Sweet as Southern iced tea but with a bitter aftertaste, Jessica Biel plays accused murderer Candy Montgomery with an unflattering late-seventies perm atop her head. Maybe that’s just what happens to your scalp when your brain is full of back-stabbing, friend-slaying dark thoughts inside.
Candy streams on Disney+ from July 27, a few months after its free-to-air premiere in the US. It features an all-star cast in its dramatisation of true 1977 events, including Yellowjackets queen Melanie Lynskey as the kindly friend who Candy betrays and then seemingly kills.
“The compassion and friendship you’ve shown, you’re just a sweetheart”, Lynskey breathily says to Biel. Little does she know that the fellow suburban mum is sleeping with her husband (Pablo Schreiber) and, when things in their pent-up little Texas town get too hot, turning to violent murder to maintain the status quo.
Biel and Lynskey’s respective husbands, Justin Timberlake and Jason Ritter, appear in the series as a pair of cops, which must’ve been a very cute few days on set. Over five thrilling episodes, we’re likely to see some much less adorable, functional marriages as Candy‘s shocking true saga plays out.
The short miniseries is made by horror creator Nick Antosca and Mad Men writer Robin Veith, and in a case of classic Hollywood parallel thinking, there’s another TV limited series adapting the exact same crime hitting screens soon. This other, upcoming show is by David E. Kelley and The Americans‘ Lesli Linka Glatter, and is titled Love and Death.
In that show, Elizabeth Olsen and Lily Rabe take over as Candy and Betty: Jesse Plemons is the adulterous husband who Candy seduces. A character played in Love and Death by Krysten Ritter (no relation to Jason) is played by Broadway star Jessie Mueller in Candy. Perhaps you can have a taste of both shows once they’re out and compare each casting choice.
