A hard-working wife and mother, Candy Montgomery (Elizabeth Olsen) is the true heart of her humble community. A woman sings in the church choir, plays volleyball with her neighbors, looks after her own and others’ children, and also comforts adults when circumstances warrant. And despite her impressive emotional charge, Candy herself is on the verge of burnout: not because she spends too much on others, but because she doesn’t get enough feedback from her loved ones.
Bored with her own marriage, Candy decides to embark on an adventure – she starts an affair with her friend Betty’s husband, Allan (Jesse Plemons). But at first glance, the characters’ random connection eventually turns into a horrific tragedy: Learning of her husband’s affair, Betty summoned Candy into a frank conversation, where she suffered 41 injuries with an axe. Candy was blamed for the incident and desperately denied her guilt. And despite strong evidence, the woman was acquitted, but the controversy over her alleged crime has not subsided to date.
“Love and Death” is the second serial attempt to grasp a high-profile and well-known US crime story about two neighbors who do not share the same man (a very mediocre one, by the way). The project with Olsen was supposed to be released in 2022, but then another woman crossed the road to Marvel star Jessica Biel, who had previously aired her five-part saga about Candy. Due to the success of the series (and indeed, it was filmed very skillfully), the show with Olsen was sent to gather dust on the shelf for a year.
In the spring of 2023, the project still saw the light, but it didn’t quite live up to the long-standing expectations of fans compared to the first three episodes aired. Let’s understand together the differences and similarities of two fundamentally different projects that tell the same story.
The project, with which he was so passionate with Beal that he not only played the main role, but also joined the ranks of the producers of the series, had a completely different plot, which successfully worked to develop the story. The series started with a flash forward that tells the audience two important details at the same time.
First, it showed how the murder of Betty, perpetrated by Candy and Alan’s previous plot, was planned and executed. Secondly, the authors of the series made it clear that, contrary to the official court decision, they still believed Candy to be guilty of the death of a neighbor, but by some miracle she managed to escape punishment.
Indeed, there is enough room for such bold interpretations in real history: Candy’s story resembles the phenomenon of former athlete and actor OJ Simpson’s lawsuit that swept across America 13 years later. Both cases are compounded by the fact that the suspects appear to be truly guilty of the crimes attributed to them, but have managed to avoid punishment thanks to negligence in the prosecution and loopholes in the judicial system.
This broken duality of Dostoevsky in a chain of crime that has not been crowned with a deserved punishment has kept the public’s attention to this day in both tragedies.
“Love and Death” chooses for itself completely different, less driving routes. Preferring the linearity of the narrative instead of fiction and temporary sticking, the series calmly draws the audience into the world of history. The early episodes of the show reveal in great detail what life was like for both married couples before both Candy and Alan’s romance began, and how they agreed to have a relationship “without constraints” so that no one gets hurt.
Although Candy was still hurt when Alan decided to end their relationship for fear of losing his wife.
Candy’s hurt ego, who always thought of herself as special and deserving of special treatment, provoked an irreversible mechanism of revenge in her: both because they dared to reject her and more so because she surrendered to him. the “rival” he never saw as his equal.
Outside of the comparative optics of both projects, the Love and Death writers’ approach to the script seems to be working (albeit very slowly). But if you watch the series after “Candy” with Jessica Biel, then the project with Olsen is much inferior to its “rival”.
“Sugar” 5 unnecessary episodes were enough to deal with Montgomery’s complex case, bring all the criminals to light, defend all the offended, and understand step by step how the bloody ax fell into silent Candy’s hands. “Love and Death” promises to extend 7 episodes, lasting almost over an hour, in which nothing critical and valuable to the plot happens for the most part.
These are hard to avoid, even if we have been given a whole year to refuse any comparison. With Elizabeth Olsen, the project found herself in a position where, like the once real Candy, she had to fight for the attention of the audience by being overshadowed by someone else. It’s unexpected to admit this, but despite Elizabeth Olsen’s obvious talent and skill, Jessica Biel still outlived her. And the series “Candy” turned out to be more creative and more atmospheric than “Love and Death”.