Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story opens in the most unexpected manner as we see a small piano on stage being played as the camera pans to the season’s lead: Lizzie Borden. Our first glimpse of Lizzie comes as she races down the stairs before coming upon a small shed filled with various axes.
Upstairs, we see a slightly older woman enter a bedroom and begin to tidy up the bed. As she finishes tucking in the covers to make the bed up, she hears the door begin to creak. That’s when Lizzie bursts through the door wielding an axe and attacks the older woman, who we’ll come to learn was her stepmother, Abby Borden, plunging the axe through her chest before striking her over and over as the woman lies lifeless on the floor.
That’s when the camera pans out and takes us down the hall as a man, Lizzie’s father Andrew Borden, opens the door and lights his pipe. He begins making his way through the house and comes upon the door of the bedroom, noticing blood droplets on the floor. Before he can react, the door swings open and Lizzie emerges, stabbing the man in the neck before striking him again and again in a similar manner to her stepmother.
The premiere makes quite a spectacle with its opening number, but of course this is just the beginning, and before we understand what led to this moment in which Lizzie kilsl her parents, we must rewind things a bit.
Lizzie’s failed courtship exposes the cruelty inside the Borden household
We flash back four months to April as Lizzie is getting ready for a big night. Lizzie’s stepmother helps to coach Lizzie through what she is to expect when her gentleman caller Heath arrives later that day. She’s to welcome him in; he will bow, she will curtsey, and they’ll be brought to the parlor before getting the chance to converse in private, where they'll exchange personal items. She’s then to invite Heath to sit on a couch that has been in Abby’s family for three generations, the one thing she brought to the marriage, Lizzie quips.
It’s clear through this conversation that Abby is most certainly your stereotypical stepmother, as she makes several remarks putting Lizzie down through the brief conversation, including digs at her appearance and social skills. She makes it clear to Lizzie she is not to ruin this night and to end it by accepting Heath’s proposal, which Lizzie assures her she will and we see their pair’s evening play out simultaneously throughout the conversation. Of course, that’s how it should go, as for how it actually goes…
As evening falls, Heath arrives at the door, and Lizzie welcomes him in as Abby watches by the stairs. Lizzie offers up the personal gifts for her remembrance, but to her surprise Heath has not brought anything for her. They move into the parlor and awkwardly invite him to join her on the couch. She begins to talk about seeing a hummingbird and her love for nature. She begins speaking about her love for doves and how they mate for life as Heath is moved to tears.
He confesses that he knows what is expected of him tonight, as his family is in destitution, but he cannot marry her. And this is when we quickly discover the type of man Heath really is as he informs her the reason he cannot propose is because she has “the face of a horse” and it's unpleasant to look at her plainness. As they speak, it’s clear Lizzie is in discomfort and that reaches a peak as she begins crying out before rising to find a pool of blood on the couch. As she rises and remarks about having an odd lady time, she looks to the blood on the couch before fainting, hitting her head on the couch as she falls to the floor.
Having watched the whole scene play out from the cracks of the door, Abby bursts into the room screaming, clearly more concerned about the couch and failed proposal than anything else.
The action moves to dinner as Lizzie sits with her father and stepmother. Andrew questions whether Lizzie’s sister will be joining them, but it seems she’s gone into town. Abby takes command of the conversations and chides Lizzie for ruining the proposal and her chance to finally get Lizzie to leave this house. She accuses Lizzie of being a woolgatherer, frittering away her father’s money. She cruelly laughs about how Lizzie’s hemorrhage story has already made it around the town, calling her an absolute horror who humiliates this house.
Andrew finally speaks up, but not to defend Lizzie. No, when he finally speaks up, it's to complain about how he works all day only to come home to this. He remarks about Abby not knowing what it’s like being trapped in a house full of women as he coldly comments on her inability to give him a son.
Enter the housemaid, who is quickly dragged into Abby’s vocal attack as she puts down the woman and her inability to get the blood stain out of the couch. Lizzie again apologizes as Maggie quietly assures her she tried her best. Abby’s cruelty reaches a new height when she sees the maid has served up a soup other than the one she requested and tosses the scalding hot soup into the poor woman’s face and informs her she’s fired. Turns out, she’s now the sixth maid to be dismissed by Abby in recent months.
Bridget arrives at the Borden house and changes Lizzie’s world
The following day, the search for a new maid begins, which is when we meet Bridget "Maggie" Sullivan, who Lizzie greets with something to drink. Abby and Andrew begin their interview and make their expectations clear, which is when we come to learn that these maids aren’t just put through the wringer by Abby, who is extremely particular and treats her maids coldly, but Andrew is a bit of a freak and requests his maids massage his feet at night. Following their long list of requirements, Bridget—or rather Maggie, as Abby makes it clear she is to be called, as she refuses to learn a new name and chooses to refer to her by the last maid’s name—has one request: that she be allowed to make herself up as she chooses.
