If you too enjoy celebrating the annual Friday the 13th in a grizzly manner, then Hulu’s new short series Candy may just be up your dark alley. Based on a true crime story, the series runs for 5 episodes and stars Jessica Biel as the main lead, further cementing the actor as a crime-driven limited-series star, following The Sinner.
Hulu’s series based on Candy Montgomery sees star Jessica Biel in a tight curly wig, and tells the story of a depressed housewife who began an affair, broke her own rules regarding avoiding emotional attachment, and finally wound up taking part in a grisly act that killed one and destroyed others’ lives.
The small Texas town where the trial unfolded is also a character, a place where people harbour grudges and live lives of quiet desperation while they sit beside those they’ve wronged in church with painted-on smiles.
The victim, Betty Gore (Melanie Lynskey) is married to Allan (Pablo Schreiber), and her child and Candy’s child are friends. As Betty raises her baby and is upset about how much her husband travels for work, she tells him when they take in an unhappy foster child, “I can’t handle another person in this house who doesn’t want to be here.”
Candy comes with the requisite disclaimer, which is that there are liberties taken with the actual story, to which we can all attest due to the darkly satirical tone, which is executed better than, say, The Truth About Pam. The performances, which start with Biel and Lynskey, are strong and convincing, and the unexpected turns at the very end make this one of those fact-based productions that work best if you know nothing about it beforehand.
The mini-series follows that well-known formula of working toward the end and then going backward, presenting a community where everyone seems restless for different reasons, and a recreational volleyball team that’s propelled into its own mini-soap opera.
True-crime TV series are very popular, so it’s hard to stand out. Hulu expects to accomplish this in part by dropping a new episode every day from Monday through Friday in hopes to keep people wanting more. Although there is no lack of true-crime series around, Candy just has that little extra bite that keeps you wanting more.
We could be looking at the rise of Hulu as they bring out more Hulu Originals and take shows from Netflix such as Schitt’s Creek.
Will you be waiting every Friday to watch this series? Let us know in the comments below.
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