SMOKE Review: Burning Down the House

As if one serial arsonist weren't bad enough, now there are two.

Smoke
The first two episodes premiere globally Friday, June 27, exclusively on Apple TV+. New episodes debut every Friday. I've seen all nine episodes.

Smoke billows up, revealing a raging inferno beneath.

Directed by Kari Skogland, who has many high-quality television shows to her credit, the first episode of Smoke quickly establishes the often scary and sometimes truly frightening atmosphere in which firefighters must survive in order to do their job.

Suspicious fires require a different sort of bravery, as evidenced by the confident swagger of arson investigator Dave Gudsen (Taron Egerton). Accustomed to working by himself since the departure of a former partner, Gudsen is none too happy to see that Detective Michell Calderon (Jurnee Smollett) has been assigned from the police department to assist Gudsen in his investigation of two serial arsonists.

The serial arsonists share a ready willingness to let people burn while they are satisfied only by watching people (and things) burn. Gudsen's boss, Harvey Englehart (Greg Kinnear), counts Gudsen as a longtime friend, and so he shares Gudsen's disinterest in having the police department breathing down their necks.

What all three share is, not only heightened professional pressure to find the serial arsonists, but dark secrets from the past that exert even more stress upon their persons. Gudsen's current wife, Ashley (Hannah Emily Anderson), has a teenage son who lives with them, while having no respect for Gudsen, which heightens developing tension between the couple due to their professional responsibilities.

Calderon is a survivor of a personal relationship that threatened to turn toxic, as well as profoundly disturbing experiences with her incarcerated mother that stand in marked contrast to the more forgiving perspective of her siblings. And Englehart, divorced, just wants to maintain his civil relationship with his adult daughter.

Created by Dennis Lehane, a superb mystery novelist and television scripter, who previously created the Apple TV+ series Black Bird, starring Taron Egerton and Greg Kinnear, the new series is inspired by Firebug, a podcast created by Kary Antholist, which told the true story of an arsonist in Los Angeles during the 1980s and 90s who was also tied to the writing of a novel about an arson investigator. In Smoke, Lehane takes that idea and moves it to an anonymous big city, teaming up an arson investigator with a police detective, and adding more tension by having two somewhat different serial arsonists.

With two arsonists, we can more easily see the psychology that drives each to commit crimes and why it's expressed by the destructive nature of fire. Through the scripts of Lehane and his fellow writers, we dig beneath the surface of each arsonist.

One appears to follow conventional depictions: a highly-disturbed individual whose appearance belies their deadly intent and twisted reasoning. This arsonist is someone to be pitied for their past suffering, while also being feared because we see what they are capable of.

The other arsonist is less easy to decipher: charming and very cool to a certain extent, yet that's only on the surface. Beneath that deceptive exterior is a monster who is biding its time before inflicting maximum possible damage, and even death, to others.

Between the two investigations, it's a slow, deliberate process, but is instantly compelling to watch because of Lehane's words and plotting, combined with Skogland's visual poetry, which showcases the setting of fires, the burning of fires, and the step by step process involved to solve the crimes committed. Egerton and Smollett are superb in their roles, with Kinnear providing a stabilizing force, as far as he can.

The series does not stint on graphic depictions of burnt bodies. Throughout the series, the narrative dips and curves and twists back on itself, so that it's not as easy to figure out as might seem. More than a fire story, this is a police story, so the series is built on the premise of finding some sort of solution, some kind of justice, and some kind of peace, if not to gain understanding, then to stop the fires and stop the killing.

Peace is elusive, however, and finding the evidence becomes a devil of a problem when fire reduces everything to ashes. Smoke muscles through all potential problems, shoving aside logic in favor of narrative satisfaction. And in that, it succeeds completely.

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