The Lizzie Borden Chronicles Overstays
Its Welcome
by
Kristin Battestella
Following
the 2014 Lizzie Borden Took an Ax Lifetime
television movie, Christina
Ricci and Clea DuVall reprise their roles as the acquitted murderess
and her homely sister for eight episodes of the 2015 The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles. Four
months after her infamous trial, Lizzie and Emma find returning to
the quiet life in Fall River difficult now that Pinkerton Charlie
Siringo (Cole Hauser) is investigating the suspicious violence always
following in Lizzie's wake...
The
rhyme is made ye old for the “Acts of Borden” premiere of The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles
while prim ladies giving Lizzie dirty looks, kids spying through the
window, slow motion jump rope, and surreal ax blows remind us of the
previous forty whacks– as if we have forgotten so soon. The sisters
are still wrangling with their late father's debtors, but herky jerky
camerawork and seizure-inducing montages immediately try for audience
cool with intrusive contemporary music to match. The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles goes
for grit via fast action, on the move dialogue, and flashes of crimes
past and present with every blink. This is also a reset, with The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles placed
before the end scenes of Lizzie
Borden Took an Ax, adding
an initial confusion amid unnecessary music transitions and blaring
rifts. I love westerns – cowboys really need to make a comeback –
however The Lizzie
Borden Chronicles inexplicably
attempts to be Deadwood
instead
of Penny Dreadful.
There
is no build upon the innate character creepy and precious few still
moments between the sisters, but a Borden
brother drops by and there's Victorian pornography. Our
Pinkerton doesn't feel the open and shut cases in “Patron
of the Arts” are resolved when every murder always benefits “thee”
Lizzie Borden, who's visiting the New York theatre as more music
montages combine the high society parties, dead bodies, and alleyway
rescues before another
investigation montage. The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles plays
at girl power or lesbian
teases as our titular spitfire smiles over her teacup, charms women,
and kills big bad men. Putting the acquitted and her new Pinkerton
adversary face to face should be a wonderful battle of wills, but the
sloppy angles and distracting camera interferes, rushing any good
conversation in favor of the next kill of the week music video.
Characters
may endeavor to move on, but the attempted scandalous drama always
returns to repetitive kills, pointless boudoir photos, and jarring
rock music.
While
the first two episodes set the series off on the wrong foot, director
Russell Mulchay (Highlander)
adds the potential for cinematic suspense in “Flowers.”
The camera should never call attention to itself or a cause lack of
immersion – especially in a period piece. Here, however, the camera
stays still for a conversation, letting the shrewd fully build
alongside creepy coffins and pimps. Viewers are able to follow the
story, spend time with characters, and revel in consequences from the
past and more twists to come. We know certain players are on borrowed
time, so stewing in Lizzie's wrath is more fun than a fast whack or
two. There are still noticeable zooms, but the movement matches the
tense one on one scenes. The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles is
divided into four blocks
with directors doing two episodes each amid five show writers. Such a
limited series with so few players should have been more tightly
focused with one director and one writer. Instead, this short
attention span design is too on the nose with an in your face hip
trying to avoid some dreaded period piece yawn. The sociopathic camp
is creepy enough in “Welcome to Maplecroft.” Who wants to wake up
with Lizzie at the foot of your bed offering you a breakfast scone?
Nope! The abundance of neat crimes in Fall River are the perfect way
to assure nothing is suspected – but Lizzie is too neat, buying up
all the neighboring properties via a generous sale or other,
accidental means. The audience has to enjoy the systematic way
everyone around the Bordens drops like flies, because having the
townsfolk unable to follow the trail back to her is insulting
otherwise. Blackmailing thugs are right to fear any “ax of Borden”
retributions, and high and low conflicts make the supporting players
more interesting – The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles might
have been neat from the Fall River perspective.
Fortunately, the twisted drama unfolds naturally, with firm threats
unfettered by intruding rock this episode. Background saloon music,
tender strings accenting a romance – The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles needed
music that would invoke
the setting, emotions, and vengeance. Chases about the ominous dark
house, gunshots, and clock chimes build suspense, and scenes with
interplay rather than camera flair do best.
Convenient
falling down the stairs mishaps in “Cold Storage” lead to
arrests, inquests, self defense claims, and speculative testimony.
Naturally, audiences can't complain about the accuracy of The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles as
it obviously diverges
from history and never professed to be anything but sensational.
