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Emmy Rossum as FBI agent Alice Black in the new Hulu series Furious.
Sarah Shatz/Disney
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Sarah Shatz/Disney
Dramas about female lawmakers chasing female fugitives almost have become their own sub-genre. Lucky is streaming weekly episodes this summer on Apple TV. Killing Eve was a huge hit a few years ago for BBC America. And way back in 1987, the movie Black Widow may have started it all. It showcased Debra Winger as an investigator in pursuit of a serial killer, played by Theresa Russell, who married wealthy men only to murder them. That very movie, it turns out, was the official inspiration for Elizabeth Meriwether’s new Hulu series, Furious. Black Widow is even named on-screen in the opening credits.
But Meriwether, who’s the creator of Furious, has done more than merely update or remake Black Widow. She’s totally transformed it, giving it new purpose and depth — with more unpredictable twists, and complicated, flawed, surprisingly funny characters. All those aspects make sense, once you remember that Meriwether not only created the very clever sitcom New Girl, but also two excellent miniseries focused on troubled women, The Dropout and Dying for Sex.
In the Black Widow movie, Debra Winger was fine as the film’s protagonist, but Theresa Russell, as the chameleonic killer, was way out of her depth. Furious has no weak links whatsoever. Emmy Rossum, who played Fiona in Shameless and the title role in Angelyne, stars as FBI agent Alice Black. She has an antagonistic relationship with almost everybody, including her boss, played by Danny McCarthy — who’s got plenty of attitude of his own.
Alice is on the trail of a woman she suspects to be a serial murderer — played by Lola Petticrew, the Irish actress from Say Nothing. The more we see of her character, who goes by many names and guises, the more slippery she gets. And also, more multi-layered. When we first meet her, she curls up next to her latest victim, who has collapsed on the stairs. She injects him with a fatal dose of fentanyl, puts her face right next to his, and watches him die.
Before long, she sets her sights on a new victim, a wealthy lawyer whom she targets at a party. She flirts, then sleeps with him, but doesn’t kill him. Instead, she waits until the next morning, when he presents her with a non-disclosure agreement to sign, for her cat-and-mouse game to really begin. That game involves him thinking he’s the cat, not the mouse — and she’s devious enough to adopt whatever personality, and push whatever buttons she has to in order to ensnare him in her web. This victim is played by Rob Delaney, who also played a kinky character in Dying for Sex.
There’s also a third very shrewd woman in Furious: Nora, one of Alice’s FBI superiors, played by Quincy Tyler Bernstine. They’re all riveting — but the male actors are outstanding, too. Not only the ones mentioned already, but also Scoot McNairy, Jake Lacy, and Rob Yang as Alice’s former and current colleagues. And special notice goes out to Steve Way, from the TV series Ramy, who plays an at-home patient cared for by the killer. Like many characters in Furious, he’s hilarious one moment, tragic the next.
Finally, there’s the context and subtext of Furious that gives it even more power. Nora is a student of Greek mythology, and interprets the myths of both Medusa and The Furies in terms painting them not just as deadly monsters, but as angry victims. The primary motivation of the murderer in “Furious” turns out to be not greed, or blood lust, but revenge. We learn slowly about her own dark past, which involves a sex trafficking ring of young girls. There are uncomfortable associations with the Jeffrey Epstein case, which she makes clear when questioning one of her victims just before dispatching him.
The fugitive and her hunter don’t come face to face until partway through this eight-part series — and when they meet accidentally, Furious ups its intensity, and once again explores unfamiliar, unforgettable territory. It may owe its inspiration to an old movie … but Furious is a boldly original new TV thriller.
