The Crime Drama of the Year Is All About Female Rage
The Hulu show Furious is preoccupied with anger that has metastasized into something darker.
Furious, a Hulu crime drama, stands out this year with its focus on female rage. The story of Catherine, played by Lola Petticrew, begins with her brutally injecting a man with fentanyl before savagely devouring candy corn. Catherine's actions are unsettling, but the show later provides context for her motivations. Co-created by Liz Meriwether and starring Emmy Rossum, who plays Alice, a former detective and now an FBI agent, Furious juxtaposes ideas of violence and transformation within a police procedural framework.
Alice, too, has been scarred by trauma and uses her work to find partners who will subject her to abuse. The show incorporates elements of Greek mythology, such as Medusa and the Furies, to further explore themes of power and transformation. Catherine's actions, including her violent acts and cannibalistic tendencies, can be seen as a means of asserting control over those who have wronged her in her past.
The show's exploration of female rage and vengeance is timely, as cultural narratives have shifted from hope to a more grim acceptance of anger. In Honey, by Imani Thompson, a similar theme is explored through the character of Yrsa, a Ph.D. candidate who accidentally becomes a serial killer. Yrsa's actions are motivated by a Ph.D. on "Afropessimism and Black women's discourses on their liberation," and she uses critical theory to justify her crimes.
While Catherine and Yrsa share some similarities, the show Furious ultimately provides a more nuanced and contextually grounded portrayal of a woman driven to murder by her own experiences of abuse and trauma.
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