Monster gave Lizzie Borden and Bridget a happy ending, but did it actually happen?

Netflix has once again left us with a Monster ending that has us wondering what on earth actually happened in real life.

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story takes quite a few creative liberties with Lizzie’s story, partly because, well, there isn’t exactly a detailed historical record of everything that happened in her life, and that is VERY much the case when it comes to Lizzie and Bridget.

Via Netflix

By the end of the series, Lizzie and Bridget are given a hopeful ending together, before Lizzie later appears alongside Bridget in Aileen Wuornos’ final moments.

But did Lizzie and Bridget actually make up after Lizzie’s trial? Sadly, the historical record is a lot less romantic.

As Aileen dies, she imagines Lizzie and Maggie, aka Bridget, waiting for her in the afterlife. It’s a pretty wild way to tie the two stories together, particularly given that Lizzie’s story takes place decades before Aileen’s.

“In a way, Lizzie has a happy ending, and Aileen didn’t,” creator Ian Brennan told Tudum. “She didn’t get away with anything. So it felt right to land on her and give her, if not a happy ending, one that is satisfying.”

The scene comes after the show has already given Lizzie and Bridget an imagined happy ending of their own.

As Winkler puts it, the show then “hard cut to the flat line [of Aileen’s death] and the people who have just watched Aileen [die] who are unbuckling her and talking about where they’re going to have lunch.”

Via Netflix

Winkler said he “knew that would be the ending when we started” when discussing the finale, with The Hollywood Reporter.

Most Read

Monster’s lead star explains why Aileen Wuornos was clumsily shoved into Lizzie Borden show

40 years later, one of the Unsolved Mysteries cold cases has just been solved

Converse releases apology statement after people claim new ad resembles ‘racist imagery’

The ending was designed to bring together the two stories the series had been telling, particularly the way female rage and women who kill have been treated across different periods of history.

“There’s the romance of Sarah [Paulson] and the peace in the afterlife that they’re going to a better place, then … that antiseptic blue curtain in juxtaposition of that ornate, beautiful, red velvet curtain at that big theater at the beginning. I felt like if I could start where we start and end where we end and have an emotional involvement for those characters while doing it, that this had a really good chance to emotionally resonate with people.”

So, back to the question we actually came here for: Did Lizzie and Bridget really reconcile?

Via Netflix

The short answer is: We don’t know. There is no hard historical evidence that Lizzie and Maggie, who the series calls Bridget, ever reconciled following Lizzie’s trial.

When asked whether the team had found anything during their research showing that the pair made up, the answer was pretty clear:

“No, but the finale is similar where there’s not a lot of hard evidence about everything. The court stuff we had was Lizzie’s testimony in the house, the stories are the stories.”

“The end was that she’s left in this sort of solitude and the alienation of what she wrought for herself, and the Maggie thing became more of a symbol for us, thinking that you could have a happy ending when the patriarchal stack of chips is so, so heavy against you.”

For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.

Featured image via Netflix