FURIOUS (Hulu) - Hello darkness my old friend, but funny.

Emmy Rossum, Lola Petticrew, Quincy Tyler Bernstine putting on an absolute CLINIC of female rage. This show lives in the grey areas that “regular” procedurals don’t even hint at. Also: quite funny on the regular! (shoutout Scoot McNairy, Steve Way (Alden!) & Rob Chang )

Anyway we’re now 6 episodes in & they haven’t really taken their foot off the gas yet. What say you?

watched the first two last night and found it pretty gripping. (also enjoying Scoot McNairy's Noo Yawk cop accent.) looking forward to seeing how it unfolds.

Yeah, this show has been amazing. Dark as fuck, genuinely disturbing, but never gratuitous, which is a really fine line.

I was on the fence but have come around. At first I thought it was kind of ridiculous but I think it's gotten better and better and appreciate that it can be unpredictable.

I do find a bit of struggle with the tone, I think the funny stuff is funny and the harrowing stuff is harrowing but sometimes it's a bit of whiplash.

And Scoot's a pleasure to watch in anything

This show is definitely having some sort of a moment. I had two people recommend it to me last weekend, so I mentioned it to my wife, and she is seeing all sorts of friends and acquaintances recommend it online.

Yeah I’m fully caught up through Sunday’s new ep 6 and I really love it

It’s great to see a show that can use the structure of a procedural but still do something different within that, with characters & tone

All these years of having tough Lady Cops and a LOT of trauma-adjacent subject matter but I can’t remember the last time I saw anger be front & center for not just one but three main characters who are all women, and not be explained away

And aside from Ed George, there’s no fully Likeable/Unlikeable characters. Everyone’s a grab bag of both & you can’t really approach this with any kind of binary. All three of them are great. all three of them are a mess. all three of them are smart but all three of them could still do really dumb shit and it doesn’t even upend their characters.

Steve Way was so good in episode 6. When he just openly says to the FBI agent "I don't respect you" I laughed so loud.

Him constantly fucking with Choy was a delight

He is a delight whenever he's on screen. Great comic timing. And I love that the character is never pitiful, even when Danny Kelly is interrogating him and pressing the idea that Catherine used him to get what she wanted.

Yeah same!

The character of Alden in the last episode was much-needed levity, so great.

This is not my husbands kind of show AT ALL but I had subtitles on so he started half watching it and by the time i finished the first two eps he was invested and went back to watch them properly.

Yeah Mr Veg likes it too for the most part! Athough he does gripe about “dumb behavior by smart people” (but he complains about that in most shows lol)

Wasn't too into the first two episodes, so far not really my thing. The writing and direction seems very Network Television (with cursing), and I guess I've been spoiled by so many TV shows trying to be movies. But I don't think I've seen Emmy Rossum in anything before, and she's good in this. I'm not sure I know Scoot, either, aside from him playing Woody Guthrie, and I like him in this, too. Unfortunately, Lola Petticrew ... I did see "Say Nothing" and didn't recognize her here, but before I even looked her up and was reminded who she was I told my wife that her over the top accent and demeanor felt very "European actor doing broad American," and, well. She reminds me a lot of fellow Irish actor Jessie Buckley in the bad season of "Fargo."

I'll give it another episode or two, though, the praise here and elsewhere has me intrigued in a way the show doesn't yet. Is the show explicitly inspired by "Black Widow," or is that just something people have picked up on?

Xp yeah it took me a couple episodes to decide I really like it - the thing with the DV worker seemed so unrealistic.

That bugged me maybe the most of what I saw. Esp. when she asked for her drugs back. Like, from where, from the storage locker where they keep your drugs for you until you leave?

the show does explicitly credit Black Widow. have not seen that movie but I understand it is more of a "loosely inspired by" deal than a direct adaptation.

I'm not sure I know Scoot, either, aside from him playing Woody Guthrie, and I like him in this, too

Scoot won my heart in Halt and Catch Fire

Same. Amazing role and performance.

Yeah Scoot in Halt & Catch Fire is top-shelf. Definitely check that out if you haven’t seen it.

There's a good interview with Steve Way on Vulture:

https://www.vulture.com/article/furious-steve-way-alden-interrogation-speech-episode-6.html

Awesome interview. Thx for sharing!

the show does explicitly credit Black Widow. have not seen that movie but I understand it is more of a "loosely inspired by" deal than a direct adaptation.

Aha, didn't make the connection, but Ron Bass (who wrote "Black Widow") is credited as a EP.

