Furious Hulu team says its killer thriller keeps the worst offscreen

“Furious” on Hulu opens with three episodes of a grim hunt: FBI agent Alice Black, played by Emmy Rossum, is chasing a female serial killer played by Lola Petticrew, whose victims appear tied to a child trafficking ring.

The show’s premise puts it near some of television’s most dangerous material, including sexual assault and child exploitation. Creator Elizabeth Meriwether told Mashable that the series avoids using images of those crimes, keeping the focus on what violence has done to its central women rather than turning their trauma into spectacle.

Rossum, who also produces the series, said Meriwether was clear early on that the show would not rely on flashbacks. According to Rossum, the creator was more interested in how past violence shapes Alice and Petticrew’s character in the present.

What is Furious on Hulu about?

“Furious” is a crime drama about Alice Black, an FBI agent pursuing a killer whose identity and motives shift as the first three episodes unfold. The investigation points toward men connected to a trafficking operation, while the show draws parallels between Alice and the woman she is hunting.

Viewers learn through dialogue that Alice was abused by an ex-boyfriend, a Brooklyn detective played by Jake Lacy. Petticrew’s character, who uses names including Jinny, Vanessa and Catherine, was trafficked as a teenager.

The show began with a 1987 neo-noir

Meriwether told Mashable that “Furious” grew out of the 1987 Bob Rafelson film “Black Widow,” starring Debra Winger as a U.S. Justice Department analyst tracking a woman suspected of killing husbands for money.

The creator said she was drawn to the film’s strange connection between the investigator and the suspected killer. Meriwether described the two women in that movie as desperate to be seen by each other, an idea she wanted to carry into the series while changing the killer’s method and the story’s psychological stakes.

Meriwether said adapting a film for television needed a purpose, so she began looking at why the two women in her version became who they are. Her research into female serial killers, she said, turned up a recurring pattern: women who had survived violence and later committed violence themselves.

Why does Furious not have flashbacks?

Meriwether said she wanted the series to stay with Alice and the killer “now,” rather than show everything that happened to them earlier. The choice means the damage is visible through behavior, work, sex, shame and control, rather than through scenes of assault.

Rossum said Alice has become cut off from herself and does not believe she can get justice for what happened to her. That drives her fixation on securing justice for others, even when it hurts her own well-being, Rossum said.

The actor also pointed to Alice’s inability to shower as a sign of shame that the show does not soften. Rossum said she worked with a psychologist to understand scenes in which Alice invites strangers into her home to fight, because the character links love, sexuality, violence and control through her past relationship.

Lola Petticrew’s killer keeps changing shape

Petticrew told Mashable that they understood the core of Catherine and her motivation before filming, even as the early scripts revealed her in pieces. Across the first three episodes, the character moves between different personas, including a frightened woman seeking entry to a domestic violence shelter, a seducer targeting a lawyer and a nurse’s aide heading to work.

Petticrew described that ability to read a room and change accordingly as Catherine’s “superpower.” They said it comes from a dark place and functions as a trauma response, helping the character get what she wants.

The first three episodes of “Furious” are streaming on Hulu, with new episodes scheduled every Monday through Aug. 31.

This story draws on original reporting from Mashable.