Bridget inquires as to whether she has the job, but Abby remarks that they still have more interviews to conduct. Before heading out, she asks if she can use her personal cleaning supplies to tend to the bloodstain on the couch and begins her work as Lizzie watches on in admiration from afar. To Abby’s surprise, she’s able to get the stain out, and she hires her on the spot.
We cut to Andrew at his work as a casket maker walking a family through their casket options, upselling them on a more expensive option. The only issue is that the daughter is not sure her taller father will fit as he assures her he will make alterations to ensure he fits. Said alterations do happen, but not to the casket. Rather, Andrew chops the dead man’s feet off with help from his apprentice Stephen before stuffing the man’s body into the smaller coffin.
Andrew calls upon Bridget and shows her his collection of axes, which he’s named and admits he loves more than his children. He asks for her help in polishing and sharpening the axes, which she agrees to but under the condition that he pays her a dollar a week to do so. To his surprise, she is not turned off by the sight of blood on the axe as she excuses herself to return to the house.
Upon returning to the Borden house, Bridget’s cleaning is put to the test, and everything is spotless, much to Abby’s shock and displeasure. The only exception she can find is a footprint stain on the floor, which Bridget points out was only just made when Abby entered the house after confronting Lizzie in her garden as we pan to a shot of Abby slapping Lizzie in the face and ordering her to shut her birds up as Lizzie enjoys a blissful filled moment with her doves.
As she cleans the upstairs window, Bridget watches Lizzie frolic through her garden happily and enter the dovecote. She brings down a tray of snacks and dandelion tea, which she assures Lizzie will help with her clotting. Bridget recalls a former mistress she worked for who suffered similar menses, and a doctor prescribed hysterical paroxysm. She takes Lizzie upstairs and shows her a wooden vibrator she purchased during her travels, which, when held at the right spot, will make her shiver and tremble in a good way so that when the little death comes, as they call it, you feel so good. She gifts the wooden vibrator to Lizzie and encourages her to use it in her own time as she spots her book collection and notices all the books are written by men, offering to bring her a book from Paris.
Before she takes leave, she admits to Lizzie that she’s a puzzle to her, as she’s anything but simple. She makes it clear that she does not approve of how Abby treats her, and Lizzie defends Abby, noting she wasn’t always that way. We learn that Lizzie’s birth mother died when she was just two years old and her father remarried shortly after, as he needed help taking care of his children. We learn that Abby’s three brothers died in the war and her mother then took her own life, leaving Abby alone and in debt. Abby and Andrew’s courtship was short, with the pair marrying after only a few weeks.
Abby would come to learn that she could not have children of her own and fell into an alcoholic depression as taking care of Lizzie was too much. She would lock Lizzie away in her room, which was when Lizzie learned to be quiet and took an interest in birds and nature, noting that while everyone thinks she is stupid, she is not.
Later that night, Lizzie returns to her room and finds a book waiting for her on her bed. She grabs the book and takes it with her as she goes to Bridget’s room to thank her for the book, noting that she hasn’t read it, as it’s all in French. Bridget sits with Lizzie and introduces her to the story of Elizabetta, the blood countess. The fear of losing her beauty drove her mad, taking milk baths but that wasn’t enough. She would begin to search for the most beautiful girls they could find in town, all of whom had to be virgins. Their families were offered money and told the girls were taken to a lavish supper. They were served carefully curated foods to pump their blood full of iron before inviting them downstairs to a special room with a drain where she would then call the furies, armed men who came and brutally slaughtered the girls. The women were then hacked up, their bodies drained of blood, which was warmed for a bath for Elizabetta to bathe in, and she was completely reborn as blood is life. Bridget admits Elizabetta was onto something, as blood is power.
The following day, Bridget makes her way to Andrew’s workshop to collect her wages. As he turns over her money, he inquires as to how she spends her money given her room and board is covered. She admits that she saves her money as she dreams of having a house and land like him one day, and she admits there isn’t much she wouldn’t do if the price were right as she unbuttons her top and propositions him, much to his pleasure.
Upon returning, Lizzie pulls Bridget to her dovecote, where she’s drawn a blood bath of sorts, which she created using four bushels of cherries. The pair strip down to their underwear before submerging themselves in the bath together, Lizzie quipping, “If only this were blood,” as the episode draws to an end.
Add us as a preferred source on Google