The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Love & Death’ Episodes 1-3

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney reunite to discuss the true crime drama ‘Love & Death,’ based on the story of Candy Montgomery (1:00). Then Joanna speaks with show writer David E. Kelly and director Lesli Linka Glatter about their collaborative effort on the show (50:00). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Guests: Lesli Linka Glatter and David E. Kelley Producers: Sasha Ashall and Jonathan Kermah Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining today. It's another mystery show but slightly different. I'm here with my poker face co-host, but we're here to talk about love and death. It's Rob Mooney. Hi, Rob. How are you?

Joe, don't mind me. I'm just over here ominously grinding meat, you know? Nothing to see here at all. What could possibly go wrong? Who knows? Is that how you grind meat? I don't know. Her is just kind of pencil sharpener functioning.

I haven't used one of those personally, but look, we're period accurate around here. Her fingers were like way too close to the grinder. I was getting nervous. Anyway, let's just a few things before we get into all of this. Elsewhere in the prestige feed, of course, we're covering Succession Weekly on like multiple days. We're covering Barry where Sean Fennacy is having amazing conversations, Bill Hader, so you want to check all of that out. We also want to give you a broad spoiler warning for this show.

This is a true crime show, love and death, based on real events. So we feel like, and especially Rob was telling me, especially since some of this is in the trailer, we feel like it's kosher to tell you what the crime was, who did the crime, who the crime was done to, and, you know, clue rules, where, who, with what, okay? But so we'll be spoiling a little bit of history. We'll be spoiling the Hulu series Candy, which is based on the same story. The source book, all of it. And the first three episodes, for sure, the Huntress Encounters and Steppingstone. So we're here to talk about, you know, they dropped. This is, this is, they, This is a max production, not an HBO production. So they dropped the first three. They're doing that like mini binge and then week to week afterwards. So let's just get this out of the way, Rob. Yeah.

On Friday the 13th, 1980, ominous from the jump, Candy Montgomery, played here by Elizabeth Olson, brutally murdered her friend and neighbor, Betty Gore, played here by Lily Ray, with an axe, more than 40 wax. and at least a few of those wax came after Betty was already dead. So let's just start with your overall thoughts on the first three episodes we were given here. Yeah, I'm intrigued. This is an interesting three episodes set up.

But at the same time, you can see why it's a three episode set up. It's an interesting story. Some of the choices being made in the inferling of that story are pretty interesting, right? We get through these three episodes. We have no death. We only have the love of the titular. or love and death so far. So it kind of feels like one big stretched out pilot a little bit.

And that gives us a lot of time to spend with Elizabeth Olson, which is welcome and great. And her performance in the show is pretty awesome so far. But it also means that there's just like a lot of time to get the story moving and the ball rolling on this thing. Yeah, this is an eight episode series candy by comparison of the Hulu series five episodes. So like, you know, definitely there's three episodes of and the ampersand in the middle of love and death, like patting out. out this show. Yeah, I, like, I have, I had fun in the period setting. Like, the music choices are fun.

I think Elizabeth Olson giving us, like, the full Wanda Vision performance is really fun. I love Wanda Vision, so happy to have it in this creepier, real world setting. And then Jesse Plemons is giving, like, real Fargo season two energy. And I love that season of television. So, like, you know, and Patrick Fuget, a long time, almost famous fan. So there's a lot, you know, there's a lot to love here. I think you and I both were just like a little surprised at how long the unfurling is here, how much love there is before the death. Some info background on this show that Rob knows absolutely shocked me.

Like the biggest twist in this murder case came a couple hours ago when I was doing some research, which is this is based on the 1984 book, Evidence of Love, Colon, a true story of passion and death in the suburb. which is an expanded version of a two-part Texas Monthly article that came out called Love and Death in Silicon Prairie, part one and two by Jim Atkinson and John Bloom. John Bloom, I found out, is the real name of this media figure Joe Bob Briggs. And when I texted it to someone who's like a little older than me, they knew exactly what I was talking about? And I asked Rob, and Rob's like, I have no clue this person is. Rob, what do you feel like you found out about Joe Bob Briggs since I texted you a little while ago? I would say he wears the appropriate amount of bolo ties for someone who would write a book about Wiley, Texas. And look, I say this is somewhat of a, I have some local knowledge, Joe.

Okay. Like, I did not watch the other Hulu series. I am only kind of tangentially and vaguely and like the broad parameters level aware of the events of Candy Montgomery's story. But I grew up like 20 minutes from where this story takes place. Did you? So there are a lot of things in this show that are interesting and funny and fun, including the fact that look, for all my North Texans out there, the idea that anyone would go to McKinney

to have their affair is just a hilarious situation. But, I mean, he fits the part as the author of a book about a murder in Wiley. I will absolutely say that. Joe Bob Briggs, the best, like he's like a media figure from the 90s, I would say, late 80s, early 90s, where he hosted a couple shows like Monster Vision or Drive-in on, like, TBS and TNT

where you'd show like B movies or older action. movies and sort of talking about the way I described as Rob's as like sort of like there were watchables but like with a plastic lawn chair and a trailer park set and stuff like that um and i used to watch it a lot and he's just like Joe Bob Briggs is a sort of like outsized comic figure that he created so to imagine him writing this book and these articles is wild to me I was digging in a little like reading the articles I didn't read the book but I read the articles and it was like a little wild to me how so much of the dialogue, there's a lot of dialogue in these articles. Like when you read true crime articles or true crime books, there's always like some kind

of poetic license that someone's taking, because obviously they didn't have like the rooms miced or whatever. But I was curious, like, where all this dialogue was coming from, where David E. Kelly lifted that directly, so much of the dialogue is lifted directly from these articles and presumably the book. And I felt like, so when Jim Atkinson and John Bloom wrote this book slash the articles. They got the cooperation. They interviewed Candy. They interviewed Alan Gore.

They interviewed everyone. So I was like, okay, that makes me feel a little better. It wasn't just sort of like them completely making up. But it's just a very faithful adaptation of these articles. And in some way, that's kind of interesting. The article describes her putting bacon bits on the salad that she makes the first time they have an affair. And I'm like, yep, she definitely did that in the show.

The affair spreads are out of control in the show. Exactly. Just an incredibly enticing picnic basket situation being brought to every meeting. Who could resist? Two among us. A nice chilled chardonnay in the afternoon on your two-hour lunch break. Love it. But sometimes, like, DVD-Kelly is, like, winds up turning description into dialogue.

