Abhiroop Das
Created by Elizabeth Meriwether, Hulu’s ‘Furious‘ revolves around Alice Black, an up-and-coming, but somewhat disenchanted FBI agent who stumbles upon a case unlike any other. Connecting several disparate cases of murders is a single woman, whom Alice believes to be a skilled serial killer. Her modus operandi is to target wealthy men, but Alice soon discovers that the reason behind this is far more personal than material. As the killer covers her tracks faster than law enforcement can trace them, a thrilling chase ensues. In the first three episodes of this crime thriller drama series, titled ‘The Gorgon,’ ‘My Life Had Stood: A Loaded Gun,’ and ‘Memory Distortion,’ we meet all the chief players on both sides of the table, eager to go to war with each other. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The (Ex) Cop Meets the Serial Killer
‘Furious’ begins on Halloween night, with a masked woman enjoying the celebrations outside her majestic mansion. Except, this is not her mansion, but Judge Caleb Easton’s, and presently, he is on the brink of death. After barely breaking out of a state of sedation, he manages to crawl all the way to the stairs, only for the woman to come back inside, this time with a set of needles to seal the deal. As he dies a slow, painful death, the woman exits the scene, as if she was never there to begin with. The following morning, we are introduced to Alice Black, a former cop, who presently works at the FBI’s hotline division. Eager to return to investigative work, she doesn’t shy away from joining the police investigation of Easton’s demise, even when it means working with her former professional partner, Danny Kelly.
Though Easton’s death is made to look like an OD, Alice and Danny quickly realized that this is the work of a seasoned murderer, one who left virtually no traces in the apartment, save for a sequin tucked away in a corner. Alice has been called upon to the case because Caleb comes from one of the most influential families in the city, but with only a reporting job, she cannot progress the case any further. From there, the scene returns to the serial killer, named Catherine, who has presently stolen the identity of one Jinny. Using her SNAP details, the killer fakes her entry into a women’s shelter, befriending the volunteer in charge.
At the same time, Alice sits along with Danny during the investigation, learning that Easton was in a relationship with an unknown girl, who we know to be our killer. On camera, however, she always seems to be wearing a mask, and the only piece of identification comes from a neighboring teen, who recalls her having a poppy flower tattooed on her waist. Soon, Alice connects this to another case from more than 15 years ago, where a girl trying to escape an older man, Adrian Murado, was spotted with the same tattoo. No charges were filed against Murado back then, and with no records of that girl since, Alice finds herself with not much that can be called a lead.
Alice Joins Hands With an FBI Veteran in Uncovering Hidden Truths
Widening her search, Alice approaches Nora, a higher-up officer in the FBI food chain, to receive special permission to look into Murado. Surprisingly, Nora agrees, revealing that she has a personal connection to the case. Meanwhile, at the women’s shelter, Catherine begins a sexual relationship with Becky while settling on what appears to be her next target, a lawyer named Oliver Charles. To get to him, she uses Jinny’s credentials to get a job at a catering service, one being used at Oliver’s party. It doesn’t take long for him to take her bait, and by the end of the night, Catherine finds herself at Oliver’s house, ready for the next stage of the plan.
After a night of drugs and sex, Oliver seems completely enchanted by Catherine and allows her to spend the entire day at his house. When he excitedly returns that night, however, his eyes fall on her poppy flower tattoo for the first time, and something clicks. Unnerved, Catherine shows a sign of weakness for the first time, locking herself up in the washroom for the entire night. Come morning, she disappears, heading back to the women’s shelter, where she forces Becky to do her bidding. After procuring gloves, bleach, wigs, and just about everything she might need to kill, Catherine returns to Oliver’s house with a single-minded purpose and knocks him out cold in no time.