So-called rough interrogations, however, are weak – character back
stories and blackmailing the good catholic over his not so devout
proclivities are much more delicious. Unfortunately, the drama is
revealingly thin without the busy camera, music montages, and choppy
editing. The meaty
scenes with the main cast
are best,
but such moments are too
brief to sustain the entire forty minutes. Viewers expecting macabre
instead of melodramatic affairs will be disappointed – even the
killer twists become routine, and with such transparency, The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles might
have done better as half
hour webisodes. After all, it isn't a persecution complex when Lizzie
really has orchestrated this death tally in “Fugitive Kind.”
Swift trials leave little time for prosecution tension – the
courtroom
consequences are over
before the title card – but seeing pathological liar Lizzie
swearing to tell the truth on the witness stand is a winking irony.
Sadly, important
scenes seem left on the cutting room floor, and critical information
is dropped in quick throwaways, leaving the viewer to question what
just happen or presume the details – a very slip shod way to tell a
story. Despite ditching the wham bam music video format, the pace
drags with who's on who's side or which guy is beating up the other
guy this week filler. Jealously, murderous plotting gone awry, and
the reaction on Lizzie's face are better than such back and forth,
but the writing on The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles really
doesn't give the cast a chance to bring it. Brief confrontations
can't be fully appreciated because Lizzie makes anyone who sees her
for what she really is disappear in an episode or less. Besides, it's
no fun when she pays
thugs to off her intended in dark, chaotic scenes rather than her own
DIY.
Kids
daring to ring the doorbell and covered furniture add a spooky whiff
to “The Sisters Grimke,” but it is awfully late in the game for
The Lizzie Borden Chronicles
to
switch from Massachusetts to Maine and Nevada with boys
will be boys rock outs, unassuming school teacher disguises, and
resetting cowboy vendettas. We're just getting into psychosis
reasonings now? Reporters in the middle of nowhere want headlines but
where were the yellow journalism muckrakers when the heads were
rolling in Fall River? Chopped up bodies, catatonics, institutions –
we know murders about campus and electroshock therapy are coming and
the disturbing hospital horrors are good. Unfortunately, leap
frogging the times and places compromises the development of the
series regulars, and The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles tacks
on Tom Horn and Bat
Masterson in some kind of Lizzie Goes West potluck. The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles suffers
from the same structural problems as its precursor film with little
rhyme or reason to its presentation. Again, why not space out the
Fall River aftermath, New York actress mayhem, alias move and
institution, and Pinkerton investigations in four more telemovies?
This series gets off to a very rocky start, provides some suspense
potential in its middle, but devolves with another move to Boston in
the “Capsize” finale. Recovering from shock therapy and turn of
the century traveling move fast amid madhouses run amok, slo-mo
shootouts, Irish mob families, Russian roulette, gunslingers, and
gangsters. Say what?
Lizzie
Borden – who prefers “former Sunday School Teacher” to “ax
killer” – knows how to solve problems and enjoys intimating
children claiming they are not afraid of her. While Lizzie says she's
glad to be a grown woman on her own with no intention of having a
husband, she'll flirt and seduce for her murderous gains. Lizzie
won't sleep with a guy and further tarnish her reputation, but she'll
bludgeon him hot diggity! From buying a new mansion after eliminating
her creditors to playing dress up with a rescued hooker she treats
like a pet, Lizzie loves pleasing herself on the party scene. Girl
kisses happen fast on The Lizzie Borden Chronicles as
well, with Lizzie ready to pounce on her latest BFF in the
dressing room so long as it suits her agenda. Although I wish The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles had maintained the nude or scantily clad
killing theories and going to bathe or naughty whatnot after the
thrill, Lizzie commits a lot of bloody acts in some pretty expensive,
fashionable clothes. Despite her finery, she's apathetic and casual,
unfettered by the violence she causes. After
telling her lies so many times, Lizzie genuinely believes she is not
a monster. Ironically, we
like Lizzie – Ricci looks the cute but crazy look and viewers know
to take all she says with a heap of salt. This could have been
a truly fun performance, but Ricci doesn't seem onscreen very much
save for the same act three death strokes each week. Modern dialogue
makes Lizzie's threats feel invalid, and blurry focusing with rock
music punctuation is unnecessary. After all, what's the point of The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles if we
can't see all her killer camp?
