‘Furious’ Is a Pitch-Black Cat-and-Mouse Serial Killer Thriller That’s Filled With White-Hot Rage [Review]

“We’re inhuman in defense of humanity. We become evil to fight evil.”

It may be well-trodden territory to tell stories that are all about trauma, but there’s a reason that it’s a theme that courses through so many horror and thriller movies. Furious goes all-in on this theme and unpacks it in a dark, beautiful, layered manner. This isn’t just about trauma, but rather how to overcome it,  if we ever truly can, or how to channel it into something productive instead of letting it consume us. The only thing that’s more cliched than stories about trauma are stories about serial killers. 

Furious is two-for-two in this department, and yet it still finds a way to make all this feel different, daring, and disturbing. Furious is about systemic abuse and manipulation, and the people who enable it. It pits a pained FBI agent against a sociopathic serial killer who ends up discovering something even more insidious. Furious tells an angry, nihilistic story that leaves you feeling slimy and filthy at the end of each episode. It’s Killing Eve meets Promising Young Woman, with an especially timely undercurrent that makes it one of 2026’s most potent thrillers.

Furious chronicles FBI Agent Alice Black’s (Emmy Rossum) twisted hunt to apprehend a crafty and enigmatic female serial killer (Lola Petticrew) who has set her sights on the rich elite. This ever-evolving case leads Black and this serial killer down surprisingly parallel paths that blur the lines between justice and vengeance and uncovers a sprawling conspiracy to cover up a child sex ring. 

Furious covers a lot of familiar territory and has fun setting up various detective and cop clichés only to quickly knock them down and subvert the norm. Created by Elizabeth Meriwether (Dying for Sex, The Dropout, New Girl), Furious is full of quick, charming writing and affable characters that play to her strengths. There’s a dark, disarming sense of humor that successfully provides necessary doses of levity to alleviate tension, so this isn’t an endlessly grim experience.

Agent Black comes from the NYPD Homicide Division and wants to work in sex crimes, but finds herself stuck in an unglamorous desk job, answering phones, and continually disregarded like she’s invisible. She’s constantly being told to stay in her lane and to tamp down her talents. She has a history of being abused that’s manifested into some psychosexual kink as she tries to work her way through incredible PTSD that may make her the ideal person to catch this killer – or become another victim.