Feels so random to me, lol. I wonder if they were some ways into production, then some rando old guy in the crew was like, "this reminds me of that forgotten 1987 Debra Winger/Theresa Russell thriller." And then the show creator (who was 6 when the movie came out) googled it and was all, "goddamit!!" And then the lawyers got involved and said, "OK, give Ron Bass a credit, that'll preemptively shut him up."

Wonder no more:
https://www.tvinsider.com/1276646/furious-hulu-liz-meriwether-emmy-rossum-black-widow/

According to showrunner Liz Meriwether, the film influenced her creation of the show Furious. Specifically, it was a single, unexpected scene that sparked the idea for the series. Talking to TV Insider, she explained how Black Widow inspired the creation of Furious, and the benefits of a TV series versus a film.

"It’s a movie, not a TV show. It doesn’t really go in [on the characters]. It doesn’t have the time or the space to sort of like really dig into the character’s psychology, and it doesn’t really seem as interested in that in a cool way,” said Liz Meriwether to TV Insider. “But it has this weird moment, like towards the end, where the serial killer and the FBI agent are just hanging out on the beach for a while.”

“I feel like I was really drawn to that kind of [scene],” explained Meriwether. “These two women who find each other and kind of just have a moment of connection in the middle of a really twisty cat-and-mouse thriller movie that is actually just about like two women becoming friends, which I felt like was really interesting.”

“Going into making and adapting it for TV, I knew that I had to find a character arc for a serial killer and a character arc for an FBI agent that goes much deeper into how they got to where they got to, and where and why they’re sort of doing what they’re doing,” she explained. “And that was really fun.”

“I think to adapt a movie that already exists, there has to be something that you want to do differently. Like you want to go a little bit in a different direction or go deeper,” said Meriwether. “This is not just a recreation of that movie, for sure."

Interesting! It still seems relatively random to me. I am not sure I have thought about that movie since it came out, and for sure the conflation of criminal and crime fighter was a popular trope even back then. Maybe she stumbled across it on cable or something and it just clicked?

Great Esquire interview with Steve Way

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a73452511/steve-way-furious-interview/

I really like this

Emmy Rossum was on the US version of Shameless (which I liked until I got tired of it) and the film of Les Miz. That's all I know her from

Also nice to see fired SNL cast member Chloe Troast again

I love this show! Emmy Rossum used to be a blank canvas and kind of boring. She was in Phantom of the Opera and a truly bad movie called Songcatcher. She’s great in this tho and I cannot wait for two final eps!!

I esp liked it when she was smelly

The way she entrapped Marshall in ep5 was truly bonkers + incredible

And I loved how she was so pleased w herself for her apartment makeover & Marshall takes one look & is like “girl, no”

Like if you were going for “women’s prison rec room” then yes, great

As a person who is also bad at decorating I could relate

lol same

Watched the first two episodes last night at a friend’s insistence. Pretty gripping—I’ll likely continue.

I liked that the cokehead lawyer puts on Elvis Costello’s cokey cover of “Please Don’t Be Misunderstood” as seduction music.

Whenever we’re ready can we talk about how terrifying/deeply creepy Marshall’s mom is??

Talk about it! She was scary af! That sort of boundary-less, “I am Mayor of my son’s life, set things right or ELSE” parent is terrifying. Especially the way the show sets the viewer and Alice up to be lured allll the way in

That scene was practically a fucking jumpscare

totally!
the betrayal alone can throw you back -- and then you realize that she is being manipulated the whole time? it's so sad for Alice and so appalling, I had no idea it was coming.

i was also thinking that Emmy Rossum's blankness really works for her in this role.

i also really like the weird music in this show

Re the weird music: in the first few episodes I I thought I detected a sample of Tom Waits “16 shells from a 30 ought six” — not as a needle drop, but woven into the atmospheric score. Did anyone else hear the same or am I losing my marbles

I'm actually *not* a fan of the music, but it's fine. Still not a fan of Petticrew in this, too, she feels miscast. But I think I'm along for the ride, unless it totally goes off the rails or something.

I think she’s awesome — she reminds me of Jennifer Jason Leigh.

I rewatched ep 3 and it was even better the second time. The scene with the Rihanna song alone! And there’s so much else that happens in the single episode.

Petticrew nails it imo, don’t know her prior to this. Music is really great too, those almost subliminal vocal parts really add to the mood, tension.

xps the mom scene completely jump scared me, could be a scene from a horror film where a character is revealed to be possessed, very well done

I love Petticrew, the way she can change modes almost mid-sentence, like a cloud moving across the sun.
She was great in “Say Nothing” too

I liked her in "Say Nothing." But of the three episodes I've seen of this, so much seems to hinge on her being a master seductress or manipulator, and I guess I don't find her convincing as that. Could be the writing, I dunno. Like I mentioned upthread a bit, I thought Jessie Buckley played an oddly similar role in "Fargo" S4, but there was a sneaky intelligence to her performance (even though it was a lame season) that jumped out at me. Might have been the first thing I'd seen her in, that or "Chernobyl."

