Candy is Hulu’s crime drama series that premiered on May 9th, 2022. It is based on a true case where in America, Betty Gore, a suburban housewife and churchgoer, was brutally murdered and thought to be killed by her best friend Candy Montgomery. Fret not! This isn’t a spoiler but the plot is based upon the complexity regarding the events of the case and uncertainty of human emotions that lead one to commit such crimes of passion.
The real case occurred in the 1980’s, Texas, and initial investigation pointed that jealousy had a hand in play. There was an affair between Betty Gore’s husband and Candy Montgomery, but is that all there to it?
The book
The show Candy is based upon a true-crime book Evidence of Love, written by the authors John Bloom and Jim Atkinson. The subtitle of the book says “A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs.” Candy and Betty were friends, worked together in the same technological company, but repressed desires led to a murderous rage, where an axe became the weapon of crime.
Cast and Crew
Jessica Biel has played the role of Candy Montgomery. The Texas Chainsaw Massacrestar certainly has a knack for playing thriller roles. Her recent crime-drama series The sinner has an IMDB rating of 7.9. Melanie Lynskey, the New Zealand actress who debuted as a murderess in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures, has played the role of Betty Gore. Her husband in the series Allan Gore has been played by Pablo Schreiber, who has also acted the character Nick Sobotka in the series The Wire. The series has been created by Nick Antosca (co-creator of The Act) And Robin Veith (who worked as an assistant writer in Mad Men).
Episodes
The series has 5 episodes that debuted on May 9th and later on each episode released every night for 4 more days, where the final episode released on May 13th. The first episode is titled as “Friday the 13th”, second “Happy wife, Happy Life”, third “Overkill”, fourth “Cover Girl”, and fifth “The Fight”. The miniseries is an absolute pick for a short shot of crime drama into life. The series can be binged over popcorn and nachos with dips at night. Though, one will have nightmares or he or she will be purged of negative emotions after watching it is a little hard to say. One thing to keep in mind is to consider its gory nature.
Reception
The miniseries has been decently received with average scores all around. It has a 68 % approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 64/100 on Metacritic. The cast has been praised for their stellar acting but criticised for remaining as flat characters over all with no character development. This, however, must be seen with respect to the length of the series as the number of episodes don’t really leave much space on reels for character development. Also, the theme of the series is such that there cannot be much development in the personalities of the characters apart from their natures leading to the heinous crime. After all, a criminal can’t have much change of heart before the act of crime is committed, or can he?
