The distinction that Furious has isn’t that it's from a female perspective, but that it comes in the post-truth era. If there was some trepidation about the introduction of female mass murderers in the immediate aftermath of #MeToo, then Furious has the befitting cynicism of the Epstein era.
Furious has a talented showrunner behind it in Elizabeth Meriwether, who’s nonetheless a strange choice for a true crime show; her past credits include the sitcom New Girl, the Elizabeth Holmes mini-series The Dropout, and last year’s Dying for Sex. Each of Meriwether’s works has subverted a broad feminine archetype without too much moral finger-wagging. New Girl offered a zany version of the “girl next door” caricature, The Dropout examined a fraudulent entrepreneur masked under the “girl boss” prototype, and Dying for Sex focused on the messy reality of sexuality and mortality. The biggest barrier for Furious is that it must work harder to develop any new takeaways about the institutional gaps in the justice system that account for serial killers that slip through the cracks. Even at its most gripping, it’s familiar territory.
Furious is co-produced by Emmy Rossum, who also has the lead role of FBI agent and former NYPD detective Alice Black. Alice left the police force after word broke out about her relationship with fellow detective and ex-boyfriend Marshall (Jake Lacy), who physically abused her. It’s after the discovery that several powerful men have died under mysterious circumstances that Alice’s suspicions are raised to the presence of the killer Catherine (Lola Petticrew), whose story is told in parallel. Alice’s investigation is credible enough that both the NYPD and FBI are involved, meaning that she’s paired with her former partner Danny (Scoot McNairy), the FBI sex crime specialist Nora (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), and Marshall.
Furious is among the few prestige shows to air on Hulu, but not on the FX linear channel, and it’s a significant enough distinction to make the show a tweener; the ideas and commentary about institutionalized misogyny are thoughtful, but the aesthetics are more banal than anything aired in the last 15 years by FX, including Meriwether’s previous work. That Furious has the visual atmosphere of a procedural makes a few of Catherine’s most gruesome kills more shocking, but Petticrew’s performance is filled with too many subtleties for the format to be comprehensive. The most riveting moments in the first three episodes are the foreboding interactions between Meriwether and her victims because they isolate the acting and Meriwether’s dialogue.
Furious is more authentic and well-researched than a network procedural, a fact evident by the distinctions between federal and regional authority alone. Yet, there are instances in which Meriwether’s points about female suppression are belabored; Alice has to be ignored or disrespected by multiple co-workers to show that she’s fighting twice as hard to be taken seriously. The most eyeroll-inducing instance is the opening shot of the pilot, in which Alice’s sharp, concise responses to FBI callers (many of whom are spam) are compared to the abrasive, condescending dialogue from her male colleagues. Rossum’s performance is stuck in a state of shell-shocked disillusionment that’s meant to reflect PTSD, but is so overacted that it’s reminiscent of Claire Danes’ portrayal of the bi-polar CIA operative Carrie Mathison on Homeland. It’s become common for female spies and detectives to be depicted as cold and cynical in order to indicate their toughness, but it’s disappointing that someone of Meriwether’s credentials would fall prey to these cliches.
Rossum’s miscast, and it's striking to see how much more compelling Bernstine’s performance is in comparison, even if she’s saddled with much worse dialogue. Nora’s role as the character of unencumbered chivalry does mean that she speaks in truisms, but Bernstein’s identification of bottled-up rage, sparked by prolonged injustice, is what Furious’ title is in reference to. It doesn’t take long to recognize that Catherine is just as much an avenger as she is a psychopath, and that a sex-trafficking ring is the shared connection of her victims. This is where Furious is most engaging because it’s enriched with cruel irony. It’s a race against time to stop a killer who’s more sympathetic than her targets, and part of Alice is jealous that Catherine has fueled her rage into a succinct goal.
The construction of Furious involves a fair amount of exchanges that beat around the bush until a supposedly riveting one-liner is dropped. The structure is alienating when there’s clear anticipation for the thematic subtext to be spelled out, but an awkward sexual proposition from the skeevy lawyer Oliver Charles (Rob Delaney) to Catherine, a tough conversation between Alice and Charles’ daughter Mira (Riley Vinson), and a sympathetic turn from Danny are effective to varying degrees. The most nuanced moment of the first three episodes is the double-subversive use of Lacy, an actor who’s become television’s top choice to play unlikable, misogynistic jerks. To cast Lacy as an abusive ex-boyfriend and right-wing investigator is such an obvious casting choice that his brief expression of regret and maturity is surprising, and the subsequent reveal of deeper manipulation is twice as painful.
Furious has yet to be renewed for a Season 2, and it hopefully will stay a limited series. It would be a shame to see the cat-and-mouse game between Catherine and Alice stretched out to the absurd depths of Killing Eve, Dexter, or any number of serial killer shows that wore down.