Alice’s Tragic Past Comes to Light
Life doesn’t seem to be going so well for Alice behind closed doors, as even facing the shower seems to evoke a trauma response. However, there are still killers to catch, and with that motivation, she returns to work, this time to talk to the man who handled the Murado case fifteen years ago, Officer Tim. Nora joins her, too, revealing that she and Tim used to work together at that point. As he recalls shutting down the case because Murado claimed to be the girl’s dad, Nora quickly points out that the bodega was right next to a building known as Candlelight Lounge, infamous for hosting coercive sex work. Though Tim vehemently denies any foul play, this is enough for an idea to emerge in Alice’s head.
The next step in the investigation is to talk to Caleb Easton’s family, and though it is supposed to be a simple exchange of superficial information, Alice doesn’t hesitate to pivot the discussion to Easton’s problematic sexual and drug history. However, the billionaire patriarch, Jay Easton, quickly shuts down those talks, escorting Alice and Danny out of the mansion in a suspicious urgency. That isn’t the only thing not going Alice’s way, though, as Danny hesitantly reveals that she is smelling really terrible, evidently due to her fear of showering. This topic comes up once again at a party they visit, where it’s Alice’s sister who reveals that this is a trauma response Alice has developed due to her previous abusive relationship with Officer Marshall Connelly, who frequently beat her while she was bathing.
Shaken up by the reveal, as well as his own hesitation in seeking the truth, Danny approaches Alice with a lot more sensitivity, and that night, she finally gathers the courage to take a shower and purge some of the feelings haunting her. However, all of this is just one half of the story, as on the other end of the city, Catherine seems to have already begun her serial killing ritual of keeping Oliver sedated till his soul breaks. A surprise awaits her, though, as after giving him a fresh dose, she walks out of the bedroom to find a young girl, Oliver’s daughter, who introduces herself as Mira.
Mira Becomes Witness to a Horrific Murder
Mira, as it turns out, doesn’t usually stay at her dad’s except for the times when she has a competition in the city. Her unexpected arrival, however, makes things much more difficult for Catherine, who, for now, passes off the scene as Oliver being sick. Though the two girls hit it off very quickly, Catherine eventually has to put a cruel end to this dynamic. After killing Oliver and destroying all electronic devices in the house, she tells Mira that Oliver assaulted her when she was a teenager, and that she is actually looking for another girl who was with her at that time. By the time the news of Oliver’s death makes it to the FBI, Catherine is long gone, and Mira seems too shaken up to say anything.
While a new addition to the death tally makes this an even more intense case, Alice seems to be very close to figuring the case out. It doesn’t take long to notice that Oliver and Caleb went to law school together, and to top it off, in the Murado case, CCTV footage from the bodega shows Caleb’s missing car. Connecting all of these threads, of course, is the serial killer, who Alice theorizes is a sexual assault survivor who is out on a revenge spree. The problem, however, is that the officer-in-charge for Oliver’s case is none other than Marshall, her abusive ex. More curiously, the FBI head, Choi, seems more interested in keeping the focus away from Caleb and more on the killer, which only makes Alice’s job harder.
Alice Discovers the Other Girl Before Catherine Can
Alice and Nora believe that Mira’s take on the events is likely the key to solving the case, as she is so far the only person to survive meeting the killer. Meanwhile, Catherine ditches her personas and returns to what appears to be a regular job, that of taking care of Tashy, a person in a wheelchair. While she is technically his at-home nurse, the house appears deeply personal, full of her clothes, DVDs, and pictures of the people she is targeting. There is still one loose end in the entire case, that being Becky, and it doesn’t take Catherine long to bring her to a secluded location under the pretext of doing drugs, and then killing her in cold blood.
With Becky’s death, the police lose yet another thread in this investigation, but Alice seems to be making progress all by herself. In a most surprising turn, she discovers a photo of Caleb and his father, Jay Easton, inside Candlelight Lounge, where they seem to be accompanied by two minor girls, evidently being sexually exploited. One of the girls is identified as a missing orphan named Isabel Luna, whereas the other, whose face isn’t visible in the photo, turns out to be our serial killer, Catherine. Three episodes in, the cat-and-mouse chase seems to have reached a point of no return, with both Alice and Catherine determined to hit their target one way or another.
Read More: Where is Hulu’s Furious Filmed?
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