Furious (Hulu) Pilot Review
Furious comes from the mind of Elizabeth Meriwether, who notably created the hit sitcom New Girl (2011-2018), but this new crime-drama isn’t her first show for Hulu. Furious sits alongside The Dropout (2022) and Dying For Sex (2025) in Meriwether’s filmography, where she puts women front and centre.
The pilot episode starts over black as we listen to a man fight for his life, followed by the creepy cut to a woman in a garish plastic cat mask casually sitting on the couch watching TV. This automatically sets this pilot/series up as something both brutal and strange in the most delightful way. There is something bold and brilliant about the execution of the Kitty Cat Killer’s crime; even though the curtains are thrown wide open, she’s unhurried. She’s done this before, and she’s enjoying herself. And that’s just the first five minutes, before a jaunty, pink-on-pink title sequence introduces us to Furious.
Our protagonist is FBI agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum), and at bang on the ten-minute mark, she walks into the home of Princess Kitty’s latest victim, who is revealed to be a billionaire’s son, and things kick off from there.
It quickly becomes clear that we’re dealing with two very different women. The masked feline killer, who adopts the name Ginny (Lola Petticrew), is psychotic, but there is a playfulness to her psychopathy, helped along by the plucky instrumental that seems to follow her around. She is, in many ways, the complete opposite of Alice, who is neat, trim, exacting, and straight-faced in her day-to-day life, but with a few skeletons in the closet.
They’re two perfect sides of the same coin, and the show pulls and twists our expectations of what women can be, particularly when it comes to violence.
Alice is fantastic at her job, and yet we watch her boss, a short, white, balding man, repeatedly try to keep her behind her desk. The pilot makes a song and dance over Alice no longer being NYPD, but why do we care about the nuance between being a detective and an agent? Well, we don’t, but it illicits a rage of frustration that as an audience allows us to briefly understand the cold and casual misogyny in Alice’s male-dominated world, which once again aligns with Ginny, who seems to be on a quest to reclaim power over certain men.
The pilot episode sets up several possible series plot lines, including:
Why is Ginny out for blood? – The pilot explores a trafficking subplot, but is it much deeper than that as Ginny sets her sights on her next victim?
Why did Alice leave the force? – Alice is a former NYPD cop, and it’s hinted why she left the force in the pilot, but will this trauma affect her work as the series continues?
How will Alice continue her investigation? – Her boss wants her at her desk, but once a cop, always a cop, and with a possible female serial killer on the loose, Alice is undoubtedly going to see this one through, but will she piss off the wrong people on the way?
The pilot episode is a really good foundation for what could potentially be a very interesting series, following a cat-and-mouse chase while uncovering a larger criminal web. In many ways, that sounds like what it is: a bog-standard police drama. But, on the other hand, it has a lot going for it, specifically, its female-skewed energy, which some may be quick to compare to Killing Eve (2018-2022).
Although the comparison is inevitable, it will take the rest of the series to find out whether Furious can stand on its own two feet, but will the pilot convince you to watch the rest of the series?
My Verdict: Yes.