Hulu’s Candy has found its murder victim. Deadline reports that Melanie Lynskey has joined the true-crime limited series as Betty Gore, the housewife who was the victim of a brutal ax murder by her friend and fellow churchgoer, Candy Montgomery. Lynskey joins the cast just after Jessica Biel, who was announced as replacing Elisabeth Moss in the series’ title role.

While no other players have been cast in the Texas murder drama, Lynskey now cinches a critical role in the true-crime series, as the housewife caught in the middle of an affair between her husband, Allan, and Candy Montgomery. Though it is unclear how much audiences will actually see of Lynskey on screen, they can be certain of one thing: that they will be witness to Gore’s unfortunate demise on Friday the 13th, June 1980.

Candy recently received a full series order at Hulu, with Moss dropping out due to scheduling conflicts. The project landed at the streamer in 2020, co-created by Robin Veith — who also wrote the pilot — and Nick Antosca. Both Veith and Antosca serve as executive producers on the show, with Michael Uppendahl serving as director for the pilot — though the series will have some serious competition, with HBO Max adapting their own version of Candy Montgomery’s story, Love and Death, starring Elizabeth Olsen, Lily Rabe, Jesse Plemons, and Krysten Ritter.

Lynskey couples her role in Candy with a starring role in the upcoming series Yellowjackets for Showtime, also starring Christina Ricci, Sophie Thatcher, and Juliette Lewis. This is not her first time working with Hulu either, having starred in ten episodes of their Stephen King-inspired thriller series, Castle Rock, in 2018.

Michelle Purple is set to executive produce Candy alongside Biel through Iron Ocean, along with Universal Content Productions, 20th Television, and Alex Hedlund, with Jim Atkinson and John Bloom serving as consulting producers. No production or release dates have been announced.

via Collider