Furious Recap Season 1 Episode 1 ‘The Gorgon’ A female serial killer targets abusers

Near the end of the first episode of Hulu’s new show Furious, Nora Washington (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), the head of the FBI’s sex crimes unit, told newbie agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) about the myth of Medusa. Medusa was a victim of assault. She was assaulted by Poseidon in the temple of Athena. The goddess Athena then turned all her beautiful golden hair into snakes. Victims of violence, according to Nora, are the most violent. Was the story perhaps a warning to Alice, both of the serial killer she now chased and her own demons as a domestic abuse survivor? In any case, Nora, who had previously refused to help Alice’s investigation, turned over everything she had on one Adrian Murado. And, buried in those files was the golden haired victim/ killer with a flower tattoo, the woman Alice believed recently claimed her second victim. 

Let’s back up a bit and set the story. Alice was a former homicide detective who moved on to the FBI after an ex-boyfriend who also happened to be a cop put her in the hospital a year ago. Her job of answering phones for people, many of them not quite mentally stable, who called the FBI, was interrupted when a Brooklyn homicide detective she had previously worked with, Danny Kelly (Scoot McNairy), requested her assistance in an overdose death. 

The victim was Caleb Easton, the son of hedge fund billionaire Jay Easton and himself a former judge. Danny’s lieutenant did not want their squad to have to catch whoever killed a billionaire’s ex-judge son, and so Danny proposed to work the case with Alice. Though the scene looked staged to be an OD, there were clear signs it was not, including the scratch marks on the bathroom door that matched the lacerations on the victim’s fingers, and the strong scent of bleach in the bathroom that was clearly thoroughly cleaned. Following a fight practice with a random guy and some self love, Alice remembered a similar case from just before she left the police force — Adrian Murado. Like Caleb Easton, his was also a death by overdose. Both men had a girlfriend no one in their lives had met. Both scenes were cleaned up afterwards. On both scenes, there were similar scratch marks at the bottom of a door.

There was one potential witness from the Adrian Murado case, a neighbour’s kid with whom the mysterious girlfriend spoke. According to the kid, the girlfriend actually flashed him. It was then that he noticed the flower tattoo above her hip. 

Alice went to Nora, who 16 years ago had questioned Adrian Murado about trafficking girls. Nora explained that trafficking cases were difficult. The victims were often locked up with no knowledge of where they were or even what the dates were. Some of them were in love with the men who took them. Once they took money for sex, they became criminals. Even if they got away, with no housing or income, many of them returned to their traffickers. Nora had the cynicism of one who had fought the fight and lost too many times, but the hunger for justice remained, the anger, the fury at what the powerful got away with. When a 15-year-old trafficker she coerced into becoming a witness ended up in the hospital, the hard wall Nora built around herself cracked a little, and she gave Alice what turned out to be her first solid lead that the woman who killed Adrian Murado was the same woman who killed Caleb Easton.

It was a security camera footage inside a convenience store. A terrified looking young girl burst in, followed by Murado himself, who physically, violently, hauled her out of there. In the course of the altercation, her dress lifted up, and Alice saw the flower tattoo Murado’s young neighbour had drawn. So this girl, whom we know as Catherine (Lola Petticrew), was first a victim of Murado, then later played the girlfriend to him before killing him. She likely did the same to Caleb Easton. It looked like she meant to do the same to Oliver Charles. 

Our introduction to Catherine was suitably creepy. It was Halloween, and she sat outside on the steps of Caleb Easton’s brownstone wearing a cat mask. A kid and his mother approached her looking for candy. She sweetly went inside and picked up some candy off the floor, whilst the still living but already severely weakened Caleb crawled through the floor. Caleb ended up falling halfway down the stairs. It was there that Catherine returned to him and finally gave him the fatal dose of the drug she kept inside a pencil case in her sparkly sequinned bag. 

Was Catherine already planning on stealing the identity of another girl when she lined up for a homeless shelter? Based on what we later saw of Catherine, she was a cold planner, and since the lady who ran the shelter recognised her (even whilst wearing a mask) as one of those who also lined up the day before, it was possible that she had already singled out Jinny then. With the shelter full, Catherine followed Jinny and dangled a bottle of alcohol in exchange for hitting her. Jinny eventually lost her temper and hit and kicked Catherine, who slyly stole Jinny’s bag. Then, Catherine called the Domestic Violence Hotline and got the address of the nearest shelter, where she used Jinny’s SNAP card as her ID. She immediately picked up on the kindness of the girl who worked there, Becky, and manipulated her into getting her a new ID as Jinny Allen and lending her laptop, where she found a catering website that had amongst its clients one Oliver Charles, her next target.

Catherine as Jinny got a job with the catering company, and walked right up to Oliver Charles, who took her back to his flat, where he did drugs and got her to sign an NDA before they had sex. I am writing this a few days after I watched this episode; by this time, I have had time to process a little how this trafficking victim put herself in a vulnerable position and got involved intimately with a man whom she very likely knew was an abuser. It doesn’t make it any easier to watch, a young woman who has had the lights turned off her eyes. Perhaps her sleeping with men who had previously abused her was a matter of reclaiming control. Where once she was forced into sex with them, now, she was there by choice and with a plan. As Catherine spent time with Oliver, she carefully took note of the cameras in his massive flat.

Furious is a story of female rage in a post- Epstein world. When Nora said ‘I get so f-ing angry’ as she spoke of how the ones to blame don’t get caught, it’s a familiar sentiment. I am struggling with writing this recap, and not just because I am coming off a few weeks hiatus (sorry, all, life got super busy). But this is a story that deserves space, told mostly deftly, and with some sharp storytelling moves, though the flow did not quite flow that smoothly a few times. When I started watching it, I was thinking Criminal Minds (the episode 'Pleasure is my Business' from season four, with a female serial killer), but with eight episodes and the chilling casual manipulation we have seen from Catherine, I am hopeful it will go beyond that. Was Alice's penchant for using violence as foreplay already a preference before she suffered violence in the hands of her boyfriend? Did it somewhat mirror Catherine reclaiming her agency as she had sex with known abusers she later killed? For now, my verdict is, not an easy watch, but perhaps a necessary one. 

Rating: B+

Strays

◾Danny told Alice his divorce was finalized. Danny seemed to be the only one who took Alice’s side after she was beaten up by her cop ex-boyfriend Marshall, and he paid a price for it.

◾Alice picked up a sequin piece off the floor of Caleb Easton’s house.

◾Catherine used a long red wig as Jinny.

◾Catherine’s conversation with Becky following group therapy at the shelter was a seduction. Catherine got into Becky’s personal space, spoke of how she did not want to get her in trouble, then asked to borrow her laptop. When Becky later confiscated the drugs in Catherine’s bag, and asked her who Oliver Charles was, the man she searched for in Becky’s laptop, Catherine dropped the towel she was wearing and kissed her.

Episode Title: The Gorgon

Episode Writer: Elizabeth Meriwether

Episode Director: Brian Kirk

Original Release Date: July 27, 2026