Like, one example that I found in one of the articles was the description is this, about Alan and his ideas of the affair. those two hours with Candy were often the only time he didn't feel responsibility for other people's emotions, the awful burden of making Betty happy. That's a great descriptor sentence, but when you put it in the mouth of Candy, sort of like, it's just not really how humans talk to each other,

sort of how I felt about some of the exchange. What do you think? Yeah, there's an interesting thing that happens over the course of these three episodes where Candy, I think, as a personality trait, kind of says the quiet part out loud a lot of times. Like, she just seems like maybe that kind of character that kind of person. She's describing wanting to have this affair, having it with her friends in

like very matter of fact terms, seems like pretty clear-headed, especially initially about what she wants and why she's going after it. Over the course of those three episodes, I think we start seeing the performance move more and more internal, right? And I think that's where Elizabeth Olson really shines, right? This idea that you're seeing candy, even at her happiest, even at her like full belly laugh, there's just like something in her face that's like, oh, this person is about to snap at any time to the point that I don't think I was fully ready for some of those moments, right? Like she's holding Alan and Betty's baby in her arms and I'm just like deeply uncomfortable. Julie put the baby down. Please put the baby down. And so that's where I agree. Some of it is like

very on the nose. Like we are saying exactly what we're thinking level dialogue. That definitely happens. Some of that's just like narrative convenience, right? Especially in a true crime show. But I think you do see it winnow down over the course of these three episodes and hopefully over the back half of the season, we're getting even more of just like trying to read what is going on in Candy's head. Because for me, that was the most enjoyable part of the show. Absolutely, 100%. Like Olson's performance, I did not watch the Candy miniseries, but I watched like a little bit of it just to get a sense of sort of some of the differences. And I have, there's like a key difference that I want to talk about later. But like when you compare with love and respect, Jessica Beal's performance

tools with Olson's performance, it's real apples and oranges territory here. Like, there are things that Jessica Bale does very well, but like Elizabeth Olson has like, and I would, it's interesting to me that Elizabeth Moss was originally supposed to be candy in that mini series. And I was like, yeah, Lizzie Moss, like, yes, they both have a real corner on that, like, can do that chipper upbeat, but something is off in the eyes. There's the gleam of something going on and they're both so good at that. So, yeah, with, with Jessica Biel, it was just all like a little bit more surface. I want to talk to you about some of the creatives behind this. Okay, so we've got David E. Kelly's writing every episode. And then Leslie Lincoln Gladder is the director of every episode. And this is very much that like David E. Kelly, big little lie situation where it's like one writer for all the episodes, one director for all the episodes. And Leslie Lincoln Glatter, by the way, she's the she's the president of the DGA. Only the second woman to ever be president of the DGA. But she was elected last year. So,

Congratulations to her. And she has directed some of my favorite episodes of television, including that episode of Mad Men, where someone gets their leg cut off by a lawnmower. So blood spatter is like, she's like, I have a history with a blood spatter. But I was wondering what your history was with like the Davity Kelly. Specifically, this is like a David E. Kelly Nicole Kidman join.

And that's like big little lies, the undoing nine perfect strangers. Like they're on a role with these sort of like, why women murder kind of story. So what's your history with those? How do you feel about them generally? Not super familiar, honestly. Like I haven't done a big,

uh, big little lies dive or anything like that. So that part of it is interesting. Like my general impressions of some of the motifs of that show kind of ring through here. And you can see some of the commonalities. But, and to me, I guess that that comes through most clearly in what we were talking about as far as like

some of the differences between this and the other candy adaptation, right? Like the other candy adaptation, even just from clips or the trailer, very different tonality, much less, you know, pop music influence, much, like, it just is lit totally different. This is much more like floral wallpaper, much less Mind Hunter, you know, like, incredibly different vibe. Yes. And so I think I'm starting to see some of the through lines there, but I'm curious of your impressions as someone who's just like, I'm not as familiar with that world. There is something like, even the undoing, which I didn't think

was a tremendously great show, people got really into it because people love their murder shows and they love their, like, there's something sort of almost campy or, like, poppy, high art about these Kidman Kelly productions that, like, really suck people in. So I'll be curious, I mean, you and I are recording this before the first three episodes drop. I know that they premiered it South by and people liked them there. I don't know how this is going to go over generally if this is going to hit the way that some of those other shows did. But it's also in another bucket, which is like the true crime show bucket, of which there have been so many recently, like the act.

I was reminded a lot of under the banner of heaven watching this, of course, because we were like in the 70s and there's a deeply religious thread going through. The staircase, the girl from Plainville, the thing about Pam, candy, blah, blah. And it's like, it's so funny because all of these shows, perhaps of the exception of under the banner, but a lot of these other shows, like, when I was really young, these would be, like, TV movies. In fact, this story was a TV movie starring Barbara Hershey in, like, the 90s, I think. Or, like, Lifetime Television for Women sort of thing. And, you know, I'm not knocking Lifetime. I've watched plenty of it in my day. But, like,

I think this recent proliferation has to be tied to the popularity of murder podcasts and murder podcasts are so popular with women. Of course. So I don't know. Have you been into any of these other true crime shows and what do you make of that trend? It's not where I am instinctively pulled, to be honest. Not where I spend a ton of time.

And so I like to pick my spots a little bit better. And for me, it's as much about, okay, this is a true crime show as who's in it. Like who are the frontline performers, the actors I can really gravitate to? And that's why I was excited about this, right? It's Elizabeth Olson. It's Jesse Plymins. It's Patrick Fuget. It's Kristen Ritter in a supporting role coming off the bench.

Like, you just have a lot of fun voices and energies colliding on screen in a way that's like, okay, I'm cool with a little murder and certainly as much love as you want to throw at me if this is kind of who is going to be delivering it. Yeah. I think that there is something to that like pulpier treatment as you're describing of like, let's take a true crime premise, let's give it some gloss. Let's make it like just kind of fun to watch in an objective sense. Like, the show looks good.

You know, it looks enjoyable. It looks like a world you want to spend time in, no matter, you know, I'm sure everyone's mileage may vary on actual suburbia. But like these are fun kitchens to spend time in and fun people and little cafes to spend time in. The question is going to be more like, is it enough murder quickly enough to keep people on the hook? Like you said everyone loves a murder show. It's not a murder show yet. It's just a love and show. Okay.

I'm so excited now. I had a whole section play to talk about location, not knowing that you were like, location expert. But we are also like Bay Area residents. And so I think this is really interesting what is going on here in the 70s with this area that I wasn't like that aware of with context clues from the show, but in reading the articles, I understood it a bit more. But like we said, the title of the articles, love and death in Silicon Prairie. And so this idea of these, I mean, correct me of them wrong. But there's a real time fact checking on this podcast. These, these towns, are sort of the sprawl of the Texas instrument, like, you know, the Texas tech boom,

if you watch Halt and Catch Fire or whatever, like, you know what we're talking about, that the men in these families, like Alan and Pat, they're making a ton of money. Pat, Candy's husband, made like 70K, which is like 300K now, you know what I mean? Like, that's what we're talking about. And, like, I will say something about the Candy Show is that the houses. were like a bit more lavish in a way that helped me understand that these were like well-to-do people who had left Dallas for these absolute minuscule towns in order to escape like cry. It's like a bit of like white flight, like escape crime sort of thing.

