The first few minutes made me roll my eyes. But it soon develops into an empathetic, yet frightening, unsettling experience.
Furious
The first three episodes are now streaming on Hulu. Subsequent episodes will debut weekly, every Monday. I've seen the first three episodes of the eight-episode show.
Inspired by Black Widow (1987), written by Ronald Bass and directed by Bob Rafelson, Furious establishes its serial killer in its first minutes.
Frankly, the actions of Catherine (Lola Petticrew) as she coyly offers a Halloween treat to a kid outside a Broolyn brownstone, where inside a drugged man drags his body around the house, felt entirely inauthentic, intentionally setting up a situation where the show's antagonist would smilingly dispatch of helpless victims.
Au contraire.
Created by Elizabeth Meriwether (the excellent bio-series The Dropout, plus the more recent Dying for Sex), the first episode, written by Meriwether and directed by Brian Kirk, sets up a conventional narrative, in which a murder is tied by a dogged detective to a previous murder and thus shown to be the pattern of a serial killer, and then promptly turns it upside down.
FBI Agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) is a first-year station agent, which means she answers the general telephone number for the FBI and logs the calls. She is not your typical FBI rookie, since she spent some years as a NYC Police Department detective before quitting that job and beginning her career again at the FBI.
Still, her experience as a detective has had a formative impact upon her investigative instincts. Her friend and former co-worker/detective (Scott McNairy) asks for her help when the opening murder is discovered, and the plot is set in motion, leading to Alice seeking help from a weary head of a unit that investigates crimes against abused women and minors (Quincy Tyler Bernstine).
The performances are top-notch, and the case becomes more gripping as it goes, leading to more revelations about Alice, why she quit the NYC Police Department, and her past relationship with another NYC detective (Jake Lacy), as well as much more about Catherine and her motivations for what she is doing.
I've only seen the first three of eight episodes, but it is developing into something quite remarkable. Episode 3 concludes on jangling notes that shook me.
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