Emmy Rossum Hulu Drama Elevates Trauma Tropes

The Hulu crime drama “Furious” may be (loosely) inspired by the 1987 thriller “Black Widow,” but the series has several other, and frankly stronger, influences at work. After all, in swapping out a serial killer of rich men she marries for money in favor of a child trafficking victim who targets her former abusers, creator Elizabeth Meriwether (“New Girl,” “The Dropout”) has left only the barest outline of the original film. But in making one of those abusers a New York mogul with an appalling interest in underage girls, Meriwether knowingly conjures the ghost of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. And in making both Catherine (Lola Petticrew of “Say Nothing”), the killer in question, and Alice (Emmy Rossum, also an executive producer), the rookie FBI agent hot on Catherine’s trail, survivors of trauma that at times explain their connection a little too neatly, “Furious” fits comfortably into the current yen for psychologized storytelling.

But if “Furious” can sometimes be burdened by these associations, particularly as its eight-episode season hurtles toward its conclusion, the show also often transcends them. That’s largely due to a stellar cast that deepens and complicates their assigned archetypes. (Though not exclusively: Ariel Marx’s haunting, partially vocalized score sets a gripping tone.) Rossum’s Alice is a recent transfer from the NYPD, trying to escape both the shadow of an abusive long-term relationship and her actual ex (Jake Lacy, king of the nice-presenting assholes) who still works as a detective. As is often the case with cat-and-mouse stories, however, it’s Catherine who truly captivates. Petticrew broke out stateside by playing IRA activist Dolours Price, a woman whose understandable aggrievement led her to harm innocent civilians as well as herself. Catherine takes that description to new extremes, embodied by Petticrew with terrifying intensity.

“Furious” takes its name from Alice and Catherine’s preferred coping mechanism for their emotional wounds. Alice’s new supervisor Nora Washington (Quincy Tyler Bernstine) compares their target to Medusa, the legendary Gorgon with a petrifying gaze and snakes for hair — though she got that way only after she was raped by the sea god Poseidon. “She’s a victim, but it doesn’t make her a good person,” Nora explains. “It turns her into a monster.” Giving Nora an interest in antiquity turns her into a fountain of solemn speeches, including a sermon on the various ancient Greek terms for different kinds of rage. Such trivia-seasoned monologues can feel more like an assigned role than authentic expression. But Nora, a jaded cynic whose time in charge of the sex crimes unit has left her a burnout alcoholic who doesn’t even bother to hide her addiction, can also put the show’s ideas more plainly. “I’m so fucking angry,” she says.

Catherine says much the same when an unsuspecting mark asks about her history of sex work. What he doesn’t realize is that she was coerced into the profession at a criminally young age, an experience that’s left her frozen in time. From her lack of impulse control to her seesawing emotions to the beat-up backpack she totes around like a talisman, Petticrew’s Catherine is eerily childlike even when doing grown-up activities like entrapping men before injecting them with fatal doses of fentanyl. We first meet her in a Halloween mask, offering candy to kids who don’t know there’s a dying captive just up the stairs.

Alice, on the other hand, is told by someone who’s known her for decades she was “never a kid.” The former Fiona Gallagher of “Shameless” is once again playing the blue collar survivor of a rough-and-tumble upbringing in a major city, though the writing can make the largest city in America seem like a tiny village. Catherine’s case becomes a joint operation between the feds and local law enforcement, putting Alice on the same team as both her former supervisor Danny (Scoot McNairy) — the only fellow cop to back her up when she confided in him — and Lacy’s Marshall himself. That the former couple’s employers would tolerate such a conflict of interest on a high-stakes investigation is absurd enough. Then “Furious” doubles down, making the parallels between Alice and Catherine more explicit than a shared history of dealing with powerful, protected men that’s more than sufficient on its own.

Fortunately, “Furious” has periodic reminders that Meriwether is also the force behind “The Dropout,” a note-perfect portrait of female sociopathy, and “Dying for Sex,” a more positive but no less considered take on how sexuality squares with physical vulnerability. I thought of the latter while watching Petticrew’s scenes with “Ramy” star Steve Way, who plays Catherine’s client in her day job as a home health aide. In the presence of the rare man at her mercy without her jamming a syringe in his arm, Catherine lets her guard down, and the actors form a warm, wounded chemistry that’s a reprieve from some of the bleaker material. 

Alice finds her own romantic solace in anonymous, app-sourced men she asks to rough her up on her own terms. This character detail does little to shade in Alice’s outline as a damaged-yet-defiant adrenaline junkie, but the nuance missing from these encounters can be found in the handful of scenes between Rossum and Lacy. Both performers excel at peeling back the layers of anger, resentment, love and yearning between two parties of a partnership that had its share of good alongside the horrifically bad. Alice can’t bring herself to shower, the site of Marshall’s worst assaults, but she admits she still misses the smell of his neck.

The drastic measures Alice takes to end this vicious cycle naturally bring her closer to Catherine’s school of violent retribution. Alice and Catherine don’t quite rise to the level of great hunter-and-quarry pairs like Hannibal and Clarice or Eve and Villanelle, but “Furious” still delivers a compelling study of female victimhood and what happens when women break our culture’s limited scripts for it. “Everybody likes it when there’s a sweet little woman lying on the floor, cut up in pieces,” Nora observes. (Bernstine is not only great — she’s frequently quite funny as a seasoned pro too over it to bother mincing words.) In refusing to become that woman, both Catherine and Alice turn into something less palatable. The age of QAnon may be addicted to stories about trafficking and children in danger, but “Furious” is at its best when pushing past the buzzwords for an unflinching look at those affected, warts and all. 

The first three episodes of “Furious” are now streaming on Hulu, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Mondays.