Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images, HBO Max and Hulu
When I first heard that there were two miniseries in production about the infamous housewife-turned-ax murderer, Candy Montgomery—one called Candy, starring Jessica Biel, and the other titled Love & Death, starring Elizabeth Olsen—I had to take a deep breath. Anyone who has followed the slow Marvel-ification of Olsen’s career knew that Love & Death would ultimately be the more popular series. At times like these, all that’s left to say is, “Oh fudge!”
That is, of course, a tribute to Jessica Biel’s now-shuttered Los Angeles confection shop called Au Fudge, an adorably awful pun name. Like all Earth-shattering, so-wild-it-just-might-be-brilliant ideas, Au Fudge didn’t last. And I had a dark feeling in my heart that the legacy of Biel’s Candy Montgomery wouldn’t either, not when Elizabeth Olsen marched into town almost exactly a year later.
Well, not if I have anything to say about it! I’m here to hit you with the cold hard facts, just like Candy Montgomery hit her friend Betty Gore with that cold, hard ax. (Sorry, that was incredibly tasteless and inconsiderate, but so is thinking you can get in the ring with Biel and come out without a few bruises.) While I don’t agree that it’s right to pit women against each other, it’s only natural for an entertainment critic to compare these series. They were, after all, in production at the exact same time (*cough* Candy was greenlit and aired first *cough*).