True crime has always been a genre that has fascinated people. From eye-opening documentaries to chilling podcasts to horrifying live-action series, many audiences couldn’t get enough of these stories that were both gruesome and grounded in reality. Before I dive deep into this review, I will admit that I have a predisposed aversion to true crime content. I’m not a fan of gore, and I don’t enjoy hearing about disturbing events that somehow happened. So you probably aren’t surprised to hear that I am not a fan of Love & Death, a show about Candy Montgomery’s affair with Betty Gore’s husband, which eventually led to Betty’s brutal murder by axe. However, gruesome violence wasn’t my issue with this show. Alas, Love & Death suffers from an infinitely more accessible problem: the fact that it is largely terribly uninteresting. 

The plot itself should be engaging: an unfulfilled housewife (Elizabeth Olsen) getting entangled in a physical and later emotional affair with her friend’s husband (Jesse Plemons) is good drama on its own, but put a murderous spin on it and it sounds like something you’d be unable to stop watching. And to give credit where credit is due, the events that happen in the show are somewhat entertaining. The issue lies in the fact that the characters surrounding them are not. None of the characters felt fully realized, so I couldn’t really bring myself to be invested in where they all wound up. This is largely due to the writing, which was almost entirely unintriguing save for a few escalations (which I will admit were well-executed). It almost never lets the characters breathe and exist, instead solely building them up for the conflicts that would follow shortly afterwards. This makes the finale especially jarring, as in it, there is a short subplot that is revealed to be significant to Candy’s ultimate fate. However, that subplot felt clumsily written and shoehorned in when it should have been an integral part of her character from the get-go.

The main draw of this show for many is its lead Elizabeth Olsen. Unfortunately, I have to rip this bandaid off: she is just passable in this. Olsen tries as Candy Montgomery, but the level of effort I could feel in her portrayal wound up turning me off of the performance. It doesn’t ever feel natural, so it took me out of the show from time to time. She also does not have any chemistry with Jesse Plemons, who is quite bland and forgettable in the show despite being the co-lead. I like both of these actors and think they are both talented individuals, but they were just not impressive here. Lily Rabe is fine as Betty Gore, but her character is far too one-note to make an impact until her untimely end. To my surprise, my MVP from the cast was quite easily Patrick Fugit. He is almost completely absent from the first two episodes of Love & Death, but he brought a level of authenticity and heart to the show that I was desperately craving. His role is a lot more muted and subdued than Olsen’s or Rabe’s, but the few times I found myself invested in this show, it was because of his performance.

There are a lot of reasons why Love & Death just didn’t click with me, but I do still think there are praiseworthy elements in this show. In particular, the show’s atmosphere is pitch-perfect. Director Lesli Linka Glatter did a great job at visually constructing a tone for the show, and the technical aspects back up her directorial talent. The score, though infrequently used, is particularly effective at setting the show’s mood. The best part of the show, however, has to be its music supervision by Liesl Takeuchi. There are many needle drops in this series, and they all did a fantastic job of getting me in the headspace for the scene that followed. Honestly, the needle drops told this show’s story a lot better than the writing. While that is an undeniably bad testament to a show’s script, I would much rather have this stellar music supervision than not.

Overall, Love & Death is not a show that works for me. There are aspects of it that I would commend, but the series never really came together for me or turned into something I particularly enjoyed watching. Aside from the character writing, I don’t think there’s anything that is outright atrocious about Love & Death. However, I just cannot bring myself to recommend it or feel strongly about it in any way. It just doesn't have enough qualities to save it from its terrible writing.

4/10