Never having seen her before this show, imo she is eerily similar to JJL in SWF who is a character pretending to be someone she’s not, just like Catherine.

Also has that “pretty but also scary” face thing down.

It doesn’t take much to seduce these men tbh, and being manipulative can be a survival tool (esp in her case)

I was particularly thinking of her seducing the shelter employee, which was effortless, lol.

Took me way too long to recognize Hope Davis.

I recognized her but forgot her name

Ep7 gave me my second jump scare of the season (after the scene with Marshall's mom mentioned above) with Emmy Rossum's genuinely frightening delivery of "Take the fucking pears" (which my wife said was a very satisfying/cathartic, "I already said this in my nice voice as clearly as I possibly can, and you didn't listen" moment). Her emotional range in this episode, between that explosive rage, the sad tenderness between Alice and Danny, the cold unrelenting fury when Alice interrogates Elena, and then walking-on-air elation as she tells Nora "I got my wings!" -- it's really a performance for the ages.

Also (with apologies to the Bechdel test) I would happily watch a ten-hour loop of Danny Kelly stepping on Ed's face

Xxpost “Bernie” lol wtf I meant Nora! No idea where Bernie came from

I'll admit I was a little puzzled, but assumed it was yr fond nickname for Quincy Tyler Bernstine

The pears! Yeah I loved the way Rossum delivered that scene

“Of course Marshall is a sublime fan”

I literally turned to my husband and said the exact same thing 😂😂

All the stuff in this episode between jay easton and the daughter just made me wanna gag. Truly horrifying.

What’s the safe code
YOUR BIRTHDAY

Awful shit all around in that house

Also now we finally we see why they cast Hope Davis as the daughter because there’s some truly heavy lifting this episode

Renewed for Season 2!

:D

Unless the season finale ends in such a way that Season 2 is a road-trippin' Alice/Catherine buddy comedy/Route 66 reboot, I'm not interested. This is not a world I'm interested in spending much more time in.

Meanwhile I will happily keep watching regardless (unless it turns into a slapstick buddy comedy)

feels like a more seasons of this could be great or could be a mistake (ala the Killing which just petered out).

I was kinda joking above, but I really do wonder how you could do it without it turning into Law & Order: SVU with more cussin'. I mean, right now the tone is so uniquely dark and challenging, I feel like a second season will inevitably go soft.

Well that was a hell of a finale!

Yes, well done. Great choice of end credits music.

Yeah, great ending - and in my mind sets up a whole different potential Season 2 than I anticipated, less Law & Order: SVU with more cussin', and more "Alice is the new Catherine"...

Yeah the way it unfurled into a kind of handoff was wild (and great)

Great interview w Liz Merriweather & Emmy Rossum on The Watch podcast today w Andy Greenwald, highly recommend

The dynamic between Liz & Emmy is very funny - and you can totally see where the humor of the show comes from, Merriweather seems so preternaturally unserious at times it’s kind of crazy the show comes from her! (I and say that in a highly complimentary way)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2jWJUU1WpQ

Ending was so great — I didn’t expect my jaw to drop at the end in the second search. Can’t wait for s2 now that I’ve seen where it’s going.

I could easily live without the romance. If they make her pregnant as a plot point that is when I might jump ship.

lol yeah that might be a little much! But honestly, if the characters stay as well-drawn I could just about watch them do anything, I think

Great finale. Just end it there, I say.

I'm less pessimistic about a second season that I was before I saw the finale, but I still basically agree.

We were travelling when the finale aired, just got back and the first thing we did was watch it.

I think I would have liked it very much as the finale of a one-and-done series, but I don't really want to see these characters in a Dexter-style serialized (heh) drama

i'm kind of astonished after only two episodes w/the way Emmy Rossum is playing Alice, this initial reading of someone w/confidence and swagger working doubly well for how it's covering up severe trauma. even if that type of characterization isn't wholly original, the way she performs the role feels like something markedly better than that description remotely suggests. Lola Petticrew is pretty magnificent, and the role doesn't call for a "master seductress", it just requires a knowledge of human weakness. if anything it's very clear that she's straightforwardly aggressive and not a Kenobi-esque mind trickster, because her method is all that's required. again of course i'm only two episodes in, so maybe things will change one way or the other. Nora Washington and Scoot McNairy are great, no notes, look forward to seeing more of this asap.