Unable
to revel in their infamy, Clea DuVall's Emma Borden reads aloud for
fun and calls what happened to her younger sister “The
Unpleasantness.” She tries to do her church going Christian best to
see the good in everyone but distrusts their wayward brother and
can't understand why Lizzie enjoys being the star of her own little
circus. Emma is aware their family seems marked by tragedy, but
rather than having room to become the audience's moral center, it's
again odd that The Lizzie
Borden Chronicles takes
places before the coda of the film – confusing the sisters'
timeline and erasing Emma's subsequent knowledge about Lizzie's
killings. This backtrack dumbs Emma down, going from a woman who
leaves her sister alone to one dreaming of having her own husband and
happy to have any romantic prospect. Unfortunately, she can't escape
all the skeletons in her
closet – wink – and such macabre scandals are forgotten, left
unexplained, or throwaway used in as needed contrivances instead of
steering any actual character development. Emma's
frumpy, meek style is also more to visually contrast with flashy
Lizzie than show personality, and quiet
conversations about Emma raising Lizzie are more interesting. She
can't exactly be proud of the woman her sister has become or move on
with her life and leave Lizzie alone. Emma tries to vindicate Lizzie
and get to the bottom of the violence in their lives, but those
answers won't be coming any time soon. Ultimately, she can't be
bothered to hide her feelings – it's tough to be an upstanding
woman when Lizzie Borden is your sister! However, I'm unsure how The
Lizzie Borden Chronicles would
have continued with Emma if there had been a second season. Nor I
think did they after backing either an unwanted character into a
corner or rightfully loving Clea and trying to give her more if silly
storylines.
There's
no doubt we need more Pinkerton dramas. However, the inclusion of
Cole Hauser (Rogue) as the unwelcome real life bounty hunter
Charlie Siringo with his free rein badge shooting people and asking
questions later sends mixed signals on The Lizzie Borden
Chronicles. He's hired to review the Borden case, but locals are
reluctant to go back to the infamous past. Siringo sees through
Lizzie's current crimes, but politically minded officials give him an
uphill legal battle. While tension between Siringo and recurring
ladies and twists on why he is in Fall River add depth, he seems too
invested in persecuting Lizzie – to the point that we know almost
nothing else about this wild historical figure. Siringo's rough past
is told rather than seen with no careful battle of wills or
accumulation of evidence, and The Lizzie Borden Chronicles resorts
to extreme outlaws, shootouts, and half cocked attacks to
bring down the character. Numerous guests should have stuck around
longer on The Lizzie Borden Chronicles as
well, including rival businessman James Heard (Home Alone)
and Andrew Howard (Bates Motel) as disowned brother William
Borden. Unfortunately even the supporting cast appearing in six or
more episodes serve as little more than their stereotypes, such as
hustler Bradley Stryker (iZombie), nasty doctor Ronan Vibert
(Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell), abusive hotel owner John
Ralston (Flash Gordon), and former friend to Lizzie Olivia
Llewellyn (Penny Dreadful). Not that the Bordens bode well for
friendly officer Dylan Taylor (Copper), Nance O'Neil based
actress Jessy Schram (Nashville), and mobster matron Michelle
Fairley (Game of Thrones) either.
Fortunately,
the gloves and muffs add a refined, little lady would never kill vein
alongside hats, parasols, feathers, lace, and puffy sleeves invoking
fine ladies silhouettes. Lanterns and candlelight create a golden
patina, however the camera never stays still long enough to steep in
the atmospheric attention to detail, making The Lizzie Borden
Chronicles feel nondescript
despite being a period show. Brief focuses on cursive writing will be
tough for millennials, and the editing moves blink and you miss it
fast over the shock reveals, skeleton accents, and dead babies. Zooms
and hectic handicam photography almost feel like a deliberate
covering up the cut production corners technique. Pull back so
viewers can see the autumn leaves, snow on the ground, Victorian
carriages, and architectural facades. Thanks to either cheapness or
television ratings, there's only mild splatter and brief gruesomes,
and The Lizzie Borden Chronicles name
drops Bleak House and Sherlock Holmes instead,
hitting home the currently renowned then-entertainment as if the
audience can't be trusted to like the turn of the last century.
Again, especially now having seen the series, Lizzie Borden Took
an Ax should have been the
household up to the forty whacks with The Lizzie Borden
Chronicles recounting the courtroom aftermath and any manor of
Victorian horror, mysticism, or Massachusetts witches with homicidal
Lizzie at the center of it all.
While
bemusing for a drinking game, weekend marathon, or fans of the cast,
The Lizzie Borden Chronicles never
lives up to its potential and fails to provide a coherent, binge
worthy plot. The first episode of The Lizzie Borden
Chronicles is faulty, and
the series grows a little too preposterous with fast conveniences and
weekly guests becoming just another notch on Lizzie's ax handle.
Despite a fun predecessor and the charming Christina Ricci, The Lizzie Borden Chronicles retains
the haphazard flaws from Lizzie Borden Took an Ax,
snowballing into an all
over the place one trick pony used eight times too many.
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