Furious
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Nobody can freehand a pinstripe.
I'm Jesse Thorne. On Bullseye, the legendary artist Judy Chicago gives me the business for asking her about painting freehand.
Haven't you ever heard of masking tape? 16th-inch masking tape? Oh, my God.
That's Bullseye. Find us in the NPR app at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
It's not too often you hear about female serial killers, which makes the new show Furious a rarity. It stars Emmy Rossum as a low-level FBI agent on the hunt for a young woman who's been targeting prominent tycoons throughout New York City. The series comes from Liz Merriweather, the creator of New Girl and the Elizabeth Holmes miniseries The Dropout, and it shows. It's thrilling and twisty the way serial killer dramas usually are, but it's also got a punchy sense of humor. I'm Aisha Harris, and joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is my co-host Linda Holmes. Hey, Linda. Hello, Aisha. And also with us is Vulture TV critic Roxanna Haddadi. Hey, Roxanna. Welcome back. Hello. Thank you for having me.
So great to have you here, as always. So when Furious begins, powerful businessmen are turning up suspiciously dead. Emmy Rossum plays the troubled FBI agent Alice. She's got a dark past and few allies at work or home. Lola Petticrew plays Catherine, the crafty serial killer wrestling with her own trauma. Both Cat and Mouse share something in common. They're survivors of violence and of the systems that have failed to protect and support them. Now, Alice has to work the case with an assortment of hard-worn individuals, including Scoot McNary as Danny, her former partner in the NYPD and closest confidant, and Quincy Tyler Bernston as Nora, a quirky, jaded FBI agent.
What is Furious about and who stars in it?
Furious is loosely adapted from the 1987 crime thriller Black Widow, And it's streaming on Hulu and Disney+. So, Roxanna, I know that you have reviewed this show. You've also interviewed Liz Merriweather and Emmy Rossum for Vulture. Loved reading those. Everyone should check them out. So I know kind of how you feel about the show, but I really want to hear more about, like, what draws you to Furious.
I think that it is something that you alluded to in your intro, which is the female serial killer to me is such an interesting concept because I think we societally have this obsession with male serial killers. And I'm part of that, right? Like I watched Mindhunter. I love Michael Mann's Manhunter, Silence of the Lambs. Like we have so many of these sort of stories. And I think we have a real fascination with why men kill people, including women. And usually the answer is it's because they hate women. Like I think it's pretty cut and dry at a certain point. And so I'm sort of fascinated by like the oppositional point of that and what makes a woman do these things and what pushes her to that. And I'm not saying that because I think women are like naturally less violent than men.
I don't want to make a gendered argument. But I think it's interesting because we have so little of it in our pop culture diet. So from a straight fascination point of view, I was drawn in. And then I just think that this is a fantastically constructed show. I mean, it is playing within a genre that we are all incredibly aware of. the cop show, the FBI show. These are all over our televisions. But I think that the writing on this for me felt very textured and sardonically funny in a way that I did not expect. And I think the performances across the board are just I think Emmy Rossum is doing something with Alice that is very unexpected. This is not really a spoiler necessarily. But something I think is very interesting is her character has been a victim of violence.
And we see that she has almost incorporated that violence now into her sex life. She's trying to make sense of what happened to her now through the men that she hooks up with. And that's something that I don't think I've ever seen on television before. And that really blew me away in how prickly and thorny it is. Lola Petticrew is doing amazing work. Scoot McNary and his hang dog face is always welcome on my television.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:48
2
What is Furious about and who stars in it?
1:48–9:51
3
How does Furious frame the female serial killer trope differently?
9:51–16:30
4
Which performances stand out in Furious and why?
16:30–23:58
5
Is Furious a serial killer show or a vigilante revenge story?
23:58–25:05