An extramarital affair between two members of the church choir in a cozy, gossipy Christian community, what could possibly go wrong? Like Candy (still streamable on Hulu), Love & Death (HBO Max) is a flossy miniseries based on the 1980 case of the Texas suburban housewife Candy Montgomery, accused of going Lizzie Borden on her friend Betty Gore, with whose husband Candy had been doing the horizontal bump. Despite its uninspired title and overuse of pop hits from the disco era as mood additives, Love & Death deftly sinks its hooks in with a cast that won’t be denied: Elizabeth Olsen, whose wide-eyed wonderment as Candy discloses a maniacal gleam; Lily Rabe as hyper-vigilant Betty, who gets scarier the more softly she speaks; Krysten Ritter, rocking a red country-and-western singer wig; and Jesse Plemons as Allan Gore, Betty’s husband and Candy’s matinee partner at the motel, a man so polite and reserved he barely seems animate. All of the men in this Texas community seem slightly unplugged, slowly losing juice … no wonder the women are getting antsy. —James Wolcott