The elevator pitch for Hulu’s Furious may not seem like the most original premise to fans of Killing Eve, but it’s certainly a good hook. A female FBI agent hunts a female serial killer who is periodically knocking off wealthy men in staged drug overdoses. It’s a classic cat-and-mouse game, right? Well, the new TV show certainly is that, but it’s also so much more.
Created by Elizabeth Meriwether – who is the mind behind New Girl and Hulu’s Dying for Sex – the series is loosely based on the 1987 movie Black Widow (not to be confused with the MCU character). It centers around Alice Black, an FBI rookie who is drawn into a case unravelling a series of mysterious deaths by her former NYPD colleague. It’s told through dual perspectives as we meet the woman responsible, an unassuming figure named Catherine Grace who hunts her victims while dealing with an extremely traumatic past as a former sex worker and trafficking victim.
As with any good crime thriller, it’s full of twists and turns. As Alice edges closer to her subject, curveballs come her way in the form of federal red tape, inept male colleagues, and a complicated past of her own. Yet, what elevates the show beyond a run-of-the-mill noir is how much it subverts the expectations of its genre into something feminist, funny, and entirely unique.
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Not your usual noir
I could probably count the number of female serial killer dramas I’ve watched on one hand. More often than not, it’s a male protagonist doing the evil, and more often than not, it’s women that they’re doing the evil to. By switching up this usual dynamic, Furious features a refreshing absence of mutilated female bodies, but it’s no less dark in its subject matter.
Dealing with sexual abuse, murder, and domestic violence, the show deftly balances the line of feeling extremely contemporary by mirroring many real-life cases and also treading the balance of fiction. Such a tonal tightrope is held together by its two female leads. Emmy Rossum, the more recognisable of the two thanks to her role in Shameless, is absolutely brilliant as Alice. Meriwether has written her as a complicated, damaged and morally grey character, and Rossum runs with it, able to be deeply unlikeable as well as the audience’s champion.
No less brilliant is her co-star Lola Petticrew as Catherine, a serial killer hell-bent on revenge. As she switches from a wide-eyed innocent to a ruthless murderer from one scene to the next, she’s extremely compelling to watch. The pair are held up by an impressive supporting cast, including The White Lotus’ Jake Lacy playing another easy-to-hate privileged man, and Argo’s Scoot McNairy is a well-meaning NYPD cop.
But no one in this show is putting in the level of performance that comes from Quincy Tyler Bernstine’s Nora Washington. As the battle-hardened head of the FBI’s sex crime unit, she’s both terrifying and absolutely hilarious, oscillating between taking on her superiors and donning a Hawaiian shirt to sing dreadful karaoke. And it’s through her that the series is able to carve its own space.
As she delivers lines with a cadence to make you chortle out loud, while also delving into physical comedy as she takes her time to report something to her superior, it’s clear that Furious isn’t only one of the year’s darkest shows so far, it’s also one of the funniest.
Steve Way’s Alden, introduced later in the series, is equally brilliant at bringing dark humor to the harrowing story. He is particularly side-splitting when riffing off McNairy’s Danny and his law enforcement colleagues in episode six. Such a deft navigation of tone allows Furious to stand out amidst a sea of crime dramas and is enough to make it well worth your time.
Hell hath no fury
For me, too, as the series has gone on, its brilliance has only become clearer as its title truly comes into its own. Furious is about female anger, but not in a way I’ve ever seen portrayed before. Gone are the tropes that usually accompany this topic; there’s not much hysterical screaming, nor do we have dialogue filled with catty comments.
Instead, the fury is much more insidious, deeply baked into a set of characters who are hollowed out by the terrible things that have happened to them and a society that more often than not manages to bury them. Furious does have angry protagonists, but it will also make you angry too as you watch it, drawing inevitable real-life parallels to cases that usually don’t result in justice.
There’s only one episode left of the show to arrive on Hulu, and it will hopefully tie up where all this leads for Alice and Catherine. Though a second season has now been confirmed, we don’t yet know which characters will return. However it ends, Merriwether hasn’t created a show that relies on its conclusion to live or die. It’s already said so much.
And while it’s early in the year to pick out a TV show of the year, I feel sure that Furious will be up there for me. Don’t let this hidden gem slip under your radar.
Furious episodes 1-7 are available to stream on Hulu and Disney+ now. The season finale is available on Monday, August 31.
For what else to watch, check out our guides to the best Disney Plus shows and the best Disney Plus movies.
