Review: Love & Death Is Worth It For The Performances Alone
HBO is set to release the first three episodes of their new limited series, Love & Death tomorrow, April 26. Created by Big Little Lies showrunner, David E. Kelley, and based on The Trail of Candy Montgomery, this new drama follows Candy Montgomery (Elizabeth Olsen). On the surface, Candy has it all. She’s has the perfect family, friends that adore her, and is an avid member of her church. However, Candy is hiding a secret. Tired of her white picket fence life in Texas, Candy has decided to seek out an affair with fellow church member, the very married Allan Gore (Jessie Plemons). It’s this affair that leads to the murder of Gore’s wife Betty (Lily Rabe), and a trial that upends a small town in suburban Texas forever.
The first three episodes of the series are a bit of a struggle. The episodes themselves feel almost incomplete. As though the writing team and showrunner Kelley didn’t have enough material to thoroughly set up the characters or the plot pieces necessary to tell the overall story. This could be because most of this story is based on journalistic accounts from Jim Atkinson and John Bloom, but it doesn’t justify the lack of meat needed to tell this type of story. These episodes spend most of their time focusing on the affair between Montgomery and Allan, and painting the picture that Betty (Lily Rabe) is crazed, over-bearing housewife.
It’s not until the latter half of the season that the story becomes engaging. It’s these later episodes where the creative team showcases the complexities of these characters and really drive home the narrative that a person’s identity doesn’t necessarily need to match their motives.
Olsen is the true star of this show. It’s her performance as Candy that will keep viewers tuned in each week. Her knack for taking even the most simple characters and molding them into a complex and compelling character makes her one of the funniest stars to watch on any screen. Plemons is also a must watch as the seemingly boring Gore. His ability to take a character as basic as Gore and make him so overwhelmingly frustrating is no easy feat for an actor, but Plemons does it like he is going for a stroll in the park.
The supporting cast is just as good as the two leads. Patrick Fugit, Lily Rabe, and Krysten Ritter, to name a few, have no issue keeping up with Olsen and Plemons and add the perfect layer of chemistry.
Love & Death is not exactly groundbreaking television and is most certainly not showrunner David E. Kelley’s best work. But all of that aside, the performances in this series are what is going to keep viewers engaged and interested in how the story ends.