Krysten Ritter is heading to the Texas suburbs for HBO Max's Love And Death

Krysten Ritter joins HBO Max’s Love And Death alongside Elizabeth Olsen, Jesse Plemons, Patrick Fugit, and Lily Rabe. The David E. Kelley helmed limited series chronicles the true story of the 1980 murder of Betty Gore by her friend and Texas housewife, Candy Montgomery. Ritter will play Sherry Cleckler, Candy’s best friend and confidant. Everyone but Dallas native Plemons better work on their small town Texas accents.

Love And Death focuses on the two churchgoing couples in the sleepy Dallas suburb of “Wide-Awake Wylie,” Texas: Allan & Betty Gore and Pat & Candy Montgomery. We already know Rabe plays the woman on the receiving end of Candy’s axe, and Olsen wields the murder weapon. Plemons is set to play Allan Gore (who has an affair with Candy), and Fugit will star as Candy’s doting husband. The show is inspired by the book Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs and a collection of articles from Texas Monthly (Love And Death In Silicon Prairie, Part I & II). The story was previously the subject of the Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning TV movie A Killing In A Small Town (1990), starring Barbara Hershey and Brian Dennehy.

Love And Death’s cast also includes: Keir Gilchrist (Atypical) as Pastor Ron Adams, Elizabeth Marvel (House Of Cards) as Pastor Jackie Ponder, and Tom Pelphrey (Ozark) as Don Crowder.

Kelly (Nine Perfect Strangers, Big Little Lies, The Undoing) created the series, with Lesli Linka Glatter (Homeland) attached as director. Nicole Kidman—who starred in Nine Perfect Strangers, Big Little Lies, and The Undoing–has signed on as executive producer. Scott Brown and Megan Creydt of Texas Monthly are set as executive producers as well.

Ritter currently stars in the Netflix film Nightbooks (which arrived on the streamer today), based on the J.A. White horror-fantasy children’s book. Up next, she will direct four episodes of the supernatural drama The Girl in the Woods for Peacock.