Furious’ Season 1 Finale Is a Provocative, Cathartic & Twisty Masterclass

Critic’s Rating: 4.8 / 5.0

4.8

Goodness, I love vengeful, justice-seeking girls supporting girls.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Furious delivers a masterful season finale that leaves us absolutely clamoring for more.

And thanks to the powers that be, we will, in fact, get more. After Furious Season 1 Episode 8, that renewal news has never felt so good.

Furious is one of those series that will stick with you for a while and will have you wanting to rewatch it again to catch all the bits of information you may not have captured the first time around.

And that’s often the mark of brilliant television, especially in this tragic age, when too many shows have resorted to writing specifically to appease people doing more than one thing because they sadly no longer have the attention spans to sit through a show on its own.

The writing has been fantastic; the performances have been out of this world, with both Emmy Rossum and Lola Petticrew delivering their season best in this finale.

And, more importantly, Furious genuinely is a series that has something to say, with purposeful, provocative, and evocative writing that starts conversations and makes you feel passionate about television as a storytelling vehicle.

“Hart Island” delivers on all of that and more, as the hour wastes no time picking up exactly where we left things on Furious Season 1 Episode 7.

Alice brilliantly pushed Catherine toward the Easton mansion as if she was winding up a loaded weapon, and set her sights on getting there so she could finally salvage this case and take down this monster.

One of the most amusing moments was having Danny and Nora in tow.

The two of them operate as different sides of Alice’s conscience and psyche: the Devil on her shoulder versus the Angel, with each rotating their respective roles when it comes to enabling and encouraging some behavior versus challenging others.

Danny and Nora are Alice’s people, genuinely, nothing like those she thought were once upon a time: her sister, Marshall, his mother, but her real people who can face down all of her “ugliness” and still love her despite that.

Danny often operates from the space of trying to protect Alice and minimize her harm. But Nora knows and responds to the side of Alice that is effed up and broken, who needs the power, the control, the danger, adrenaline, and the win.

It’s why it’s so important that she has both of them in her life, and it’s those opposing styles that make Alice’s actions so entertaining to watch because she listens to whatever is most convenient for her at that time.

And at that time, going into the Easton home was a priority. Of course, she also had to, at the moment she realized that Emma shot Catherine.

From then on, we were treated to some wonderful work from both actresses as Catherine, bloodied, tired, and spiraling, was desperate to figure out what happened the day that Isabel died.

Being at Easton’s place conjured up memories, and the next moments unfolded, giving us a brutal walk down memory lane as Catherine struggled to grab at snatches of memory and parse what was real and what wasn’t.

The Easton home worked as exposure therapy, and it was heartbreaking to learn that Isabel wasn’t doing well that day; Easton had attacked her in the room, but she was also bleeding out and not recovering well from giving birth.

She was in so much pain, so much so that at one point, she asked Catherine to put her out of her misery, and Catherine did. Isabel was Catherine’s first kill, the death that kickstarted all of this.

And it was a mercy killing. Isabel was likely smart enough to know that if Emma had called Hal, and they were reaching out for some assistance on how to “deal” with Isabel, then she likely would’ve ended up dead anyway.

Catherine doing it was an act of mercy and kindness. Even if it caused Catherine so much traumatic pain that she completely blocked it out. It makes your heart ache for both of them.

And if you weren’t emotional by that entire exchange, Alice being this friend to her and helping her remember the truth, then hearing that sense of relief Alice felt over actually being able to feel her fingers again was enough to choke you up, too.

Outside of the warmth, happiness, and safety she felt with Alden when he proposed, she hasn’t been able to feel much at all.

And the flashbacks to Isabel’s death — how Isabel squeezed her hands so tightly because of her pain — explain why Catherine hasn’t been feeling her fingers for so long.

We knew there was no way Catherine would escape punishment. Ironically, it’s victims like her who never manage to escape it, while the infrastructures that cause the most harm and the people who benefit most from them never do.

But it was a genuine relief that Alice getting to Catherine first meant that the cops wouldn’t just blindly kill her in a fit of rage over Marshall.

It would’ve been another example of someone else deciding her fate for their convenience, which harkened back to the conversation she was having with Alice in the Easton home.

When she countered Alice’s damn near empty attempt at challenging Catherine about right, wrong, morality, and murder, Catherine tossed it right back at her. Why does everyone else, the most powerful people, get to decide?

She had little choice in most of her life. Other people decided that she could be abused, beaten, assaulted, ignored, and looked down upon.

Just like other people got to decide that Isabel’s life and death didn’t matter, that she had no value, wasn’t worthy of justice, and instead was expendable and forgettable.

From the casual manner in which the ME spoke about her to the heinous references from the Eastons, Ed, and so forth: Isabel was “just” one girl, “just” one prostitute, “just” one dead ‘junkie.”

Catherine and Isabel aren’t people who inspire reckonings. It’s what made all of these people’s squirming so delicious.

What’s the saying? “It’s not fun when the rabbit has the gun.”

No one likes to see the tables turning when it comes to power, and Catherine going on a killing spree like this has totally challenged everything.

The finale was filled to the brim with explorations of power, big and small, and how it’s given, taken, wielded, and even weaponized.

Amid all of this, Emma Easton was a striking character because she’s a prime example of someone who can weaponize power and vulnerability whenever it’s convenient.

Emma fully embodied something so prevalent in many wealthy white women who simultaneously fall victim to the patriarchy while enabling it too.

She loved to play up being a victim, as if she wasn’t enabling her father’s monstrous ways. She tapped into the fellow woman card and solidarity if she thought it would help her.

