'Smoke' review: Fires up our yearning for a gripping tale
Fire is an organism that waits and watches and breathes, or so a character in the new crime drama Smoke tells us. Indeed, with its crafty use of angles and pyrotechnics, the show makes its blazes seem almost... sentient, and nasty, spiteful things.However, try Googling that opening phrase, and the AI assistant immediately stresses that fire is NOT an organism.
Whatever you do, though, don't Google the true crime podcast on which this one is based, if you don't want your enjoyment of (at least) the first two episodes to be ruined.
Those unfamiliar with the case would probably, to a viewer, have to pick their jaws up off the floor by the time the credits roll.
Those who know it might find themselves picking out various liberties taken by co-showrunner/writer Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island, Gone Baby Gone) in bringing the case to the screen.
Whichever group you are in, there is still a lot to keep us invested as Lehane sets up the pieces, motivations, back stories and character dynamics of this deliberate, compelling, (semi-)true crime offering.
Transplanted from the actual case setting to the fictional US Pacific North-west town of Umberland, Smoke has arson investigator Dave Gudsen (Taron Egerton, the Kingsman movies, Rocketman, Lehane's Black Bird miniseries) and police detective Michelle Calderon (Jurnee Smollett, Lovecraft Country, Underground, Birds Of Prey) tracking down two serial arsonists.
It wastes no time revealing one of the culprits to viewers, but teases us as to the identity of the other.
'The narrator was right, this darn fire seems to be alive and mad as heck.'
Smoke successfully humanises this first suspect, Freddy (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Heroes, The Lincoln Lawyer, The Chi), with his sympathetic circumstances offering a precarious fulcrum on which his ruthless actions rest (and pivot).
Meanwhile, for most of the initial two episodes, anyway, we get to see Gudsen and Calderon's developing partnership and their respective backgrounds and current situations, which are not entirely healthy and factor in the characters' actions and reactions.
The two leads settle into their partnership smoothly and comfortably enough, although the people in their lives – including Gudsen's wife Ashley (Hannah Emily Anderson, soon to be seen in Return To Silent Hill) and Calderon's ex-lover Burke (Rafe Spall, Trying) – remain on the fringes, mostly.
Until their respective influence/pressures on our lead characters take a startling toll in the last third of Episode Two, anyway.
Its slow... build (hah, thought I was going to say "burn", didn't you) pays off in spades at this point, leaving us salivating for the rest of the week until a new episode drops, yet also satisfied by the storytelling and the leads' deftness in putting us immediately at ease with their characters, insecurities and all.
Above all, highly curious about where Lehane and Co. will take this next (yes, I'm steadfastly refusing to look up the real-life case.)
With nine episodes slated for this one, expect that feeling of being on tenterhooks all week long to continue well into August.
A new episode of Smoke arrives every Friday on Apple TV+.
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