What Happened
Netflix's Monster anthology has a new season, and its opening numbers are in. Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, premiered on September 17, 2026, and took the No. 1 spot on Netflix's global English-language TV list with 12.1 million views, according to figures reported by TheWrap and Variety. Ella Beatty plays Lizzie Borden, the Fall River, Massachusetts woman who was accused of the 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother and acquitted at trial, and Vicky Krieps also stars. The season runs eight episodes.
That 12.1 million figure needs a little context. The season launched on a Thursday, so the first reporting window covers only four days, September 17 through 20. Netflix counts a view as total hours watched divided by a title's runtime, which means a shorter season can post a smaller number than a longer one even when people finish it at the same rate. This is also the fourth entry in the anthology after the Jeffrey Dahmer, Menendez brothers and Ed Gein seasons, so it is being measured against a very specific set of predecessors.
The second week arrived with a bump. Reporting from Comic Basics puts the season at 14.5 million views in its second week, about 20 percent above the opening and good for No. 1 on Netflix again. The same report says it ranked first in 36 countries and landed in the top 10 in 92. On Rotten Tomatoes, the season sits at 42 percent from critics and 57 percent from audiences, a figure cited by What's on Netflix.
Why It Matters
The useful way to read these numbers is against the franchise's own history. Dahmer opened with 22.0 million views in 2022, a number that has never been matched. The Menendez brothers season opened at 12.3 million and the Ed Gein season at 12.2 million. Lizzie Borden's 12.1 million lands almost exactly on that line, which suggests the anthology now has a reliable floor: roughly 12 million views in its opening window, whatever the subject and whatever the reviews say.
The second week is where the comparison gets less comfortable. Dahmer jumped to 33.6 million in week two, Ed Gein climbed to 20.7 million and the Menendez season to 19.5 million. Lizzie Borden's 14.5 million is a gain of roughly 2.4 million rather than the 7 to 12 million that earlier seasons added. A floor is valuable to a streamer because it makes a title predictable, but a floor with a weaker second-week lift suggests word of mouth is carrying less of the load than it did for earlier seasons.
There are honest caveats. Netflix has changed how it measures viewing since Dahmer, so the 22.0 million figure is not a clean comparison. The seasons also launched on different days of the week and differ in episode count, with this one at eight episodes against nine for the Menendez season. Even so, the pattern is clear enough for a business reader: the Monster label still opens big, and the open question is how long each season keeps its audience.
Reaction
Critics have not been kind. Forbes ran a roundup of the Rotten Tomatoes scores under a headline saying the season had been butchered by critics and audiences alike, and the RogerEbert.com review described the show as another messy true-crime effort from Murphy. The 42 percent critics' score is well short of what a prestige drama would want, though the 57 percent audience score is not dramatically better.
What stands out is how little the reception seems to have affected the opening. Murphy's anthology has a long record of polarizing reviews and large audiences, and the Borden season fits that pattern. Viewers who come for the Monster name appear to arrive regardless of notices, which gives Netflix a dependable opening but leaves the show exposed if the second-week and third-week numbers keep sliding. Trade coverage has started to use the word fatigue, and the week-two comparison is the main evidence behind it.
What's Next
The next few Tuesday Top 10 reports will settle the trajectory. Weeks three and four will show whether Lizzie Borden holds its audience through October or fades faster than its predecessors, and Comic Basics notes that the Ed Gein season dropped sharply after its second week. The season also has a seasonal tailwind, since a murder story set in a New England house suits the weeks leading into Halloween.
The real house on Second Street in Fall River is now a museum and bed-and-breakfast, and new dramatizations of the case have tended to bring fresh attention to it. Whether that happens this time is speculation, but it is one place to watch. The bigger question for Netflix is strategic: whether it keeps the anthology on a fixed annual cadence, as it has recently, or lets the format rest if the third and fourth weeks confirm the cooling trend.
Closing Thoughts
There is something fitting about a story from 1892 still moving streaming charts in 2026. Lizzie Borden was acquitted, no one else was ever convicted, and the case has stayed unresolved for more than a century. That ambiguity is a large part of why it keeps getting retold, and it is also why a dramatization has to choose what to emphasize.
For Netflix, the lesson is less about this particular case than about the machine behind it. A recognizable title, a prolific creator and a steady release rhythm can deliver about 12 million views almost on demand. What no formula guarantees is staying power, and that is the number worth watching over the next fortnight. If the second-week bump of about 20 percent turns out to be the season's high point, the franchise will have learned something about the limits of a brand. If the audience keeps building, the floor will look more like a launchpad.
한글 요약
넷플릭스의 「몬스터」 앤솔러지 최신 시즌 「몬스터: 리지 보든 스토리」가 9월 17일 공개 직후 글로벌 영어 TV 부문 1위에 올랐습니다. 첫 집계 구간(9월 17~20일, 4일)의 시청 수는 1,210만 회로, 에드 게인 시즌(1,220만 회)과 메넨데즈 형제 시즌(1,230만 회)과 거의 같은 수준입니다. 2022년 다머 시즌의 2,200만 회와는 여전히 큰 차이가 있습니다.
둘째 주에는 약 1,450만 회로 20%가량 늘어 다시 1위를 지켰고, 36개국에서 1위, 92개국에서 10위권에 들었다고 보도되었습니다. 다만 이전 시즌들이 둘째 주에 700만~1,200만 회씩 늘었던 것과 비교하면 증가 폭이 작습니다. 로튼토마토 점수는 평론가 42%, 관객 57%로 평가는 엇갈립니다.
결국 이 시리즈는 평단의 반응과 관계없이 1,200만 회 안팎의 안정적인 출발선을 갖고 있지만, 입소문으로 이어지는 힘은 예전만 못하다는 신호도 보입니다. 앞으로 3~4주 차 순위가 시즌의 지속력을 가늠할 핵심 지표가 될 것입니다.