the notorious Massachusetts woman who was accused of brutally murdering her father and stepmother in 1892.
Born on July 19, 1860, Lizzie grew up in Fall River, Mass. with her sister Emma and their parents, Sarah and Andrew Borden. Three years following Sarah’s death, Andrew, a successful businessman, married Abby Durfee Gray.
According to an 1893 Fisherman and Farmer newspaper report, Lizzie and Abby’s relationship was tense. Lizzie refused to speak to her stepmother and once clashed with her over a family property.
What was Lizzie Borden accused of?
On Aug. 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby were found brutally murdered in their home, “brutally chopped about the head and face.” Lizzie claimed she had been outside by the barn and only found her father after returning home. Still, she was immediately named a prime suspect. Her sister Emma was out of town during the murders.
In the days following the murders, Lizzie reportedly burned a dress. Prosecutors argued that she destroyed it to hide evidence.
Lizzie was formally charged in Dec. 1892, and her trial became a media sensation when it began the following summer. On June 20, 1893, she was acquitted, and no other suspects were ever charged. According to a New York Times report, her verdict of “not guilty” was met with a “cheer [that] went up which might have been heard half a mile away through the open windows.”
Lizzie “lived quietly” in Fall River for the rest of her life, per her New York Times obituary. Her sister Emma, who stood by Lizzie during her trial, reaffirmed her belief in Lizzie’s innocence in 1913, 20 years after Lizzie’s acquittal.
“Lizzie is queer, but as for her being guilty I say ‘no’ and decidedly ‘no,'” she said. “Here is the strongest thing that has impressed me of Lizzie’s innocence: The authorities never found the axe or the implement or whatever it was that figured in the killing. If Lizzie had done that deed, she could never have hidden the instrument of death so the police could never find it.”
Who’s in the Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story cast?
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty
As confirmed by Entertainment Weekly in July, Ella Beatty will play Lizzie Borden in the upcoming season.
“Cannot believe I get to work with geniuses such as these,” she wrote in an Instagram post at the time.
The daughter of Hollywood legends Annette Bening and Warren Beatty, she made her screen debut on Murphy’s Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (2024) and her film debut in Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You (2025). In 2024, Beatty appeared in the Broadway production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Appropriate.
Also joining Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is Charlie Hunnam, who portrayed Wisconsin killer Ed Gein in the latest season of the show. He returns to the franchise to play Lizzie’s father, Andrew Borden.
Rounding out the ensemble is Rebecca Hall as Lizzie’s stepmother, Abby; Billie Lourd as her sister, Emma; Jessica Barden as Lizzie’s friend, Nance O’Neill; and Vicky Krieps as the family’s maid, Bridget Sullivan. Krieps, like Hunnam, also appeared in the last season of Monster, playing Nazi war criminal Ilse Koch.
When does Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story come out?
As of this writing, Netflix has not announced a release date for Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story.
Where can I watch Monster?
The first three seasons of Monster are now streaming on Netflix.
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