Lifetime's The Lizzie Borden Chronicles is a 2015 miniseries sequel to the channel's 2014 ratings winner, Lizzie Borden Took an Ax. It's fictional through and through, and since it doesn't pretend to be anything but, its proves engaging in a diabolical, off-the-cuff way.
Christina Ricci's Lizzie murders by gleeful choice, not because she's some silly victim of circumstance. All the same, there are moments when she does skim Dexter Morgan's conscientious turf (with sporadic allusions to Psycho II, III and Bates Motel throughout). On the backdrop side, her journey carries the ornate aura of Houdini & Doyle (another excellent bit of miniseries fiction pinched from reality's annals).
For the eight-episode run, Lizzie and her sister, Emma, portrayed by Clea (Carnivale/Ghosts of Mars) DuVall, who also reprises her role, are placed dead center of the progressing intrigue, at one point using a shared alias to conceal their tainted legacy.
There's no hiding the truth, though, as a wee skeleton stashed in the Borden basement reveals. It links to Emma and is found by the sisters' Willy Loomis-esque stepbrother, William, played by Andrew Howard. In the interim, John Heard's William Almy, once their dad's business partner, snoops and configures the situation. Lizzie fixes it so that the two face brutal turns.
Cole Hauser's Charlie Stringo, a tough-guy Pinkerton agent, has his own cause to snoop, which drives the story down a deeper, sordid path, granting Lizzie further opportunity to do her grisly, means-to-an-end thing.
Stringo is surrounded by many others who influence the crafty murderess: Olivia (Penny Dreadful/Dimensions) Llewellyn's Isabel Danforth; John Ralston's Ezekiel Danforth; Jeff Wincott's Marshal Hilliard; Jesse Schram's Nance O'Keefe; Dylan Taylor's Leslie Trotwood; Amy Forthyth's Aideen Trotwood; Kimberly Sue Murray's Adele, Frank Chiesurin's Spencer Cavanaugh; Michael (Scanners/Highlander II) Ironside's Warren Stark; Bradley (Disquiet/Crawlspace 2022) Stryker's Slipjack; Jonathan (Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul) Banks' Mr. Howard; Kenneth (Twin Peaks/Survival of the Dead) Welsh's (anonymous) lawyer; Rhys Corio's Chester Phipps; Ronan Vibert's Dr. Vose; Adrian G. (X-Men: Origins/Apocalypse) Griffith's Frederick Lowell; and on the super-legend end, Matthew Le Nevez's Bat Masterson and Chris Bauer's Tom Horn.
Unlike Lizzie Took an Ax, DuVall occupies as much time as Ricci for this follow-up. In addition to the wee-skeleton component, she falls in love and even enters an electroshocking, asylum stint, but to reveal any more would spoil the plot. The Lizzie Borden Chronicles is meant to be experienced for its stream of intersecting surprises, and as a work of fiction, those surprises come from a variety of wry angles.
A substantial portion of the series' success is due to its groomed writers and directors, with Barbara Nance, Richard Blaney, Gregory Small, David Simpkins and Jason Grote acting as its raconteurs and as its directors, Howard Deutch, Constantine Makris, Stephen Kay and Russell (Highlander I & II/Razorback/The Shadow 1994) Mulcahy. The creative strands assure quality storytelling, enough so that it's a bloody shame The Lizzie Borden Chronicles lasted only one season.
For certain, the series keeps one on one's toes, but again, one needn't seek it for accuracy. It's a make-believe tangent and deals the gruesome goods as it sees fit, veering from its somber, 2014 springboard more often than not. (If the truth be known, it could be viewed without one having seen the movie, as long as one knows the basic, Borden legend. Who doesn't?)
The Lizzie Borden Chronicles is queued on Tubi and Amazon Prime for mystery and horror fans to engage and enjoy.🪓
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