And I just, and like, and dig into like religiosity and all that sort of stuff. There was the line from one of the article says, most of this residents had come there to escape something. Cities, density, routine. fear of crime, overpriced housing, the urban problems their parents had never known. I can't really think of a great analog to something like this in Silicon Valley, like the hills of Santa Cruz, perhaps, Los Altos, perhaps. I don't know. You live closer. Is there like a modern comp to what we're talking about here around where you live? I think it's pretty different just because the demographics are so different, right? These aren't like 20-something tech workers. As you're saying, these are people of a very different generation with very

different motivations, like wanting to raise families, wanting more space, wanting in a lot of ways what Candy wants, which is reaching a point in their lives where they're taking stock of everything and thinking like, is this, is this all there is this? Is this what this is supposed to feel like? Right. And for some people, that just means moving out to the Texas suburbs, you know, with their cushy, you know, hardware-based job, you know, I think you described it pretty well in the sense that Dallas, to me, a lot of the suburbs are outgrowth of like TI specifically and that kind of industry in the way that Houston, a lot of the outgrowth is like NASA oriented, right? Like those are kinds of the formations of these suburbs and these communities. And so you have that

interesting dynamic of people who are clearly going here looking for something, but aren't always quite sure what they're looking for. So like thematically, I really like that as the setup and the staging for this town. And I feel like they do dive into that element a lot as far as the specific character stories, even though they're not necessarily giving us like a zoomed out historical look at like Wiley and Lucas and McKinney and these little communities. We do get a sense of where these people are in their lives. And, like, how small these communities were, you know, even if you're hopping on the freeway to, like, go having an affair to motel, my experience of Texas is that you're always hopping

in the freeway no matter where you are. So, like, that doesn't mean you're going even that far away. But, you know, that the church community, we spent a lot of time with, like, the church choir, the church volleyball team, the church picnics. Like, the church community is such a key part of all of this. And then something I was wondering from the articles is that they had tiny schools, like schoolhouses essentially, where they put all of their kids together and stuff like that. So it's like it reminds me of under the banner in that way in like how small and tight knit something like this is. And why, you know, why this story has been such a fascination, not in just the like sort of why women kill kind of way, but in the, you escape the big bad city.

but there's something scary. No matter how safe you feel like you are, no matter how devout you think you are, like all this sort of stuff, there is, this exists everywhere. This like, I don't want to call it evil. That seems weird. But like, you know, this like danger exists even in your most comfortable suburb.

Why do women kill Joe? Will we ever know? I mean, you know, someday David E. Kelly and Nicole Kittman will get to the bottom of it, I'm sure. I think some of that. is manifested in, we're going to talk a bit more about the Betty character, but like her recurrent fear being left alone, I think I want to talk a little bit about like the 70s bordering onto the 80s because we're in like 78 through 80 here. Like you mentioned Mind Hunter,

this idea of serial killers and satanic panic and all of this sort of stuff that good red blooded Americans are trying to find like, you know, make America great again, make America safe again, you know, like the idea of zero killers feeling like a brand new phenomenon, which they kind of were in the 70s and all this or stuff like that. Like, what do you make of that time period and that kind of scary stew that all of this is taking place in? I mean, I think it contributes to the unease a lot of some of these scenes. And they do do a good job in these first three episodes of walking us through, as we were saying, these like pop music cues that honestly can be like a little

on the nose at times. And also getting these like dissonant droning kind of like something is clearly off here going in this scene. And we get that on the micro level. We obviously get it on a macro level. We're not quite at the point where like kids can't be running around outside level of moral panic.

So there is still kind of like a freewheeling aspect of growing up in this era and just like hanging out at other people's houses for days on end, which creates also an interesting dynamic between these two families that are enmeshed in all of these other ways. But look, who among us didn't want to just go see Empire Strikes back the day it came out? You know, like, who can blame Betty's daughter for that? I mean, especially for Mama's like, you're not going to see that absolute trash grease.

Grease. That's a family picture. It's a family picture. I mean, I will admit, her, like, slutty sandy costume, I was like, okay. It's tough. We're a midriff. Okay. Anyway, yeah, I just, I think, I think that's, it's such a, it's a time that I'm so fascinated by, the more and more I watch things like Mind Hunter and under the banner.

Like, we didn't live through that era. You and I were a bit younger than that. But like, I just, we just grew up in a world where serial killers exist. Or we grew up in a world, you know, where these various things exist. And the fact that they, that it's so new for all these people that they grew up in a world where like, you know, serial killers didn't they. This is fascinating to me. Okay, I want to talk about this. I want to talk about Betty versus

Candy. And this show versus the show Candy, because one of the biggest differences, I think, looking up and down the cast list, we already talked about Jessica Beale versus Liz Olson, but Lily Robb, who's like so great American Horror Story, she's fantastic. I think she's tremendous and everything she does,

is playing one of the more annoying characters that I've ever, like, I just do not want to be around Betty at all. Extremely tough hang. And like, I am always trying to find an angle on a female character that I can root for it. I'm just like, I am having a tough time. Melanie Linsky, one of the most sympathetic, like, empathetic characters, actors currently

working, plays Betty in Candy. And, like, her Betty is also a tough hang. But there's just something about Melanie Linsky where you're drawn in anyway. Lily is tremendously good, but that is not quite her same skill set. And also, I would say the show Candy is much more interested in Betty and who Betty is than this show is. And I think this show is leaning hard on making Betty so unsympathetic. So we are perhaps more prone to be sympathetic to Candy in general. What do you think about this treatment of that character?

And is there a version of this where we can have room for Betty and, still feel drawn in by Candy and her struggles, et cetera. I would think so, again, especially if you're going to take these first three episodes to largely hit character beats, right? If this is kind of what the purpose of this setup is going to be, get us like inside Betty's head a little bit more, let us spend a little more time just in their home, right? We get these flashes into what's going on with Alan and Betty, but most of them are either just like kind of straight comedy, like the Greece Halloween costume or just to show them

fighting. And you get a sense of like what Betty's insecurities are, but you're right. She does come across as a caricature, I think, a little bit in terms of just like we know just her worst qualities. We don't get really get to see who she is at her best. And I think really the best case scenarios, you feel like you feel badly for her, right? You feel you feel that she's a ball of anxiety and that those anxieties are feeding into one another, right? Surrounding her pregnancy, surrounding just trying to get pregnant in the first place, surrounding her relationship with Alan, raising children, whether she's just like doing the right things and is good enough in all the ways that I think lots of people can relate to. So why doesn't that resonate more, right?

