Have you ever had one of those days? You have to take the kids to their swimming lessons, but only after their Sunday school Bible quiz. They’ve been pestering you to go see the new Star Wars movie too, so that has to go on the schedule. You kill your best friend with an axe. Father’s Day is coming up, so head over to Target to pick up a card. Busy Busy Busy!
That is the plot based on a true story of Candy, the new true crime drama from Hulu. And as ax murders go, this one comes with a great pedigree. Candy is co-created by Nick Antosca (Channel Zero, The Act, New Cherry Flavor) and showrunner Robin Veith, Antosca’s collaborator on The act who was also one of the aces in the Crazy men writers room. Unusually, Hulu will release all five episodes of the limited series this week, one episode per day. According to the premiere (“Friday the 13th”), it’s going to be a deliciously dark week.
Jessica Biel plays the title character, a Texas housewife and Bible school teacher who spends her days busy running errands, chores, and ferrying her children from one activity to another. On this particular day in the summer of 1980, she has to visit her friend Betty (Melanie Lynskey), whose oldest daughter has been staying at Candy’s house for a couple of days to play with the other children and go to see. The Empire Strikes Back at the theater, to pick up the girl’s swimsuit. Even if the text on the screen had not identified this as “the day [Betty] died”, we would know by the way Candy returns from her friend’s house: soaking wet oversized glasses, frantically running around her house naked to wash the clothes she was wearing.
But he regains his footing quickly enough to resume the day’s activities, supplemented by a little story of how he visited Betty, got to talking, lost track of time, went to Target to shop, noticed his watch had stopped and ran back to the church to be with the children. She tells the story so often that her husband Pat (Timothy Simons) notices that he told it to her twice. However, I’m not sure “I went to Target but saw my watch had stopped” counts as an alibi. (This isn’t exactly crime-of-the-century territory.)
Writer/showrunner Robin Veith and director Michael Uppendahl perform some of the material for laughs; the contrast between Candy’s light-hearted demeanor and the horror we know she has provoked is certainly the stuff of black comedy. But they also know how to develop a sense of fear. The large suburban houses in which the characters live are filmed to appear cavernous, with huge ceilings and dark alcoves. The shots of Betty’s house, with the door closed, exist simply to remind you that there is a body inside. A review of the glow, another ax murder story, is on the front page of the day’s newspaper. And throughout the episode, Betty’s baby cries, first when Betty is around her to take care of her, then again (and again, and again) when she’s not around. The compulsion to reach out and take care of the poor girl is almost overwhelming. (It’s a neat trick to make the audience deeply uncomfortable, reminiscent of an almost unbearable sequence of a similar nature in Jonathan Glazer’s horror film Under the skinwhich I assure you is a great compliment.)
The way the show depicts, or rather doesn’t depict, crime is also compelling. We don’t see it happen, only its consequences; we don’t see the body, only the reactions of the trio of neighbors who enter the house at the request of Betty’s husband and find the crime scene. Regular use of timestamps lets us know when the murder occurred, but that’s about it; the dynamics of the moment, the act of killing, even the motive, are hidden for the moment. It’s like the universe flickered and suddenly someone who was there just wasn’t there anymore. (This is a true story and all the information is out there, but the show is being cautiously coy for now.)
Biel and Lynskey create an interesting contrast as Candy and Betty respectively. Candy is all energy, constant movement, big smiles, a curly head of hair that would put Little Orphan Annie to shame. Betty, by contrast, is stuck alone in her house with a crying baby whom she alternately cares for and ignores, sitting listlessly or vacuuming the rug. Candy feels like a dynamo, Betty feels like a prisoner.
Perhaps the biggest reveal of the episode is Pablo Schreiber, playing Betty’s husband, Allan. From the moment his first phone call home goes unanswered, he plays Allan as a man whose personality, whose life force, slowly fades, replaced by fear. His voice becomes calmer. He loses his appetite. He abandons plans for dinner. He sits motionlessly waiting for a call back. He leans against the wall. He lies down on the bed. When he finally calls Candy to give her the bad news (“He’s been shot.” “…Shooted?” Candy replies, confused.) It’s like he’s calling her from under a two-ton pile of pain and guilt. . His emotional exhaustion is total, and it’s grimly fascinating to watch it unfold.
That’s not a bad way to describe the entire episode, actually. Candy it looks like a bad dream, an earth-toned nightmare, with a main character who seems sweet enough, until your teeth rot.
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about television for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York TimesY any place that has it, Really. He and his family live on Long Island.
Reference-decider.com