‘Love & Death’ Stars Patrick Fugit and Tom Pelphrey on Standing by Candy

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Love & Death Season 1 Episode 5 “The Arrest.”]

The walls are closing in on Candy Montgomery (Elizabeth Olsen) in the latest episode of Love & Death: The Texas housewife was arrested for the murder of Betty Gore (Lily Rabe).

Maintaining her innocence at first, the installment saw Candy finally confess to her lawyer, friend, and fellow church-goer Don Crowder (Tom Pelphrey) that she killed Betty after she was attacked by her. Eager to learn more about the situation unfolding, Candy’s husband Pat (Patrick Fugit) also seeks answers and is finally looped into the truth by the episode’s end, when Don calls the Montgomery family’s house and explains the situation to him.

Mildly pathetic in his onscreen depiction, Fugit acknowledges Pat’s shortcomings as a husband, which ultimately led to Candy’s affair with Alan Gore (Jesse Plemons), saying, “he is absent as a partner in several ways. He’s also absent from himself, as is Candy.” And in that pathetic state, Pat stands by Candy, even after she tells him about the affair.

(Credit: HBO Max)

“He has enough character to take accountability after he finds out about the affair and to remain supportive and loyal through the whole trial process,” Fugit teases, hinting that his character remains by Candy’s side through the oncoming legal storm before adding, “he redeems himself a bit with the self-accountability, but they’re not necessarily a partnership.”

“They’re this outwardly very appealing couple. They match each other in the ways you would think count. They have fun together, they have a good rapport, but they lack the substance of the relationship that would sustain them through any of these types of events.” Whether they’ll manage through the next episode will remain to be seen, but Don Crowder’s on the case when it comes to Candy’s upcoming trial.

When it comes to taking Candy’s confession in stride, Pelphrey says of his character, “he took his responsibility to his clients very seriously.” The actor did his own research on the real-life figure and, “once a lawyer chooses to accept a client, it’s their responsibility to represent that client as well as they possibly can,” he explains. “And when you take the question of Betty’s murder into a courtroom, the thing that we’re talking about is reasonable doubt… I think Don thought that there was a reasonable doubt, at least to the nature of how exactly Betty Gore was killed.”

With Candy’s situation unfolding in real time in this episode, Pelphrey shares, “I think Don took his responsibility to Candy as a client very seriously. It seems like Don did that with everything in his life. If he took on a responsibility, he took it very seriously and he was definitely a guy who played the win.”

For those familiar with the outcome of this case based on the real-life murder, the trial may not surprise, but Don and Pat’s unyielding support to Candy in this circumstance is something to marvel. Don’t miss the pivotal finale when Love & Death‘s sixth episode drops Thursday, May 18 on Max.

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