Emma was merely a victim of her father’s machinations, but those teenage girls she served up to him on a platter were willing, knowledgeable participants making active choices.

Emma didn’t deserve any ire for her complicity in her mind, and she convinced herself that she was some nurturing woman who gave the girls everything they needed to get through it and paid them well.

And her hiding in her greenhouse with all of her flowers is how she convinced herself that her hands were clean.

Emma’s harm is more insidious than the likes of Ghislaine Maxwell, but there’s still a power thing at play.

Because for the most part, Emma has just wanted to cling to her proximity to power even if she doesn’t have much of it herself, and that coming at the expense of others is just foul.

She also clings to whoever is the most powerful in the moment.

I can totally believe that after dealing with the familiar and nauseating toddler-like petulance of this senile pedophile, she didn’t care if he was dead, but she was too weak to just snuff her daddy out herself.

Speaking of that, what a great twist, right?

Alice going to see Catherine in prison later genuinely made me smile because their dynamic has always been one in which they were intricately linked, bonded through trauma and circumstance.

There’s this profound understanding they both have that either of them could end up in the other’s position, but also that they were more alike than different.

Furious Season 1 Episode 6 had Catherine asking Alice if she wanted her to kill Marshall, and she took Alice’s silence and expression the same way we did: a resounding yes.

The finale conjures that up again when Catherine calls her out on it, then shares the feeling she gets from killing. She describes it like she’s a sin-eater — that she absorbs all of their power when doing it, and suddenly she’s not helpless or a victim anymore.

It’s healing, and she saw a kindred spirit in Alice, which is what makes their prison scenes so deeply satisfying.

It’s like they’re having conversations underneath the conversations, and Catherine knows Alice well because she knows they’re the same.

She wasn’t wrong either. In a twist we probably saw coming and loved anyway, Alice is lured into what Catherine assured her: she killed Easton without hesitation.

The second he brought up her name — said that she was the star of his favorite video — she couldn’t even let him finish.

Stepping on the tubing was about what I expected from her, but it was such a shock to see her actually plugging his nose and mouth, too. The intention was clear and not up for debate, and she really must’ve felt the power that Catherine talked about.

Because Alice is on a mission, and I need to see it!

I love that we revisited the flash drive, and ultimately, it circled back around to the two people who care about her most, allowing Alice to tackle this issue head-on.

On the one hand, we had gloriously perfect Danny, who removed himself and any of the concerns Alice may have had about his career from the equation, and allowed her to do what she felt she needed and what she could handle.

The two of them escaping to the beach and having their romantic moment warmed the cockles of my heart and made me actually squeal in delight.

It is powerful to see someone who has endured what Alice has, to quote The Vampire Lestat‘s Louis, “finding a love that cradles her.” Danny has been her safe space.

I love that it was here, initiating their sexual intimacy, checking in to see if he still views her as the young, vulnerable girl in that video or as the powerful woman that she is now.

And I adored that he reminded her, before anything even happened, that he can’t be rough with her; he cannot hurt her.

Of course, the context of that is all the more meaningful because we know she killed Easton. She got something out of that, and it allowed her to let her guard down in a way with Danny, and I love their love story so much.

Danny also knows Alice. He can’t keep looking at all the dark, difficult things that most people can’t look at, but he knows Alice needs to keep doing that, and he supports her.

It’s that support and Nora’s words about watching that video, facing herself, that have an impact.

The filming of that moment was stunning.

We didn’t need to see the video, but we watched it through Alice: her awe, disgust, fear, hurt, and pain and shock. Emmy Rossum absolutely slayed that moment.

But in true fashion for this series, Alice took long enough to feel all the vulnerable bits, and then she channeled that into fury, rage, and a thirst for vengeance.

She has a full-blown list of everyone who has ever downloaded that video of her, and a new mission.

And she has Catherine, who sees exactly what she’s doing. It was like passing on the mantle — Catherine may be in prison right now, but what she’s done, what she’s fought for, still gets to live on, and it’s Alice’s turn.

Fierce and Furious Facts and Feels:

• Catherine’s youthfulness, the way she still feels so childlike beyond just being so slight, always gets to me. The chipped nail polish, Isabel’s purse, and the shoes she wore with decorations on them like a child — truly just a loss of innocence.
• I can never say I want to be Nora when I grow up because Auntie has some serious issues, and I don’t want the pain and darkness that create such a force of nature like that, but damn, do I freaking LOVE her. I’m just obsessed; such a phenomenal, multifaceted character.
• Nora gloating is always my favorite. Her in the elevator, wondering why she and Ed never had sex, and then immediately throwing that flash drive at him and saying she has the power to fuck him, no? Magic. Again, the power shifting in this finale was so great.

• I almost gagged watching them honor Marshall. Ugh. Whatever.
• Nora and Alice giving Isabel a proper burial with a headstone made me emotional. My heart aches for all the invisible people buried multi-person deep in mass graves, forgotten.
• Catherine is totally getting the Luigi Mangione treatment in prison, isn’t she?
• Catherine and Alden are officially married, and my heart has never felt fuller. We really got TWO love stories out of this, and that’s beautiful.
• Danny with his “I’m still here” as he sits outside the shower… a MAN. I love how, even though the entire series has focused on how destructive, violent, and harmful mostly men are, we still had great ones—two of the best romantic partners of the year.

Over to you, Furious Fanatics! It’s been a pleasure covering this series, and now I’d love to hear your thoughts about it!

You can stream the entire first season of Furious on Hulu.