[TV Movie !Season 1 ]
Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015) [Season 1, Episode 1]
Acts Of Borden
Lizzie Borden ( Christina Ricci ) has been cleared of the murder charges, and tries to get on with her life. She lives with her elder sister Emma Borden ( Clea DuVall ), while their no-good half-brother William Borden (Andrew Howard - The Outpost ) tries to extort part of their inheritance. Local businessman William Almy (John Heard - Cat People ) also intends to collect on their dead father's debts.
Charlie Siringo (Cole Hauser), a wild west cutthroat now working for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, is hired by an anonymous client to reinvestigate the Borden murders.
Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015) [Season 1, Episode 2]
Patron Of The Arts
Marshal Hilliard (Jeff Wincott) seems to take the murder-suicide at face value. Charlie Siringo (Cole Hauser) insists that Lizzie Borden ( Christina Ricci ) was responsible, if only because she has the most to gain. Officer Leslie Trotwood (Dylan Taylor) refuses to believe anything bad about either of the Borden sisters, because he is interested in Emma Borden ( Clea DuVall ).
The sisters go to celebrate at the theatre, where they meet actress Nance O'Keefe ( Jessy Schram ) and the troupe's scriptwriter. He later approaches Lizzie seeking funding for his next play. She agrees to give him money, but for some reason will not risk her reputation by making him earn it on the casting couch.
On the way back from the theatre, the sisters take a detour through the town's slum. They save a streetwalker being disciplined by Skipjack (Bradley Stryker), an enforcer for the local godfather Mr Flowers (Jonathan Banks - Freejack ). Lizzie takes the ex-whore under her wing, and makes a deal with Mr Flowers.
Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015) [Season 1, Episode 3]
Flowers
The Borden sisters have moved into their new house. They plan a party for their friends and neighbours. This involves the delivery of a lot of flowers.
Lizzie Borden ( Christina Ricci ) hired Mr Flowers (Jonathan Banks - Freejack ) to take care of the cleanup from the previous episode. Now he comes back and insists on receiving a monthly retainer.
Charlie Siringo (Cole Hauser) discovers who hired him. Emma Borden ( Clea DuVall ) somehow believed she could clear her sister's name, which goes against the twist ending of the movie. Lizzie discovers Siringo is after her, so she arranges for Skipjack (Bradley Stryker) and his crew to take out the detective.
Nance O'Keefe ( Jessy Schram ) is in town, looking for her brother the scriptwriter.
Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015) [Season 1, Episode 4]
Welcome to Maplecroft
Lizzie Borden ( Christina Ricci ) settles into life in suburbia. She wants to buy out the neighbours. One is the widow of the newspaper editor - presumably he met his demise off-screen because Lizzie was unhappy about the coverage of her trial. Worse, the widow is strict towards her pet dog and Lizzie (like Hitler) loves dogs. In fact, Lizzie wants the dog for herself - although it is never seen again.
Nance O'Keefe ( Jessy Schram ) has the chance to work with Charlie Siringo (Cole Hauser). If she did so, the show would end half-way through its run. Instead she goes solo, seducing poor old Skipjack (Bradley Stryker).
Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015) [Season 1, Episode 5]
Cold Storage
Lizzie Borden ( Christina Ricci ) is tying up loose ends. She needs to get rid of the frozen body, so she blackmails the photographer to help her.
Marshal Hilliard (Jeff Wincott) teams up with Charlie Siringo (Cole Hauser). They abduct Skipjack (Bradley Stryker), the man who has the body that can convict Lizzie. Instead of questioning him, Siringo just beats him up to get revenge. As a result, they give Lizzie the head-start she needs.
The hotel-owner's wife does some victim-blaming when she points out that many of Lizzie's victims were bad people. There is a certain irony in this, as Lizzy loves to frame innocent patsies and kills witnesses who have done her no harm.
Emma Borden ( Clea DuVall ) plans to marry Officer Leslie Trotwood (Dylan Taylor).
Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015) [Season 1, Episode 6]
Fugitive Kind
Lizzie Borden ( Christina Ricci ) testifies in court, finally confronted with the accusation that she was responsible for all the town's recent violent deaths. However, she is simply a witness at the trial of the patsy she has framed.
In the previous episode, Marshal Hilliard (Jeff Wincott) had become instant friends with Charlie Siringo (Cole Hauser). Now they are at odds, with Hilliard's job being to contain Siringo and take him to prison. This may not be sincere, since Siringo has an escape plan that involves a certain level of assistance from Hilliard, But in the final scene, we discover that this assistance may have been involuntary. Hilliard's actions make no sense in this scene - and he apparently has developed the ability to teleport.
Skipjack (Bradley Stryker) cuts all ties with Lizzie in an effort to stay alive. She offers him a massive amount of cash to do a killing on her behalf. He ought to refuse, but he is a greedy fool.
Lizzie visits her mother's grave, and gives the number of her kills - twenty-seven so far. Yes, even more than the ones shown or mentioned so far. She is basically a grown-up Wednesday Addams, which is why Ricci is so perfect in this role.
Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015) [Season 1, Episode 7]
The Sister's Grimke
Lizzie Borden ( Christina Ricci ) has moved to a new town, under a new name, and taken a job as a school-teacher. However, death and violence follow her around. One of the schoolboys has an unhappy home life, which boils over into brutal murder. This attracts attention from the newspapers, and Lizzie is a very recognisable person.
Emma Borden ( Clea DuVall ) is comatose in a mental health asylum, given the best treatment that 1890s medicine can provide. They even have electro-shock therapy, several decades before that kind of thing was mainstream. The thing is that Emma has learned from Lizzie that sometimes the best solution is to escalate things to the level of murder.
Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015) [Season 1, Episode 8]
Capsize
Lizzie Borden ( Christina Ricci ) is searching for her sister. Tom Horn (Chris Bauer - True Blood ) and Bat Masterson ( ) are searching for Lizzie.
Emma Borden ( Clea DuVall ) seeks refuge with the family of her former fiance, Officer Leslie Trotwood (Dylan Taylor). His mother ( Michelle Fairley ) is basically a gangster, which disproves the show's much-touted theory that females had no power in that era. The real surprise is that the by-the-book policeman is the eldest son in a family of gangsters.
So how does this compare to male serial-killer stories? The ending is reminiscent of The Talented Mr Ripley, but Tom Ripley is a tragic figure. Lizzie is a monster, but this TV show is evidently aimed at a female audience because she is portrayed as a richeous avenger who never really gets her comeuppance. The victims are mostly male, so there is a lot of victim-blaming. In a regular serial-killer movie, portrayal is not endorsement because the killer is punished. In the Feminist or anti-Male type of film, the killer is endorsed by her lack of karmic retribution.
Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015) [Season 1
, Episode 1
]
Reviewed in our
special supplement