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over my ventilator. Did you say "All cops are bastards?"

Epic <3

I am only three episodes into this, so I won't be reading the thread properly for a while, but I am once more impressed by what an absolute piece of shit Jake Lacy is playing. Kudos to the guy, because definitely now whenever I see his name in the credits of something I think, this guy will be an absolute piece of shit, and that is always the case.

Scoot always the likeable guy who makes bad decisions. Fair play to him. I think we were about halfway through Halt and Catch Fire before I realised he was the guy from Monsters, so now whenever he's anything we always say "he's the guy from Monsters!"

There is no way you could get my husband to watch a show as bleak as this normally, especially not one that deals with trafficking of minors. The humour is absolutely essential as a sweetener to keep him engaged. Like how it was in The Wire.

I can’t remember if I said this upthread or not but Mr Veg isn’t one for bleak murder shows either but he mostly liked this. He got annoyed by characters making dumb decisions for story purposes (Alice mainly) but that is a thing he always complains about lol

lol that’s 3 of us who hooked anti-bleak men into watching this show

Wow damn we’re doing real numbers lol

having finished E3 I see what y'all mean about that jump scare, her entering that house from the start was truly skin-crawling.

I'm also not a bleak-murder-show person (unless Deadloch counts), but I'm enjoying this -- I doubt I would've bothered if it hadn't been getting so many column inches on ILX.

My only reservation is Lola Petticrew. I thought she was blinding in "Say Nothing", but I don't buy her here. So far it's a bit actor-doing-a-psycho acting, a weak link in an otherwise strong cost. I'll keep watching though.

*strong cast

I think Petticrew is great - but she’s not meant to be a mastermind! She’s just being convincing enough to lure horny older men which tbh does not require a huge amount of believability

Even in life, she’s not a huge mastermind, she‘s making it up as she goes, using her wits and all the currency she learned from being trafficked

If you think of her as someone falling apart but “Acting As If” she’s not, you can see it better imo

The scenes with her dancing in the room alone and going through her boxes — memorable and shows how trapped in adolescence she still is.

xpost

Yeah, the way she gradually breaks down over the course of the season is key to the whole thing.

Her character was what made hesitant about the show the first couple of episodes, until I realized basically what VG said, then it made sense.

We finished watching this last night. Just raced through the last two episodes, which were gross and skin-crawlingly creepy and also excellent. On the one hand, you could say that there were a lot of coincidences in this show, but on the other, you could say that the experiences these women had are not as uncommon as we'd like to think they are (you know, for some definition of "we").
I was also delighted to see Rob Yang, who played Frank, positioned in between the piece-of-shit men and the good men as a guy who could go either way. He won't commit to being a fully good guy because it'll get him in trouble, but he's also not one of the bad guys. I thought it was smart when he asked a question and then said, you know what, don't tell me, it'll ruin my career. Given that I only really know him from being one of the most heartbreaking characters in The Americans, I enjoyed seeing him come out sort of ahead at the end of this.

it's kind of rare when you see a series where you have no clue how it's going to get to its intended destination, nor any idea what's going to happen en route. even when you already know the destination, or so it seems. the end of E6, wow wtf.

this show does bust out of the stock character mold and twists around with the plot direction in a good way. character-first writing is making a comeback imo

Steve Way has mentioned in interviews that he was given a lot of room to make the character his, and I think it really shows! It feels like it’s his character and the way the character decides to ignore appeals to the law or morality are great. It feels like he’s sneering at anyone who tries to explain how things work, and it kind of glues things together because he knows those things are useless lies because his life doesn’t work that way at all

kind of a microcosm of the characters at large

i think any notion the show will be some sort of simplistic serial killa thrilla as it continues on falls by the wayside when take a second to remember how it genuinely focuses on the trauma and the pain, the series is so complex and with so much depth of righteous anger that has a heaviness due to coming from a place not just specific to the characters but across the shared experiences of a lot of people. and that last shot, A+++

Yeah I have faith that season 2 will at the very least be interesting

I found heartthrob NY Scoot a little cloying, but all the female rage was glorious and inspired me to rewatch Marcella next.

What was Hope Davis salting? and what do we make of the fact that the video was downloaded 50,000 times in connection with 300 different cases?

That Scoot shouldn't have worried about releasing it since everyone had already seen it anyway?

I thought they were setting up a revenge tour next season.

I don’t think it has much to do with Danny - more than the video has been in wide circulation and we don’t know what that means but it means something

Yeah what LL said