Best TV show of 2026 so far now available on streaming

JOE spoke with the stars of the crime thriller, which is available to stream in its entirety now.

Alice quickly realises the crimes are being committed by a calculating, mysterious female serial killer (Ireland’s own Lola Petticrew, shining in a showy role that should help them further break America after starring in Say Nothing).

As the detective and murderer inch ever closer to one another, each battles personal demons. With both walking their own paths toward justice, “the line between right and wrong begins to blur”.

Watch the trailer for Furious right here:

A very loose remake of the ‘80s thriller movie Black Widow, Furious takes a familiar beloved genre and gives it an exhilaratingly fresh, contemporary spin. This is a mystery crime thriller story for the post-Jeffrey Epstein world, shot through with justified female rage.

That said, while the series tackles extremely dark subject matter, creator Elizabeth Meriwether (The Dropout, New Girl) and her terrific cast imbue the material with a sharp gallows humour. Also, part of the show's impressive acting ensemble are Scoot McNairy as Alice's former NYPD partner Danny Kelly, along with Campbell Scott, Chloe Troast, Hope Davis, Jake Lacy, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Rob Delaney, and Steve Way.

For our money, Furious is the best TV series of the year so far. No wonder it’s already been renewed for a season two.

Emmy Rossum and Scoot McNairy on Furious

JOE caught up with Furious' stars Emmy Rossum and Scoot McNairy ahead of the S1 finale. You can read a spoiler-free version of that chat below.

We began the conversation with Rossum by highlighting what a critical and ratings hit the crime thriller has been, earning a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score of 97%.

On whether the actress expected the series to resonate with viewers the way it has, Rossum said: "Oh, I just never know what to expect in terms of the outcome of something.

"I feel like you know you have the opportunity to make something impactful when you have people that are aligned, who are trying to make the same thing, and you have backers and a place like Hulu and Disney that are encouraging you to make the thing you want to make, when you have great scripts, when you've got Liz, when you've got a great cast like Lola Petticrew and Quincy Tyler Bernstein and Hope Davis and all these incredible performers.

"I think you know you have the opportunity to make something great, and you know it's resonating with you deeply as you're making it and as you're reading it and developing it and noting it. [But] you just never know if something's going to resonate with the public or if it's even going to reach them.

"[Now] that it has, has been overwhelming and gratifying and certainly very, very moving. So, without getting very corny, I'm very moved."

Emmy Rossum and Scoot McNairy in Furious

While there have been many TV detectives and special agents, there has never been one quite like Alice Black before. The character has so many layers. Still shaken from being a victim of violence in her personal life, there's a darkness to her, but also a humour. She’s imposing but vulnerable. She’s whip-smart but also makes human mistakes.

Rossum tells JOE that she and Furious creator Elizabeth Meriwether "never ever talked [about] or even mentioned any other detective character" they had seen. Instead, they relied on their own research to build the Alice character, going out and speaking with real-life law enforcement officials.

"We only talked in terms of building this person and mostly from having interviewed current and former NYPD, current and former FBI, and Liz spending a lot of time interviewing and me spending a lot of time in the field, a lot of time weapons training," Rossum noted.

"There's also very few characters that have worked both in the NYPD and FBI, so there's a real mashup between styles. Stylistically and energetically, they're just very different branches of government.

"Alice does have a little bit of that rough and tumble. She was a beat cop before she was a detective. Now she's FBI, and she's buttoned all the way to the top, and she's not letting anyone in. She's got that posture from the FBI.

"You sit down with these FBI [agents], you've never seen whiter teeth or better posture or more of a dead-on shot. It is incredible, but they really invited me in, and really steeped me in the culture and the understanding. I mean, I never thought that I would get to do a live grenade. That happened. So it's really an incredible opportunity."

As for other areas of Alice that Rossum and Meriwether discussed, the actress outlined to JOE: "We talked about victims of violence. We talked about the humanity of the character. We talked about the ways in which your history and the things that have happened to you in your training, the way they shape you.