Like I think her situation is pretty relatable on just like a top down level. And yet the way the show is executed, I don't know that we really get that. I think the moment that I felt most for her was when like she was convinced that the lump in her breast was like something that it, you know, it wasn't. And the doctors are trying to tell her like, I'm an oncologist, like listen to me. You know what I mean? And then she talks about them trying to give her anxiety medication and, like, her constant fear of being left alone. Again, like, this is them moving to the quote unquote safer burbs, like thinking about zero killers in general. Like, the fact that when she is left alone, she does get murdered.

Like, that does happen to her. But, like, her anxiety about being left alone, like, there's a way that that could have come through in a way that made me really, really feel for her. And I do, I mean, I feel for her, obviously. Like she's being lied to, I feel for her. But like I just don't feel like I'm being given the opportunity. And like the way in which she's just brittle up against everything, her kid, her husband, her church community, all this sort of stuff. And it's like, yeah, again, I really do feel like there's a version of Betty where she can be brittle,

but also I can be inside of her head a bit more than I feel like I'm allowed to here. I think so. And the moment that got me with her was, you know, Alan's going on this last trip before kind of her confrontation with Candy. She's begging him not to go. She's really upset that he's leaving. And she tells him like, do not handle me. Just be with me.

And it was like, okay, this is, now we're kind of getting into the kinds of heartfelt moments that I wish we had more of. You know, we do get this great extended sequence of Betty and Allen, like going to marriage encounter, like reconnecting in ways that's hilarious and in ways that works in ways that can be genuinely touching. but it's more like genuinely touching about them as a couple than it is about Betty. I just want more Betty time, I think. I love that moment because when he was like talking to her and in my head, my inner monologue was like, ugh, he's handling her.

And she's like, don't handle me. And I was like, yeah, exactly, Betty. One culprit, I think, is the source material because, again, they interviewed Candy and they've interviewed Alan and they interviewed everyone, but they couldn't interview Betty because she was dead by the time they did all these interviews, right? So I found this review, 1984 review of the book that I thought was really telling in terms of the perspective that the show might be taking. This reviewer wrote, of course, Blumen Atkinsons don't pretend to have all the evidence of love and death in this bizarre case.

Nobody will ever know Betty Gore's side of the story, whether Betty first threatened Candy with the axe, whether Candy could have fled. rather than fought, et cetera, et cetera. The writer's reconstruction of the murder scene is a masterpiece of horror to rival Stephen King, the two women's struggle on a floor, slick with blood as the washing machine hums serenely in the background, but here, as elsewhere, they must follow Candy's script. And so you're thinking about that in moments, like, you know,

we just get the introduction of the acts, like, right, at the end of episode three, right? And so we know what's coming, presumably, in episode four. But since we're not here to talk about that, We can only talk about the lead-up. So Betty asking Candy about the affair and candy, like, watching that scene, I was like, well, we only will ever have Candy's, like, version of what happened when she walked into that house. You know, there's no other way to know what happened. And so, like, I mean, like, my journalistic hackles went up because I'm like, why are we presenting that?

I mean, we're not. It's true crime. But, like, why are we presenting this as fact when we don't know what happened in this moment? and I would almost rather like not see it or something like that, you know what I mean, then see it and then decide for myself what I think happened based on performances like that. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I love the power in any show of making us wait for the moment we all know that we're waiting for and then not giving it to us at all.

And then we are, just as the reporters were in real life, only relying on third person or secondhand testimony effectively of what happened in that room. but really it applies to Betty's entire story, right? It's not just how she was killed or presumably killed as of episode three. Right. But, you know, like, Alan is not the most like emotionally in touch guy in the world. Even just in, I'm sure, you know, after the fact, speaking to reporters about the nature of their relationship or what Betty was going through, like, if this is, if this is true to who the person is, the character we see on screen from Jesse Plymonds, I'm not sure how much he's really going to be able to tell you. I love that you're from Texas.

Plymins is also from Texas and I love when he plays a Texan Oh yeah And his accent work is very good Some of the others are like Hints of an accent or coming and going Tell me who's the best I think his is the best

I think Elizabeth Olson's is like A wisp of an accent sometimes And sometimes it just sounds like Elizabeth Olson But she nails the performance So what do I really care? Yeah But you know we got enough like hey y'all's coming through the door out here That everyone's doing a pretty credible job

I found out looking sort of at the longer cast list that I can't remember his real name right now but the actor plays Buddy Garrity and Friday Lights is in a later episode and I was like yes give me all the Friday Night Lights reunions I will gladly take it the story of another coming up too right don't we have a Jesse Plymonds Connie Britton show coming up as well I think they're I think they're on that new Robert De Niro show I mean what a joy I once saw this is not sorry I'm just going to take us on a little detour speaking of Fargo season

I was once at an FX Emmy party and Connie Britton was there for OJ and he was there for Fargo Season 2 and I saw them like talking to each other out on like a patio and I took I don't take photos at like celebrity parties but I took like the worst fuzziest far away photo because I could not help myself. I like broke my own rule because I was just like but it's. How could you not? It's Tammy Taylor and Landry. Come on.

Mrs. Coach. Mrs. Principal guidance counselor. This is coach and Landry. So, yeah, so I'm a huge, from the way back, a huge Jesse Plumman's fan. He's great. I do love his performance in this.

I always think about in Fargo season two, there's a moment when it's now real life, real life wife, Kristen Dunst, her character. They're talking about what animals they would be. And she's like, I would be a cat and you would be a cow. And I think it was like a perfect encapsulation of, who he is in that season of television, who he is, what he's doing here, which is not like, it's not about his, like,

body shape or anything like that. It's about, like, that's sort of just, like, chewing your cud, like, slowly ruminating over something, and it's kind of perfect for this guy. It's the perfect kind of person for candy to sort of just, like, plaster her romantic ideas over

that have nothing whatsoever to do with anything that he is actually. actually giving her. Do you know what I mean? Absolutely. That was one part of this initial setup that I was trying to kind of interpret as we go, right? Because the story is what it is as far as like how Candy and Alan got involved. And, you know, they're going to portray that as true to the text and it's true to the stories as they can. But ultimately, like, I don't, I don't know that we get like a real like sparks fly moment other than this situation while they're playing volleyball in which Candy thinks he smells like

sex. And maybe that's enough. I think ultimately, I think, ultimately, I think, think ultimately that's kind of the point, right? Is that Alan, as you're saying, is this like germ of an idea that doesn't really make sense, but is like kind of vaguely representative of something candy thinks she wants and she can't get it out of her head and she chases after it. I'm cool with it ultimately because like you, I love Jesse Plemons. I love watching him just like in over his head. If anyone out there, look, if you're making shows, if you're piloting shows and you want to get a guaranteed one viewer at me, give me like a 10 season anthology series, every season. and Jesse Plymonds is just like increasingly distressed and uncomfortable.

