You finish one true crime drama and another one comes right along. This latest one looks pretty special, though, as you’ll find out when Love & Death premieres on Binge on April 28.
Erstwhile Avenger Elizabeth Olsen plays Candy Montgomery, a seemingly normal, middle class housewife, who one hot, Texas day in 1980 found herself standing over the body of her friend Betty Gore (Lily Rabe) with a bloody axe and a lot of explaining to do.
As it turns out, Montgomery was having an affair with Gore’s husband, Allan (Jesse Plemons), and things escalated from “heated” to “axe-happy” when Gore (unfortune name, really) confronted her about the infidelity. But at trial, Montgomery claimed self-defence—a shocking plea in light of the fact that Gore was struck a whopping 41 times.
It makes good grist for the true crime mill, though. In fact the case has already been adapted twice, once as the 1990 TV movie A Killing in a Small Town, directed by Stephen “Yes, I’m their dad” Gyllenhaal, and more recently as the 2022 miniseries Candy, starring Jessica Biel in the title role.
Love & Death, however, comes to us from the pen of TV Legend David E. Kelly (Ally McBeal, Boston Legal), adapting John Bloom and Jim Atkinson’s 1984 tome Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs, plus a few Texas Monthly articles. Patrick Fugit co-stars as Montgomery’s hapless husband, Pat, while the supporting cast is rounded out by Keir Gilchrist, Elizabeth Marvel, Tom Pelphrey and Krysten Ritter.
There’s just something about these sordid small-town sex ‘n’ murder morality plays that draws us like flies to honey. Love & Death is certainly one for the books, featuring an assemblage of outwardly respectable, church-going folk who nonetheless harbour dark lusts and a chilling capacity for violence. If lurid scandal is your jam too, make a date with Love & Death.
Love & Death: Miniseries
