An episode this focused on Andrew Borden, one of Lizzie’s hugely unsympathetic victims, invites some wider musings about the whole Monster project. I’ve wondered why it bothers people so much, beyond understandable squeamishness about the subject matter and distaste for Ryan Murphy. I think it comes down to the way Brennan is using both killers and victims as stand-ins for society’s misfits and outcasts, the people who can’t hack it, the abused who become abusers. The fact that all of Brennan’s killers could be considered in some way queer is just one example of how the show complicates our sympathies.
To me, the idea is fairly straightforward. People are people, and our experiences are often quite similar at root no matter how different we seem on the surface. Things that turn some people into monsters have the opposite effect on others; somewhere in between are the rest of us, stumbling along, struggling through the blows life has dealt us. Monster posits that all these lives are worth examining, even if the killers get top billing, because in their lives we see glimpses of our own.
I reviewed episode 5 of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story for Decider.
Tags: decider, horror, Monster, TV, TV reviews