I'm in for every episode you can serve me. Placidly uncomfortable, you know? Just like you can't quite tell, but just slightly to ever so slightly uncomfortable. Yeah. I'm so glad you did accent check-in. I would like to do some wig check-ins and say. I was going to ask. There's one very prominent candidate we have to ask about.

What's your prominent candidate? It's got to be Kristen Ritter. I mean, well, you think. The Auburn situation is out of control. Kristen Witter with like nine inches of slap makeup on her face. Like so much makeup on her face. Like you feel like you can just sort of like poke your finger and it would sort of like go in. Not that I would ever poke Kristen Rinder in the face.

But that one's true to Texas, though, I have to admit. At least 70s, 80s, Texas. The high hair and the blue eye shadow. It's pretty solid. Her character really seems just to exist to like give Candy someone to voice her inner most thoughts and plans do. That seems to be her entire function. But yeah,

Kristen Ritter's giving it her all. I think I could be wrong and I hope I'm not because then it's not very kind of me, but like I think Plymonds is wearing a wig. It's his hair color, but there's just something about it and especially like in the shower scene

when like she's got her hair wet and he's like very carefully not getting his hair wet. Always a red flag. This is like a real wig moment for me and it is like, you know, Patrick Fugent also has, like, quite the number on his head. But I will say, in this instance, this show has so much over candy because the wigs on candy, the Hulu version of this, are just extraordinary. But on the Jesse Plobbing's front, I will say casting-wise, in the Jessica Beal version of the story, it's Pablo Schreiber.

And I feel like Pablo Schreiber has too much, like, inherent sex appeal for what we need here. And, like, I, Jesse Plumman's delightful, very attractive, but like, it's just something. He needs to be fall in love proof, right? Yeah, it's just something like not, you know, just in order to underline that what she's after is not like. Not him. Not him. It's something more. And that's what, I mean, that's what I really responded to in her character, the scenes that we got, like, as much as I might have some notes about the slow role of the season, some of the season.

some of the scenes we got like her and her writing class and bringing her writing home to her husband and him having not really read it or you know just her talking about Carol King like wanting more where is her rich tapestry of Richard and Royal Q like where is that so like that I want I want I want more more than this and especially for like the women of this town

is a really interesting angle that the show I think does a good job of yeah should we do a little writing class poetry corner we are on our brand new prestige TV podcast we did the same thing

you know it's about the folly of materialism Joe ultimately I've got to run some ads on this thing I'm now going to expect any podcast I do in the future to have a poetry corner with you just so you know like you can't set the bar there and not like return to that every single time I also want to shout out

Elizabeth Olson's performance of turn the beat around like in turn of car singing performances and television shows about Grizzly murders. I put it, Darren Chris doing Gloria in Versace is number one, but this is number two. Turn the beat around, Elizabeth Olson. It's a whole ass mood, you know? Again, I'm all for a word-for-word recitation.

And this show does give us, you know, there are some cyclical sequences, right? We see candy in the kitchen preparing food. We see candy drinks. driving solo a lot to and from these various encounters. I'm sure some of that serves to, you know, further the kind of like monotony of this life that she's leading and the repetition of that. But if the trainoff is just like candy singing to herself in the car for extended sequences, I'm cool with a little redundancy is what I'm saying. Okay. So like a 10-season anthology series of Jesse Plumman's increasingly distressed.

And then one of Elizabeth Olson, like, car singing, you know, like move over carpool karaoke. It's just Elizabeth Olson sings in a car. I'd watch it. God, what an upgrade? I can't lie to you. I would watch it. And I do want to, I mean, I think we have to talk about the opening song, which I know you're not a Kelly Kidman scholar.

But the Nina Simone cover of The Animal Song, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, is such a classic opening credit song, like, to the point of parody opening credit songs for a Kelly Kidman joint. And I, you know, I think that it just speaks to the show's overall in the tank for candy kind of thing, right? Like, don't let me be misunderstood. Understand me, Candy, why I did this extraordinary thing. This is what the show is inviting you to do. Don't worry about anyone else. Just like really just really understand what I'm up to.

To that point, though, the one performance in the lead cast we haven't really talked about yet is Patrick Fugitz, who, isn't given a ton to do but I will say like is kind of a perfect dopey dad and the show has just like an absolutely perfect formula to show us like why candy is getting increasingly disaffected with her life

which is one he chokes on the raisinette during beauty school drop out at the movie theater in just like such a dopey way two he's out there mowing the lawn in a cardigan three he's laughing conservatively like 20 to 30% too hard at Rodney Danger field. Tick-tack-toe, disillusioned suburban housewife.

You forgot emptying the spit valve of the trumpet at the dinner table. At the dinner table, of course. I was not paying attention to the carding and a long-moving scene. I was paying attention to like the shorts plus high socks combo. It's a look. It's a look. I mean, I don't know how I feel about this because William Miller is such an important character to me.

Patrick Fuget is such an important, like, it's hard. It's hard to see him in, like, dad-dorf. Now you know what he grew up to be. No. Willie Miller's cool. I want to talk about the faith angle. Yeah, pretty prominent. I'm really curious.

I mean, we haven't watched the rest of the show, but Elizabeth Marvel, who's a tremendous actress, shows up as their pastor, like right at the beginning here, this sort of key pillar of their community, who leaves because she gets a job opportunity, but also is going through a divorce, which is something of a scandal in their Methodist community, and is replaced by Ron Adams,

played by Keir Gilchrist, and like the completely hapless replacement for Pastor Jackie here. And I think it's interesting, like, so to start with divorce as, like, a cautionary tale, so, like, candy feeling dissatisfied or, the Gore family, you know, discontent, the idea that like divorce is not an option for them. So you like, so you have an affair. You release the pressure by like having an affair and that's, that's a way to solve it.

So that's like, that's one thing. But also this, this concept of like, would this have happened if this tremendously important pillar of their community had an ex? I don't understand why else she's there. These characters are not prominent in the articles that I read. So it's not like they're going to come back to play in a major way, or maybe they will, but like not as far as I can tell. So I'm curious why you think that storyline is there. I would guess it comes from an establishment of stakes, right? As you're saying, we're seeing kind of what the ramifications are of a divorce for a prominent member of the church community.

