Not to be confused with either the frenetic multinational martial arts gorefest or made-in-Malaysia boxing flick that played in cinemas recently, Furious – out now on Disney+ – is no less rage-fuelled, though considerably less kinetic.Loosely based on the 1987 Debra Winger-Theresa Russell thriller Black Widow, this eight-part series is about an FBI agent tracking a woman who's killing wealthy men in New York.
It comes to us through a filter of wokeism (hold your horses, I don't mean this in a negative or derisive way) and – like the recent second season of Cross – the do-we-still-have-to-say-alleged horrors linked to Jeffrey Epstein (an unrepentant predator in this series even has the same initials) and his circle.
Showrunner/series creator Elizabeth Meriwether (New Girl, The Dropout) does not filter out the rage, however.
Furious could apply to any of its key female characters, though you could also easily find clear evidence of fury in a number of its male characters, too, a lot of it born out of challenges to an inherent sense of entitlement.
But we're getting a bit ahead of the tale here. Furious sees novice FBI agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum, Phantom Of The Opera, Beautiful Creatures) hunting for Catherine (Lola Petticrew, Bloodlands, Say Nothing), who is killing wealthy men in New York.
Furious starts out a little rough and sensationalist as we see not only Catherine's crimes (and the seductive methods she adopts to perpetrate them), but also get hints of the brokenness in Alice's life and the incidents that led to this state. Still, a little too much information gets thrown at us – like, did we really need to be told that she's even neglecting personal hygiene?
Around the halfway mark, though (reviewers were given access to all eight episodes, but urged to keep far from spoiler territory), it gains a firm dramatic and somewhat darkly comedic footing.
Much of the credit for this should go to its solid supporting characters, all delivering at a level to match Rossum's convincing blank-eyed detachment and Petticrew's finely honed survival instincts.
Front and centre, we have Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Power, Power Book II) as Alice's FBI mentor Nora Washington, driven to cynicism and hard drinking by career injustice; and Alice's former NYPD partner Danny (Scoot McNairy, most recently seen in Netflix's Man On Fire), one of the few sympathetically written male characters in Furious.
Accolades, too, to actor-comedian and disability advocate Steven Way as Alden, who has a special relationship with Catherine, and gives us one of the most hilarious interrogation scenes ever put on streaming. His scenes with Petticrew give Furious a much-needed sweetness and tenderness that give Rihanna's We Found Love added weight when it eventually appears on the show's soundtrack.
On the flip side, every other male in a position of power or authority is painted as arrogant, self-important, entitled jerk, or a brown-noser; with Alice's abusive ex-boyfriend Marshall (Jake Lacy, The White Lotus) being an especially "shining" case of the kind of fella with a bright future that automatically negates any impropriety on his part in his peers', superiors' and even (especially?) his mother's eyes.
It's from their various dealings with such individuals that the principal characters in Furious clearly derive their respective demeanour, outlook and rage – at being diminished, or in Alice's case, ordered to voluntarily diminish herself for the sake of some guy.
Furious, then, is a complex web of mystery, gender politics, feminism and grim humour. It may be a tad difficult at the start to fathom the weavers' pattern, but its many threads come together for a fitting (though I hesitate to say "satisfying"), morally murky conclusion.
And, while there's still the hint or promise of retribution for certain parties further down the road, one strongly hopes the powers-that-be will choose to wrap it all up right here and now, as it is, with a bloodstained bow on top.
New episodes of Furious arrive every Monday on Disney+.
Summary:
...with great vengeance and furious anger
