(Image credit: Hulu)
Tom's Guide Verdict: “Furious” season 1Rating: 3.5/5 StarsVerdict: “New Girl” and “Dying for Sex” creator Elizabeth Meriwether delivers a thoughtful, sensitive and often wryly funny take on the crime thriller with “Furious.” Emmy Rossum and Lola Petticrew are both excellent as, respectively, a rookie FBI agent and the vengeful yet sympathetic serial killer she’s pursuing.Premiere date/time: New episodes premiere Mondays starting July 27Where to watch: Stream on HuluIf I hadn’t been so impressed with “Dying for Sex,” I might not have paid much attention to “Furious,” the new crime thriller series on Hulu from “Dying for Sex” co-creator Elizabeth Meriwether. What looks like yet another streaming series about a troubled detective solving a brutal crime becomes a much more nuanced, insightful and even funny show in Meriwether’s hands.“Dying for Sex” effectively balanced incredibly heavy material about a woman dying of cancer with lighthearted explorations of sexuality and joyous celebrations of friendship, and while nothing in “Furious” could ever be described as lighthearted, it achieves a similar tonal and thematic balance.Meriwether also created the sitcom “New Girl,” and it’s not impossible to envision a slightly toned-down version of rookie FBI agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) as an offbeat acquaintance of the characters on “New Girl.” Alice’s quirks are darker than anything that would show up on a sitcom, but they manifest in an acerbic wit and a low tolerance for people who underestimate her.Despite spending a decade in the NYPD, she’s still treated as the new girl at the FBI, and stumbling across the case of a potential serial killer offers her the chance to prove she knows what she’s doing. The subsequent investigation is equal parts thrilling and harrowing, with plenty of suspense alongside a bleak glimpse into the way the rich and powerful casually abuse young women.‘Furious’ puts a smart spin on a familiar genreThe basic set-up for “Furious” is nothing particularly novel. In her first assignment at the FBI, Alice is stuck at the bottom rung of the ladder, answering the phones for the FBI’s general public number, which mostly involves talking to paranoid weirdos. She catches a break when her former NYPD colleague Danny (Scoot McNairy) calls her to the scene of a high-profile murder, the son of billionaire Jay Easton (Peter McRobbie). Although it looks like an accidental overdose, Alice and Danny quickly determine that Easton’s son was deliberately drugged, and it’s not long before they connect his death to another killing.