And Candy is a prominent member of her church community, right? She's on the board. She's very active. She's in the choir. On the volleyball team. On the volleyball team. I've never known volleyball to be a pillar. of Texas life, but different times, I guess.

The 70s, yeah, for sure. So I think it's about establishing, like, this may not seem like a huge monumental thing from our modern lens, but at this time, in this community, something like divorce can cost a pastor or her place potentially. It's going to cause a lot of gossip and conversation. It's going to split potentially a community. It's going to cause people to leave this church because they don't like Pastor Ron Adams and him reading off of his cue cards.

So I think it does an effective job of that. even if it takes a little bit of invention to get there. And I think it does serve some of what you were talking about in terms of adapting this from source material of true crime reporting. Whereas you said, there's a lot of dialogue in those texts that is being adapted from recollections and memories of various people and cobbled together.

There is like a gossipy church quality to this kind of story, right? Or this kind of thing of like someone knows a bit of information that gets passed down the line. We get lots of scenes of people just like sharing secrets over the phone with one another. it does kind of feed into the overall vibe of what this community is like. And I think that that's such a good point.

And I think that, first of all, okay, wait, I do want to say that I had such a hard time being on Betty's team throughout all of her bitchiness. But the one moment where I was like, yes, was when she like so rudely cleared her throat in church when he was just like stuck in a loop. I was like, yeah, that was great. Good job, Betty. And I love that she's like, fuck you. I'm leaving this church. A line that I thought was really interesting from the article that comes really early in the article right at the top, it says the Methodist Church of Lucas was more than most places of worship

an institution controlled by women. And I thought that was really fascinating. It made me pause reading the article and scroll back up to see the gender of the person who wrote the article. I was curious in 1984, two men writing this article in 1984, them saying this is an institution control by women means something different than if like a woman wrote it. So I was just like curious about that. But I was like, do I feel like this show did a good job of helping me understand? I mean, the fact that the pastor was a woman.

And I saw her describe somewhere either by a reviewer or I don't know otherwise. Oh, no, in the book as like a feminist quote unquote pastor. And they do make a couple different comments about how theirs is a cool church. We don't want like a fusty, musty church. which ours is a cool church. We play volleyball. And so, I don't know. I was like, I'm not sure if the show was trying to engage in that by showing us that they had a female pastor, at least the beginning,

by showing all the other women who are involved in, like, organizational roles in the church, to understand this as like sort of a bastion of, like, feminine power in a community where or time when they wouldn't feel like they had it. I'm not sure it might roll out in the ensuing episodes in a way that I don't quite understand right now, but I just thought that was like, I don't know, it's an interesting piece of the puzzle that I don't think I have a full grasp on, you know? Absolutely, especially if we're talking about characters like Candy and all of the other wives and mothers of this community feeling like, where are we going to pour our time? Like, this is an area where they do have a considerable amount of influence and control. And I think the ways in which we do get it so far, and I agree with you, it's just not something that's been, terribly explored so far yet and maybe and hopefully it will be. But we do see it maybe in

Ron Adams kind of like escalating agitations, right? You can tell, you know, he came into this community also in over his head, also not knowing how to be a pastor in a community like this, not knowing how to retain parishioners and bring people in. And I think the escalation is like maybe a little strong for a character who's just kind of like flitting in and out of the frame. Like we see him messing up. We see people leaving the church and all of a sudden, I don't want to be in a room with this person. He's like uncomfortably angry and lashing out at people.

I don't know that we get the full walkup to that feeling, but if there is an explanation for it, I mean, maybe he feels boxed out by not having as much control in this community as he may be expected to. And again,

I think it's just like to show us what happens, like what can, I mean, it feels irresponsible to say like, oh, if this one pastor had stayed, this grizzly murder

wouldn't have happened. But, you know, how just pulling out a pillar like that can cause so much instability. You know, when Candy at the beginning, when she's talking to her pastor, she's like, you're my heart. You know, and they have these sort of like confessional conversations. And she talks to her a little bit about the affair, and she has like a different reaction than Christian Ritter's character does.

You know what I mean? So it's like, what are the influences here? What's showing us up? What's not? It's kind of interesting to me. Anything else you want to talk about? Any other wigs, accents? I mean, I do want to give a shout out to one montage sequence we got that I really enjoyed,

which is Candy has kind of broached the subject with Alan of whether he would like to have this affair. And they go through this extensive, like, planning sessions and brainstorming sequence where Alan has like a T-chart of why and why not to have an affair. Candy, Candy has like her elaborate, color-coded note card system that is incredible. I mean, incredible planner, nothing if not meticulous. You're right. Like maybe this would have been avoided if her pastor had just stayed, but maybe it could have been avoided if someone just like gave the woman a label maker and she would have been totally fine. But I love like those kinds of personality moments, right? We see Alan trying to sketch out like why he would do this.

And we can't see the full text, but I believe the one, two, three of why to have an affair is one sense of affirmation. I think that's what it says. Two, companionship, three, sex. You know, he's making a compelling case for himself, I guess. And this is a thread throughout the articles that I read was that like their affair was really more about their friendship and like they're like, you know, as you say probably the pictings spreads and the conversation and less about likes into letting sex for them. And the roller coasters, you know, that's important too. That was such an interesting sequence. I was actually, when I was watching that, I don't know if this flitted through your head, but I'm like, could I, I'm not, I'm not an actor, but let's say I were a good actor.

could I act as my character while also being thrown about on a roller coaster the way that they were. I thought they were doing a great job, but I was just sort of like, roller coaster acting, that's a different level. That's some serious acting under duress,

you know? This is why they pay them the big bucks. This is why Jesse Clemens are out here. It's true. Now, that said, their character's choices of like, we need to be so careful about this and then immediately going to a place

where lots of families and children are very visibly altogether. Maybe not the best choice. I had a lot of questions. It seemed like they spent like months planning this. And then they were like, let's go to the fair. And I was like, my shoulders were up in my ears because I was like, someone from the church community is going to be at the fair. Is this a weekday fair?

Is this a lunch hour fair? What is this happening? Very well populated for a weekday lunch. Do this happen? Anyway. So, all right. Well, I mean, I think we did it first three episodes. And there's just anything else you want to say?

