Lifetime’s The Lizzie Borden Chronicles comes to an end tonight, and I think I might miss it most of all. This fun and campy limited series, a continuation of the Lifetime movie, Lizzie Borden Took An Ax, gave us a fictionalized account of what Lizzie Borden’s life was like once she was acquitted of the murder of her parents. That life, which interwined real and unreal (really unreal!) characters, was a bloody romp. That couldn’t have happened without Christina Ricci and Clea Duvall, who played Lizzie and Emma Borden, respectively. Nor could it have happened without the writers Greg Small, Rich Blaney, Barbara Nance, Jason Grote, and David Simkins.

I had interviewed Rich and Greg previously, and then got the bonus chance of interviewing David Simkins, veteran TV writer and producer of such shows as Charmed, Roswell, Warehouse 13, Dark Angel, Grimm, and so much more.

The Lizzie Borden Chronicles
Episode 1.4 “Welcome To Maplecroft”
Directed by Russell Mulcahy
Written by Jason Grote
Starring Christina Ricci, Clea Duvall, Cole Hauser, Bradley Stryker, Jeff Wincott, Olivia Llewellyn, Dylan Taylor, Jessy Schram, John Ralston
Lifetime
Air Date: Sunday, April 26th, 2015, 10pm ET

The Lizzie Borden Chronicles 1.4 “Welcome To Maplecroft” brings up to the halfway point in our bloody Lifetime series. Before that review, let’s recap last week’s episode.

“Flowers” centered on Lizzie’s (Christina Ricci) new business partner, Mr. Flowers (Jonathan Banks). He took care of that nasty little Spencer business for her. An unforeseen loose end is Skipjack (Bradley Stryker) taking the playwright’s ring. Mr. Flowers seems like a useful person for a rich serial killer to have around. Why… someone like that can get goons to beat up annoying Pinkerton detectives, and leave them/him on some train tracks like a damsel left by a twirly-mustached villain. I really enjoy Siringo (Cole Hauser) onscreen. I was hoping he would last til the end. He will, won’t he? Won’t he?