ON June 13, 1980, in a typical home in the suburban town of Wylie, Texas, an axe swung down in a brutal killing that shattered the seemingly ideal community. Based on a true story, HBO’s latest true crime miniseries Love & Death explores what led to that moment and the dramatic aftermath.
Anchored by a tour de force performance by Elizabeth Olsen – most famous for playing Wanda/Scarlet Witch in the Marvel movies – the seven-episode drama explores how one decision can spiral out of control and lead to a series of unintended events.
It’s the summer of 1978, and things seem to be going great for Candice ‘Candy’ Montgomery (Olsen), a housewife raising two kids who’s deeply active in the local church and is liked by just about everyone. But she’s unfulfilled, and she’s feeling disconnected from her husband Pat (Patrick Fugit).
On a lark, she asks fellow church council member Allan Gore (Jesse Plemons) whether he’d be interested in having an affair. Allan, for his part, is in a rough spot in his marriage with his wife Betty (Lilly Rabe), who is dealing with postpartum depression among other issues.
After some hesitancy, negotiation, and planning, Candy and Allan go ahead with their affair, having afternoon rendezvous at a nice motel on the edge of town. It’s almost the perfect crime, as their spouses suspect nothing. But eventually, things run their course and they decide to end their dalliance.
Of course, the show is called Love & Death, and the second part of the title comes into play when almost by coincidence Betty finds out and things come to a head in a bloody confrontation. The first three episodes lead up to that, while the second half of the series deals with the consequences, including a sensationalised courtroom drama that gripped the country.
Since the incident in 1980, the case has been adapted a couple of times, most recently in Candy, which came out just last year and starred Jessica Biel in the lead role. So this isn’t a fresh and unexplored story. But for those who are not familiar with the story, HBO’s version has a lot to offer.
Once again, it can’t be understated how great Olsen is in this. There’s a bit of a balancing act, where she brings humanity to the character where you understand where she’s coming from, but there’s also something off about her, with a layer of menace and anger that surfaces from time to time. Olsen also has a pitch-perfect Texan accent.
Plemons has been putting in the work over the last few years establishing himself as one of the best actors of his generation, and that continues here. Allan’s a very repressed character, but Plemons is able to express a whole range of emotions with the way he carries himself and speaks.
The rest of the cast, which includes Krysten Ritter, Elizabeth Marvel, and especially Tom Pelphrey as smooth-talking defence attorney Don Crowder get their chance to shine as the show goes on.
There’s also a lot of little details with the characters that ring true for how people would really act, which speaks to the amount of research put into the show.
A highlight of the show is its recreation of that specific time and place. Part of that could be a commentary on how little has changed in small-town America, but you really buy that one murder would rock the community to the core.
The juxtaposition of the very public life of a churchgoing community to the sex and violence lurking beneath is heavily underlined in the visual storytelling of the show.
For true crime addicts, Love & Death doesn’t really offer anything new, and for others, having adulterers as the main characters that we’re asked to have empathy for might be a tough sell. It could have also been told in fewer episodes, but it doesn’t drag too much.
Really this is an acting showcase for the cast, with Olsen killing it, in more ways than one. – The Vibes, April 27, 2023
*Love & Death premieres on HBO Go on April 27 with three episodes, followed by an episode a week
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