The second episode of "Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story" focuses heavily on the physical and emotional deterioration of the Borden family through excessive vomiting and diarrhea. This graphic depiction serves as a metaphor for their moral corruption and lack of care for others, particularly Lizzie. Despite an attempt to poison her parents with bad oysters that fails due to them expelling it violently, Lizzie ultimately decides to take revenge using the same method she believes her stepmother used against her doves—killing them with an axe. The episode also highlights Bridget’s support for Lizzie and their shared experiences of trauma and betrayal.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-09-18,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Let’s talk about vomit.
asserted
’s → let → vomit
Hurling, heaving, gurgling, spraying, splattering, oozing all over the tablecloth and the floor, forcing poor Lizzie Borden to nimbly dodge the puddles as she belatedly leaves this chamber of bodily-fluid horrors to seek help.
asserted
she → hurl → help
But scatology can serve a satirical purpose.
asserted
scatology → serve → purpose
Just moments before they began exploding out of both ends, Edward and Abby Borden were chuckling gleefully about Mrs. Borden’s slaughter of Lizzie’s beloved doves earlier that day.
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Borden → begin → doves
Her mother had the temerity to blame Lizzie for forcing her hand; her father screamed at her to shut the fuck up about her stupid birds and leave him the fuck alone.
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father → have → fuck
The truly spectacular sight of the Bordens geysering forth like a Monty Python sketch depicts the Bordens as simultaneously disgusting and pitiable, almost infantile.
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sight → geyser → Bordens
Whereas Lizzie’s severe menstrual bleeding represents her imprisonment by her gender, Abby and Edward’s vomit and diarrhea is just…them.
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vomit → represent → gender
It’s what they are.
asserted
they → ’ → ?
It’s who they are.
asserted
they → ’ → ?
If you are what you eat, it stands to reason you are also what you excrete.
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you → eat → what
Unfortunately for Bridget/Maggie and Lizzie, their attempt to poison her parents with bad oysters fails — or rather, it’s so successful that they puke and shit and bleed all the toxins from the bad oysters back out before they can succumb to its lethality.
asserted
they → poison → lethality
So Lizzie selects a more fitting form of execution for her folks: an axe, the same weapon her wicked stepmother used to slaughter her doves.
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stepmother → select → doves
Until her mom faded to red and killed those birds, though, Lizzie was not on board with Bridget’s suggestion that they off her parents.
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Lizzie → fade → parents
Sure, she’d stand to inherit a small fortune — a mere fraction of what she deserves, since it’s all going to her hated sister Emma (Billie Lourd), but still quite a bit.
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it → stand → sister
And sure, they kind of deserve it, the creeps.
asserted
they → deserve → it
But she doesn’t snap until she’s given unequivocal proof her parents don’t care about her at all.
asserted
parents → snap → her
Bridget cares plenty.
asserted
Bridget → care → ?
She orders a steam-powered fuck machine for Lizzie to perforate her hymen with, though they seem to bail when they see the contraption (there’s no other word for it) at work.
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they → order → work
She keeps reading the story of Elizabeth Báthory, and how she fobbed her crimes off on her handmaidens to save her own skin.
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she → keep → skin
Meanwhile, in a sequence laden with caged-bird imagery, she and Lizzie kiss; “Maybe I should be your beau,” she says provocatively.
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she → cage → imagery
Despite suffering from the effects of the abortion paid for by Edward on her demand, Bridget also takes Lizzie along to see a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the acclaimed American actress Nance O’Neal (Jessica Barden).
asserted
Bridget → suffer → O’Neal
We first meet the woman while she’s taking a piss; true to form, she pisses all over Bridget’s purple hair (figuratively speaking) before accepting an invitation to dinner at the Bordens’ from Lizzie.
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she → meet → Lizzie
We’ll see if they’re even still alive to host her by the time she shows up.
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she → see → time
I continue to love the lurid spectacle of creator/showrunner/writer Ian Brennan and director Max Winkler’s fantasia on Lizzie and the sociopolitical phenomena for which she stands.
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she → continue → which
She’s suffering from culturally pervasive ageism, ableism, misogyny, and homophobia at once, as well as horrific emotional abuse from her parents above and beyond all that.
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She → suffer → that
In sweeps a woman who offers escape.
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who → offer → escape
She’s she’s well-traveled, she’s free-spirited, she’s cultured, she’s queer, she’s open to murder, she’s a hell of a cook,
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she → ’ → cook
Most importantly, she’s the only person alive who sees Lizzie Borden as something other than a hopeless case.
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who → ’ → case
Indeed, she sees her as smart, vibrant…and worth killing for.
asserted
she → see → her
That’s a poison anyone might be tempted to swallow.
uncertain
anyone → ’ → ?
Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com on Bluesky and theseantcollins on Patreon) has written about television for The New York Times, Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere.
asserted
Collins → write → Times
He is the author of Pain Don’t Hurt: Meditations on Road House.
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Pain → hurt → House
He lives with his family on Long Island.
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He → live → Island
The Aporia