No, no, this was a good run. I'm honestly curious to see where it goes. They have me on the hook in that way. And everything, you know, as we're saying, like some of the pacing will see how it irons out. But the character beats are there. The performances are there. Obviously, we know some of the broad strokes of what's about to happen. And I just want to see how they tell it, right? It's not so much about the crime, but how you unveil the story of this thing. Yeah. And my impression, I mean, I guess just based on the way that, like, candy unfroled or my understanding of that is that, like, you know, this is going to

turn into essentially a legal drama, which is David E. Kelly's origin story is bread and butter. So, like, you know, we'll see what happens there. And Tom Pelfrey's character, who we only get sort of like background, Tom Pelfrey, who was like just tremendous and everything that he does. It's like one of those, it's one of those casting situations where you're like, oh, that guy's going to be important. Like, you know, he's got to be. You don't put Tom Pelfry in there to stand in the background. So I'll have my eye on him. But my understanding is he's playing her lawyer. So like that's going to be, yeah, I'll be

interested to see the legal drama side of this story. We have an interview with the two creatives behind the show. Series writer, David E. Kelly, series director, Leslie Lincoln Glader. So let us go to our conversation with them. How?

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Zetbound contains terseptitide and should not be used with other terseptite-containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pins or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be,

or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsened kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbound.lily.com. Hello. Thanks so much for chatting. I really appreciate it. We're thrilled to be here. pleasure. I wanted to start, Leslie, I want to start with you to ask you what drew you to this project in the first place. What about this story? Yeah. Well, I was sent the two Texas Monthly articles and the book, Evidence of Love. I have wanted to work with this guy sitting next to me, David E. Kelly, for a thousand years or two thousand years. And somehow the universe kept us apart.

And David was also sent the same material. And I, I think we were both so pulled to the fact that real life is stranger than fiction. If these facts, if this story were not true, you really couldn't tell it. So we were pulled by that, but as always, it's characters that I'm always interested, complicated, layered, often female, but not always. I'm very interested in men too, taking a deep dive into characters that behave in a way you couldn't quite expect. Were you sent the source material at the same time, who came onto the project first?

I think it was kind of the same time. Of course, I was told that I was the only one getting them, and Leslie was told she was the only one getting them, because agencies and lawyers work by a certain code in our industry, but we were reading them, I think, contemporaneously, and we both reacted the same way. And I think Leslie said character, it's true for me too. Neither of us are true crime lovers. And I think we were thrilled to hear the other wasn't drawn to the project with the true crime aspect, but more for the character work. So, you know, as credited, it's all written by David, directed by Leslie.

But given that you were sent these materials around the same time, how blurred is the line between those two jobs on this particular project? How collaborative was it for both of you from the start? It's pretty collaborative. The written by was based on a book. So a lot of that work was already prehatched as it came to me. In terms of building the world, that fell to Leslie. She grew up in Texas, so it came kind of, it was her natural turf. And she's also a lot older than me. So she grew up. Yes. I'm kidding. So much older. But it was very collaborative. I mean, right from the The pages went back and forth, and I think this, I don't think that, but what was true from beginning to end, we were talking about the same pages. We were on the same wavelength,

and we wanted to tell the same story. So it was a pretty joyous and seamless experience. And then bringing Lizzie in the same. I mean, she got this character right from the onset. We had an original Zoom with her. I actually personally thought it was a bit of a nosebleed reach. We would never get her because she was in the Marvel world. I knew she was perfect for the part, but good luck to us. But she read it, and I think she was drawn to Candy as the two of us, and off we went. And I have to say, you know, we're in a team sport, and you're only as good as your team. And I felt like I had the most perfect partner.

And in terms of our cast as well, to go on this roller coaster ride of a journey with. And to me, this is the kind of collaboration one wants to have with your partner, with your writer. And we were pushing each other to be better and we were very much on the same page throughout. And that was wonderful. I'm spoiled forever. Yeah, that never happens. So congratulations for that. I wanted to follow up on that concept of Lizzie Olson as like a very collaborative performer,

which I know from having talked to her in the past, that she loves to have. tremendous amount of input on building a character. Leslie, I was wondering if you could speak sort of specifically to some of the very specific input she might have had what she wanted to accomplish with Candy. You know, again, we met her together on a Zoom because we were still in the COVID world. And she also responded to the complications of this character. And I think she wanted to go and do a deep dive into the psychology of, you know, on the surface of, you know, on the surface, a woman who has the perfect life. 1978, you know, she did it all right.

She got married at 20. These were young people. They were married young. They had kids young. They had a community of friends and tight-knit, very bucolic on the surface. But Candy had a deep hole inside of her in her psyche, in her heart, in her soul, that she didn't have any way to fulfill. And I think Lizzie wanted to go to that place to look at that, you know, and was fearless in doing that.

And I think, you know, really wanted to protect the character. And she is such a gifted actress that she allows you to kind of go deep inside of her and, you know, through her eyes to show us something about the human condition. And as a director, I want to create a safe environment for her to be able to do that for all the actors. I mean, our whole cast are superstars. They're all amazing. And just to say, we started off, and this was very conscious, the first scenes we shot were all about the community. It was all the picnic at the church, the singing at the church. It was all about family and community.

because for me it was important that that came through, not in a false way, but in a real way, that the actors connected and the characters connected. I wanted to ask you a little bit about that in terms of in this era of bespoke prestige television when you can expand or contract your episode count, depending on what you think the story is, I was curious maybe to ask you, David, when you decide to introduce, the end death to this story. How do you decide the pacing of it? When does something feel like an eight episode or a 10 episode or a five episode season? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's very inexact. And sometimes it's a clear call. Other times not. I try to let the story be the boss

and let it talk to me where it wants to live. If you feel like it's nice to work with a network and I've done so with HBO in the past because I've had eight episode orders and back, you know, it feels like we're stretching it a little bit. It feels like the finale will be more powerful. We combine this and they've always been flexible in that regard, tell your best story and present in its best format. Other times it's you are, the business tale does wag the creative dog. They're paying for X amount of episodes and they want X. This case, the marching orders for all of us is where does the story want to live and breathe and realize it's best to create a potential and just pay attention to it.

And along that line, I mean, one of the things for me as a director was that tonally, the story shifts quite drastically in episode four and the challenges of that. And then in another way, it becomes like a courtroom drama. You know, at the end, that was both terrifying to me, exciting, challenging, and, you know, something I hadn't done before, but was so game to jump in and deal with that challenge. And how nice that David knows one or two things about a courtroom drama, you know what I mean? Just a few. He's done it a few times, yeah. I would like him to defend me if something happens. Oh, interesting. But I couldn't have made this up. I couldn't have made Including the idea that it was the local church council that goes on to be the lawyer in this high-profile criminal trial, never having done any criminal cases before.

