Love & Death is a true-crime drama miniseries from HBO Max, based on the real case of Candy Montgomery, a Texas housewife accused of murdering her friend Betty Gore in 1980. Elizabeth Olsen plays Candy, whose seemingly quiet suburban life unravels after she begins an extramarital affair with Allan Gore (played by Jesse Plemons). The series portrays their sexual relationship as central to the chain of events that leads to the crime.
The sex scenes between Olsen and Plemons are not presented as glamorized romance but rather as deliberate, sometimes awkward, encounters between two ordinary people searching for something missing in their marriages. These moments highlight Candy’s emotional dissatisfaction, Allan’s passivity, and the calculated way the affair begins — they even schedule their first tryst over lunch at a cafeteria.
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Filming Approach & Performance
Elizabeth Olsen explained in interviews that the sex scenes were choreographed carefully and filmed with the help of an intimacy coordinator, which allowed the actors to focus on emotional truth rather than physical discomfort. She stressed that the goal was to portray mundane realism — two people having an affair in a small Texas town, not Hollywood-style eroticism. Jesse Plemons also said that their scenes emphasized “awkward humanity,” reinforcing the idea that Candy and Allan were not glamorous lovers but flawed, vulnerable individuals.
Critical & Audience Response
Critics noted that the sex scenes stood out because of their realistic, unpolished quality. Outlets like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter remarked that instead of being titillating, the intimacy underscored the characters’ boredom and longing, adding to the bleak domestic atmosphere of the series. Some viewers even commented on how intentionally unsexy the sex looked, which made the drama feel more grounded. Olsen’s performance in these scenes was praised for her commitment — she leaned into the emotional discomfort and complexity rather than softening it for audience appeal.
✅ In summary: Elizabeth Olsen’s sex scenes in Love & Death (2023) are important not for explicitness but for their narrative purpose: to reveal Candy’s dissatisfaction, the banality of her affair, and the ordinariness of the choices that eventually led to tragedy. They were filmed with care, approached professionally, and received as one of the series’ most striking examples of how intimacy can serve storytelling rather than spectacle.