Elizabeth Olsen has a huge army of admirers, mostly from her time playing Wanda Maximoff in the MCU, but those looking for something a little more mature will probably find everything they could want in the 2023 limited series, Love & Death. Based on true events, Olsen’s turn as a psychopathic churchgoer was originally a hit on HBO, but is now finding new success on 
Netflix – something that could become the norm if Netflix’s purchase of Warner Bros. completes in the coming years.
Love & Death is written by TV veteran David E. Kelley, and starred Olsen alongside Jesse Plemons, Lily Rabe, Patrick Fugit, Krysten Ritter, Tom Pelphrey, Elizabeth Marvel, and Keir Gilchrist. The series sees Olsen playing Candy Montgomery, a seemingly stereotypical housewife in 1970s Texas, but when she begins an affair with Allan Gore, it all ends in someone picking up an axe.
The series was a much more adult outing for Olsen than her PG-13 appearances as Marvel’s powerful witch, but the actress managed to bewitch many viewers with a performance that saved the miniseries and makes it a worthwhile and easily bingeable watch. Although critics were divided on the show, giving it a 63% score on Rotten Tomatoes, the 88% rating from audiences told a very different story.
“Elizabeth Olsen is phenomenal,” one audience review reads, and many were inclined to agree. Another said the series is “absolutely captivating” and could not understand why critical reviews were so mixed. However, one thing that perhaps did skew the reviews was the fact that the same story was the basis for the 2022 Hulu series, Candy, which starred Jessical Biel. That series scored higher with critics, but Biel just couldn’t speak to audiences in the way Olsen can.
Elisabeth Olsen Could Soon Be Back in the MCU
Regardless of whatever else she does, Elizabeth Olsen is not going to be able to shake off her MCU persona of Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch. Despite many fans being disappointed with her “demise” in Doctor Stranger in the Multiverse of Madness, the idea that her final moments in that movie were the last we would see of Wanda is a little hard to swallow.
With the Marvel multiverse set to come to an end over the next couple of years, the question that comes up in almost every interview the actress does is whether she will be returning for either upcoming Avengers movie. Earlier this year, Olsen shared her thoughts on a possible return to the role of Wanda, saying:
“It’s really unusual. It’s something that’s been incredible. I assume it’s how people feel when they get to do a TV show for a long time. To be able to return to a character and continue to move them forward has been so much for me, especially because they gave me something like WandaVision to really blow it all up. And from there, Doctor Strange was such a wild and crazy turn. I do feel very lucky that I’ve been able to play a character for over 10 years of my life, and I’d love to keep doing more.”
There have been several rumors of Wanda playing a part in at least one of the upcoming Avengers movies, and potentially in the X-Men saga that follows. Many fans would love to see Olsen get to play out a House of M storyline, in which Wanda, the child of Magneto, is responsible for decimating the mutant population of the Marvel universe. Whether this happens or not, it is almost certain that the MCU is not done with Wanda Maximoff just yet.