Who does “just a bit twisted” better than Elizabeth Olsen? The star of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is taking a dive into the world of true crime with her new series Love & Death that tells the story of Candy Montgomery, who killed her best friend after having an affair with said best friend’s husband. Keep your friends close but their husbands closer?
This is also the second series this year to bring Montgomery’s story to life, which isn’t that surprising given our national love of true crime mixed with the fascinating idea of following a female murderer vs. the tried and true fictionalization of our larger collection of male serial killers. We’ve started to see the story of these white women gone feral throughout the last couple of years, though it has stayed primarily on the television platform, so this series continues within that trend, but it still looks like an interesting new take on the case.
What’s fascinating about Montgomery’s story is that it isn’t as cut and dried as something like the story of Pam Hupp (shown in the series The Thing About Pam), or even if we went into what Eileen Wuornos did (as depicted in the film Monster). It’s more complicated than that, and I can’t wait to see what Love & Death does with the story that differs from the Jessica Biel-led Candy.
The trailer was released as part of HBO’s longer video about what is coming to the platform for the rest of 2022 and on into the 2023 season.
We’ve got to talk about Candy
The trailer is giving me the energy that The Thing About Pam thought it was giving me, and does it about ten times better (in just the trailer, so the series seems like a step up from that mess). And we see Olsen approach her friend’s husband Allan Gore (Jesse Plemons) and ask him if he would like to have an affair with her. While we don’t see much of Betty Gore (played by Lily Rabe) in the trailer, she does play an important part in Candy’s story, given that she’s the victim, but their story isn’t just one of a woman driven mad with love, destined to kill her best friend.
The affair seemingly (according to Candy’s telling) became known to Betty, and when Betty confronted her, Candy claims that Betty was the one who attacked with the axe first, and that killing Betty with the axe was simply self-defense. So there are, in theory, two ways to tell this story (much like how Zodiac hinted at who David Fincher and company thought was the real Zodiac Killer). You could tell it through the lens Candy’s story of what happened being the truth, or you can put your own spin on the case and how you think it went.
Given the fact that Candy Montgomery is still alive and a free woman, that does make for a fascinating development, so it will be interesting to see how the show tackles Candy Montgomery as a person and her relationship to her husband, Allan, and ultimately the death of her friend, Betty. The series, from this trailer, does seem to bring a creative lens to the story (which does happen with most true crime adaptations), so I can’t wait to see how it tackles Candy.
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Love & Death hits HBO next year, and anything that brings me just slightly off-kilter Elizabeth Olsen is something that I’m going to love.
(featured image: HBO)
Published: Aug 22, 2022 12:37 pm