Love And Death's Jesse Plemons Had A Hard Time Pinpointing The Story's True Villain

The horribly tragic true story of Candy Montgomery and Betty Gore has been grist for several true-crime dramas. During the summer of 1980, Montgomery stopped by her friend Gore's home to pick up a swimsuit for Gore's daughter. Gore allegedly confronted Montgomery, who was engaged in an affair with her husband. A fight ensued, and, per Montgomery, she murdered Gore in self-defense. The sticking point here is the viciousness of the killing: Gore was struck 41 times with an axe. Though Montgomery was found not guilty, many people in the Dallas suburb of Wylie, Texas believed she had murdered Gore in cold blood, and protested the verdict.

Barbara Hershey won a Primetime Emmy for playing a fictionalized version of Montgomery in Stephen Gyllenhaal's 1990 made-for-TV movie "A Killing in a Small Town." In 2022, Jessica Biel portrayed Montgomery opposite Melanie Lynskey's Gore in Nick Antosca and Robin Veith's Hulu series "Candy" (read our review here). And in a classic instance of Hollywood hive-brain development, the Mongtomery-Gore saga is getting re-examined by David E. Kelley and Lesli Linka Glatter in the HBO series "Love & Death."

If nothing else, Kelley and Glatter have assembled a first-rate cast. Elizabeth Olsen plays Montgomery, while Lily Rabe portrays Gore. Most intriguing is the casting of Jesse Plemons as Allan Gore, the philanderous husband who completed this awful love triangle. Plemons has established himself as a remarkably resourceful performer. Many of his characters possess an air of pained mystery; they're concealing something awful, and they're not particularly skilled at keeping this secret from the people in their orbit. He's perfect casting as Allan, and it sounds like the series isn't going to take sides.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Plemons revealed that "Love & Death" will take an even-handed approach to the Montgomery-Gore tragedy. Per Plemons:

"The further we got into it, the more we learned about these characters, the more I started to feel like it's really difficult to find a true villain in this story. The longer you sit with these characters, you begin to understand why they make these choices, [which are] obviously incredibly tragic. That was something that was really compelling to me. There's a lot of food for thought there."

This take on the incident is, like "A Killing in a Small Town," based on "Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs," a true-crime book written by Jim Atkinson and John Bloom (aka drive-in movie maven Joe Bob Briggs). The cast is rounded out by the formidable likes of Krysten Ritter, Patrick Fugit, Keir Gilchrist, Brian d'Arcy James, and Bruce McGill.

It's heartening to hear that Kelley and Glatter are endeavoring to understand the motivations of both parties. We've certainly seen the ugliness-under-the-glossy-surface-of-suburbia tale before, but there are so many heartbreaking variations on this evergreen story. It's all-American misery.

"Love & Death" hits HBO Max on April 27, 2023.