Unpacking That Sudden Shooting on 'Furious'

Furious is a show that invites viewers to scream angrily into the void with it as it unfolds the tale of FBI agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) pursuing the serial killer Catherine (Lola Petticrew). Catherine’s murders are horrifying, but are motivated by an utter denial of justice for the various assaults and dehumanizations piled upon her. Alice can relate, more than she’d like to admit. Her ex-boyfriend, Marshall (Jake Lacy), is an abusive menace who hides behind his NYPD affiliations to avoid consequences, let alone justice. In the episode “They Make a Noise Like Feathers,” these two threads collide, providing a turning point in the story as it nears the end of its first season.

In the previous episode, “Pick A Sticker,” Alice’s attempted sting on Marshall went awry, but not before she poured a whole ton of booze down his throat. With a call to her neighbor, she ensured that Marshall got picked up for drunk driving. In “They Make a Noise Like Feathers,” Alice goes unofficially undercover at a shelter to get closer to Catherine. The scenes where they connect over their traumas are some of the best, most emotionally charged, and tensest moments of the series so far, and that’s saying something. Someone tips Catherine off about Alice, so it all comes crashing down. Catherine drugs Alice and flees the shelter, with Alice stumbling behind her. As soon as Alice makes it outside, Marshall is on her. He’s been drinking all day, and he wants revenge. He slams Alice onto the hood of his car, but Catherine reappears, pointing her gun at Marshall’s head. Alice is overwhelmed by a thousand and one emotions when Catherine asks, “You want me to kill him?” Catherine shoots Marshall before running off again.

The shooting of Marshal is shocking on its own, but what strikes me most is how deftly it brings its major themes to a head in a single climax. Catherine is motivated by an absence of justice that, to her, can be meaningfully addressed only through killing. The system had its chance to protect her and hold her abusers accountable, and it failed utterly. Alice also experienced that absence of justice with how Marshall saw no consequences for his abuses, but her role in law enforcement complicates her position. Both people know the justice system is broken, but stand on two different sides of it. Catherine tried to save Alice by killing Marshall, but it’s also a demonstration of how Catherine is addressing the broken system: shoot the abuser.

Shooting Marshall drives directly at a question Furious explores: if the system is broken, can it be fixed? In this particular case, the police who should’ve turned Marshall out were definitely not going to do the right thing, an example of a broken system unlikely to be fixed by conventional means. Catherine’s rampage mirrors this issue on a bigger scale. Nora (Quincy Tyler Bernstine) discovered that not only are Catherine’s aggressors powerful enough to escape justice, but they’ve got connections inside the FBI making sure this all goes away.

I don’t expect Furious to deliver clean or tidy resolutions, because the no-win impossibility is the point. With Marshall down, what will Alice do? Can she go back to serving the same FBI that’s in cahoots with the abusers Alice is meant to stop? Can she really commit to killing out of hand? Whatever Alice does next, I’m seated and ready for the homestretch of this spectacular show.