"We talked about somebody who is very good at surviving by shape-shifting, by shape-shifting at work, by shape-shifting with suspects, with interviews, almost somebody who is living their life as an actor in a way. So, that was something that I felt was really unique and something similar between Alice and Catherine [Petticrew's character]."

Scoot McNairy, meanwhile, had his own unique reason for wanting to join Furious.

He told JOE: "Man, during the pandemic and over the last six years from the start of the pandemic, I got into all those crime thriller dramas, investigative reporting, documentaries, just like everybody else. 

"Watching the documentaries and watching the narrative crime shows, I just really wanted to be a part of a homicide, detective-type show. I just loved them so much.

"I never anticipated getting a call from Liz Meriwether, who's an incredible showrunner, incredible writer. So, you put the two and two together... I was immediately like: 'Yeah, sign me up. I don't know where it's going, but I just know it's going to be great.'"

An American of Scots-Irish descent, McNairy tells JOE it wasn't too difficult getting the Irish-American elements of NYPD detective Danny Kelly down. Like Rossum, though, he found lots of value in researching law enforcement officials.

"I'm a McNairy, so I'm Scottish-Irish already to begin with. I'm a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, and so, there was a little bit of Danny that felt familiar.

"But diving into this world of the detectives in New York, man, it's such an insulated, fascinating microcosm of how it all works and the mismatch, and the links between it and the hurdles, all the politics around it. It was really interesting just to learn how the NYPD works."

As an avid watcher of true crime documentaries and crime dramas, McNairy is full of praise for how Meriwether approached Furious, focusing more on the victims of violence and building richer female characters than typical for these types of stories.

He tells JOE: "I think Liz has done a wonderful job. She's written a lot of characters that are unlikeably likeable, you know what I mean?

"The women in the show are crushing it right now. They're so good [highlighting Hope Davis and Quincy Tyler Bernstine, particularly].

"There's something bad or unfulfilling or unforgiving about all these characters... I'm just really enjoying watching this story play out and how you can make a character unredeemable, and then come back in the next episode and redeem them by something they did wrong! It's just really, really great flip-it-on-its-head writing."

Emmy Rossum and Quincy Tyler Bernstine in Furious

As for how his character plays into the show's exploration of female rage and the double standard between men and women, McNairy notes that Meriwether made Danny a "caregiver".

"He's a caregiver to his son [who has a learning disability]. He's a caregiver a little bit to Alice and has to take care of her.

"Liz has done a great job at switching the roles of what society tells us women do, [that] they care for people. Here you have these women that are finding their own ways of justice, sometimes in an unlawful way, and sometimes they're seeking things that are the right thing to do in the wrong way, and the wrong thing to do in the right way.

"I think Danny becomes this sort of juxtaposition to caregiving, taking care of these people, looking out for them.

"Liz has done an incredible job with all of those things that you're discussing, of exploring them, opening them up, and also turning them on their heads, the way we usually view these murder and crime [stories]."

Both McNairy and Rossum have nothing but kind words for their co-star, the Belfast-born Lola Petticrew, who plays the enigmatic killer who kicks the whole story of Furious into motion.

Lola Petticrew in Furious

Rossum said about the Irish star: "They're just incredible. They're a baller. They leave no stone unturned. They are willing to do the work and show up and be vulnerable and be fierce and leave it all on the field. That's the kind of performer I am. So, we're really in lockstep in that way.

"They're also incredibly funny. They're dark, they're beautiful and alluring and entrancing and can be violent and ferocious and vulnerable and childlike too... I'm so glad that people are turning onto their performance in the way that they have because they deserve it... We got lucky enough to watch it firsthand."

McNairy echoed this, stating: "Oh, Lola crushed this role. I mean, they're so good.

"I mean, I was like: 'Oh, whoever gets this role, it's such a hard role to play.' You really have to give yourself up a lot to this role, and I just thought they did an incredible job.

"They worked really, really, really hard on this role, and really, really hard on the show... All the attention and accolades that are coming their way… they deserve it all."

How to watch Furious

This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a commission on any sales generated from it.

Furious season one is streaming now on Disney+ in its entirety. For JOE's spoiler-filled breakdown of the show's S1 finale, click here.