And he turns out to be a star athlete in the forum. That's one of those casting spoilers, like, because I love Tom and I love Tom's work. And when I saw him there, I was like, oh, you're coming back. You're going to be important. You know what I mean? I know. I wanted to ask you, Leslie, then, on the sort of Texas local front, having this local knowledge, I did read the Texas Monthly articles and a bit of the book that you adapted. And I was just curious, I learned so much about the particulars of these communities as sort of like communer Silicon Prairie communities and how what a distinctive sort of setup this is for how close-knit this community is.

and then how these sort of quiet acts of desperation can sort of bubble up in something like this. So I was curious as a, what were some of the local Texas flavors that you wanted to make sure you specifically included? What are you most proud of the details that are in there? What do you think? How about the COVID protocol? Keep one cow apart. Oh, yes. Oh, my goodness.

We scouted a school that Betty was teaching at. And in the hallway, there was the COVID protocols, which was a cow. You have to keep one cow length apart. Wow. Which I did take a photo of and immediately, of course, texted it to David. You know, I was born and raised in Texas from a labor organizer father. He was organizing. He's from Chicago from the International Ladies Garment Union.

My mom danced with Martha Graham and Hanya Home and Alan Nikolai. So I was a dancer before being a director. So we were a bit of unusual folk in Dallas, Texas at the time. But what I loved about Texas was it was this incredible land, big possibilities, big dreams, big sky. And, you know, you're told over and over, Texas is the only state that was its own country. That was a republic. And this is part and parcel of Texas. And I had never done anything set in Texas.

Ironically, this is this true story, which has this horrible crime at the center of it. But there are so many things I loved about Texas. And I wanted to present that part of it as well. You know, the part that is about family and community and beauty and something that is bucolic. but yes, there is a crack in the china. There is paint peeling on the picket fence. You know, it is not one color. And I hope we got both sides of that in the storytelling.

Carrie is also something that I struck me, particularly as I was reading the articles in the book, they're tremendously well research. They did so many interviews. But of course, you know, by dint of circumstance, we don't get Betty's point of view in all of this, right? have to take Candy's word for certain things, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm wondering in terms of point of view, and maybe specifically in terms of Betty's point

of view, how do you tackle that as you try to adapt the source material like this? Yeah, that's a good question, and that you're right. We did not have Betty's point of view, and we had to be sensitive to that. And I think that the series is clear about we're presenting Candy's version of events, or at least our memory in the final episode. We did have a valuable consultant, Robert Udashian, who was the Don's co-counsel on the trial. He was at our side for the filming. And there many times I would kind of reach this.

So what really happened, do you think? What was going on? And the truth is, nobody knows the answer because no one got to talk to Betty. his version of the answer was pretty much how we depicted it in the finale episode. It's Candy's memory of the event. They did tumble to the conclusion that obviously everyone knows that she committed the act. What precipitated the act, they firmly believed that she did not go over to the Gorehouse to kill Betty. She went over there to pick up a swimsuit.

They staunchly and believed that. and Robert continues to believe something happened in that laundry room that caused a snap and in a dissociative event where something else transpired. But again, we're limited to forensics, we're limited to Candy's memory through Faison's teasing out that memory and hypnosis. And that question still hangs at the end of the series. We can't know for sure. And I have to say one of my favorite films, I lived in Japan for.

five years back when I was a modern dancer and choreographer and one of my favorite films is Roshamon, where it is about a murder, and you get to see six versions of that murder, and at the end, you get to hear the ghost of the woman who was murdered, explaining what happened. Unfortunately, we don't have that, yeah. And, but I, I fell in love with Betty as a character, and I think Lily Ray was an incredible actor. And she is a very, very, complicated person. And I hope that that comes through as well. But as far as the murder itself, we will never know. Because there's only one person who got out of that laundry room alive. And, you know, filming those scenes in the laundry room were harrowing, you know, and very emotional.

David called me literally every night and the actors saying, are you okay? Because we kind of weren't. you know, it was not like doing a normal action scene. Like, I've blown up a lot of shit. I've killed people in horrible ways in my career. But this was true. This was two women. This was up close and personal. And to lift an axe, I could barely lift the real axe.

So something had to have happened in there. Something had to have cracked open for that to happen. To swing that many times. I think I have time for one more question for you, which is an odd one to end on, but it's really compelling to me. This other plot line of the changing of the guard of pastors at their church, right? You cast the great Elizabeth Marvel as this pastor who's leaving and you've got someone new coming in. And I was wondering how you see that changing of the guard at this pillar of the community as connected to the murder case. That's a great question.

Yeah, I didn't see that as a precipitore in any way, but there's no question that it nicked Betty. And Betty's mood swings and her, the erratic nature and even her, you know, her tolerance for accepting other people was tested by this new pastor really offended her on some kind of primal level that no one could quite figure out. And again, at that time in that era, you said people were moody. I mean, we, we probably tumbled, today she probably would be diagnosed with some kind of bipolarity.

Do we know for sure? No. But that's what it felt like to us. I think there was a sense of community that was maybe sort of tipped a little bit because Jackie was a very strong passer and the center of that communal hub. And when she left, I think it caused people to wobble a little bit. For me, it always felt like that wobble was found in Betty more than candy. But it's quite possible that, you know, that that that center lynchpin was sort of pushed or caused a shift for for her as well.

Yeah, but you listening, any thoughts on that? Yeah, I agree with that. I also think that emotionally, Candie's emotional connection. with Pastor Jackie was profound. And, you know, the description of being backdoor friends. Like, this is the person she most trusted. So I feel like that part of her was taken away. And I think maybe Jackie would have talked her out of actually having this affair.

You know, maybe there would have been some. The hole that Candy felt was compounded by Jackie Leap, which maybe propelled her into the affair more. Yeah. You've asked a very good question. Yeah, we're discussing it right now. Season two. Jackie said of the story.

Yeah. This never happened. I didn't mean to cut you off. No, but that was exactly right. I mean, I just thought of it right now with listening to what you said is that, yeah, there was, I think she was the linchpin that held the community together. She was solid where everyone else might have been a little fluid there. She was kind of, and her leaving, I think, left candy in a dangerous place.

You know, and again, the circumstances of the affair, a lot of it is funny. It was all based on truth, on the fact that they discussed it for months. Yeah. And yeah, that's a good question. I hadn't quite thought about it that way. Well, you know, in everybody's life, one thing leads to another. And that was one little thing. How much it occasioned candy to go on tilt?

I don't know. It clearly caused Betty. Oh, yes. Yeah. Interesting. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. Thanks so much.

It was great talking to you. That is it for this episode of the PrestiGTV podcast. I don't know when Rob and I would back together again, but I promise there will be a poetry corner when we return to Presti's TV feed. Check out Succession. Check out Barry. All of that's happening in the feed. This episode was produced by Sasha Ashall, which means this is an indebted.

entire Bay Area ringer podcast, which never happens, to shout out our barrier ringer contingent for putting this whole thing together. And we will see you next time. Bye.