‘Furious’ Just Nabbed a Rare 100% Rotten Tomatoes Score, and Critics Are Losing Their Minds Over It
Crime dramas have flooded streaming platforms for years, and audiences have grown used to sifting through mediocre serial killer stories in search of something that actually surprises them. That has made it increasingly rare for a new entry in the genre to break through the noise and earn genuine critical consensus right out of the gate.
Emmy Rossum stars as an FBI agent who goes undercover to track down a female serial killer who only marries lonely millionaires, and the show also features Scoot McNairy, Jake Lacy and Lola Petticrew. The series follows FBI agent Alice Black as she hunts a mysterious and calculating killer played by Petticrew, with the two women’s paths increasingly intertwining as the line between right and wrong blurs.
That premise is now paying off in a big way. Rotten Tomatoes announced that ‘Furious’ is Certified Fresh, and the show currently holds a 100 percent average Tomatometer score across 24 reviews, alongside a 93 percent audience average.
The perfect score has held remarkably steady since the show’s debut. ‘Furious’ consists of eight episodes and premiered on Hulu on July 27, and even in its earliest days it sat at 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 8.70 out of 10, a sign that critics were not just tolerating the show but genuinely impressed by it.
The comparison to its source material only makes the achievement sweeter. ‘Furious’ is loosely inspired by the 1987 film ‘Black Widow,’ which holds just a 58 percent score based on 24 reviews, meaning the new series has dramatically outperformed the movie that started it all.
Much of that praise seems to trace back to how the show handles its subject matter. Rossum has said our show ultimately is more interested in survivors of violence and what violence does to a person, a theme she expanded on in a conversation with Variety, adding that the writers were more curious about what pushes a woman toward killing than in painting her as a straightforward monster. The series was created by Liz Meriwether, known for ‘New Girl,’ who also serves as showrunner.
Fans and critics alike appear drawn to the way ‘Furious’ subverts expectations for its genre. Rossum’s character Alice believes she is chasing down a woman who preys on wealthy, powerful men, but the deeper she investigates, the more she runs into uncomfortable questions about morality, trauma, and a justice system that has failed the people it was supposed to protect. That moral murkiness, paired with a nearly spotless critical scorecard, has turned ‘Furious’ into one of the more talked about new arrivals of the summer season.
With new episodes continuing to roll out weekly, the real test will be whether ‘Furious’ can hold onto its perfect Tomatometer streak all the way to the finale. Do you think Alice Black’s hunt for a female serial killer can keep critics this obsessed episode after episode, or is a stumble somewhere in this eight episode run inevitable?
