Furious Season 1 Ending Twist Explained: Why Alice Kills [SPOILER]
by Nina Starner · /FilmContent Warning: This article contains discussions of domestic abuse and sexual assault.
Don't sneak into any mansions while blasting Rihanna's "We Found Love" if you haven't watched "Hart Island," the Season 1 finale of "Furious." Spoilers ahead!
I genuinely think that showrunner Liz Meriwether can do anything. If her name looks familiar, it's probably because you've seen it throughout the years, during the credits of shows as diverse and uniformly good as "New Girl," the Elizabeth Holmes drama "The Dropout," and Michelle Williams' tear-jerking tour-de-force "Dying for Sex." Now, Meriwether's first-ever crime drama "Furious" just wrapped up its debut season and I am comfortable saying that "Furious" is one of the best TV shows of the year, and it's thanks to Meriwether's sharp gut instincts as a comedy writer.
If you watched "Furious," you know that the first season finale, titled "Hart Island," spends most of its narrative at the Easton family mansion and watches as FBI agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) confronts multiple criminals. There's the most "obvious" one, serial killer and sex trafficking victim Catherine Grace (Lola Petticrew), but Alice also comes face to face with the wealthy Jay Easton (Peter McRobbie), who's been assaulting girls for decades, and his enabling, equally evil daughter Emma Easton (Hope Davis). In a conversation with Roxana Hadidi for Vulture, Meriwether said this part of the finale, which sets up its ending and a second season, was incredibly tricky to structure. "I found myself as a comedy writer writing a four-page dialogue scene where a character was holding another character at gunpoint. I was like, How did I get here? This is so over the top," Meriwether told Hadidi.
Well, Meriwether made it work. So what's up with the twist ending of "Furious" Season 1, and what does it mean for Alice?
What happens during the Season 1 finale of Furious?
Let's quickly recap the entirety of "Furious." Former NYPD detective and low-level FBI agent Alice reunites with her former partner Danny Kelly (Scoot McNairy) as well as the head of the FBI's sex crimes unit, Nora Washington (the astounding Quincy Tyler Bernstine), to investigate a string of murders. The killer? Catherine Grace, who's quietly seeking out men that brutalized her during her days as a sex trafficking victim and killing them with drug overdoses. (The victim we spend the most time with, Rob Delaney's Oliver Charles, claims he didn't know how old Catherine was, and is quite plainly lying.) All the while, Alice is obviously dealing with her own past trauma, including her physically abusive relationship with fellow NYPD detective Marshall Connelly (Jake Lacy, an expert at playing extremely crappy guys these days).
After an explosive showdown between Emma, Alice, and Catherine — during which it's revealed that Catherine mercy-killed her fellow victim Isabel in the wake of a litany of horrors and injuries from childbirth that left Isabel fatally bleeding (a memory Catherine could only unlock in Emma's presence because she was also there during the event) — Catherine is imprisoned. Jay Easton dies of respiratory failure, and Alice, who begins a sweet romantic relationship with Danny, starts working in the sex crimes unit alongside Nora. That's when we get the season's final gut-wrenching twist.
We see the scene where Alice finds an ailing Jay in bed twice. The first time, she seems to be calling for help; the second time, we watch her stand on his oxygen line and kill him. Back at the FBI, Alice watches a video — that Jay had in his possession — of CSAM featuring her ... and then she checks the list of people who downloaded it.
What the ending of Furious Season 1 means
So what's the point of all this? Men get away with things all the time, especially powerful men.
No matter how many aces you've got tucked up your sleeve — no matter how much evidence you can provide, no matter how many people know about a man's evil deeds, no matter how hard you try — the odds are stacked against truth-tellers, especially when it comes to matters of sexual violence. It's not a coincidence, frankly, that Jay Easton shares the initials "J.E." with a real sex trafficker whose name makes headlines every single day, years after his death.
It's repulsive to watch Jay, with a cannula in his nose and lying in repose in his luxurious bed, call Alice a "movie star" and say her video was one of his favorites; as a viewer, that moment made me feel sicker and angrier than anything Alice did in its aftermath. Catherine, for her part, understands this all too well. The reveal occurs as Catherine and Alice speak in a prison visiting room, with cuts back and forth to show precisely what Alice did. "Did you like the way it felt?" Catherine asks twice, only for Alice to produce a minuscule Cheshire Cat smile. The answer, apparently, is yes. Alice did like how it felt to watch the life leave Jay Easton's eyes.
Not only does "Furious" want to remind us that the patriarchy remains a powerful devil, but it also wants to remind us that justice is often incomplete. Jay dies, but his crimes are still covered up by special agent Ed George (Danny McCarthy). Marshall is paralyzed after a run-in with Alice, Catherine, and a firearm, but he's given a promotion for his bravery. So will Alice make evil men pay in Season 2?
What does this massive Alice twist mean for Season 2 of Furious?
In that same Vulture interview, Liz Meriwether made a surprising admission: she never planned for the show's renewal. "I am a little terrified, because it's been a while since I've had to do another season of something," Meriwether said (both "The Dropout" and "Dying for Sex" were limited series). "It's fun to go out and be like, I don't have to make the decisions. You get to take away from it what you want to take away from it. Season two, you have to come down on one side of it more."
Still, Meriwether seemed more confident in an interview she did with star Emmy Rossum for Variety, and the two discussed what could be next for Alice ... a woman changed by the murder of one of the men who victimized her and a woman who knows that many more men watched a video of her being violated when she was underage. "Alice is becoming Catherine, Catherine is becoming Alice," Meriwether told the outlet of Alice's trajectory throughout the season. "Catherine's heart is opening up, and in some ways Alice is closing off, and getting darker and stronger. That was the dream."
As for Rossum, she thinks those final moments are a pretty direct indicator for Alice's future. "When your worst fears are confirmed that that tape exists and that 50,000 people have watched your childhood trauma, I think there's almost a peace at knowing you were right — and now, what do you do about it?" Rossum asked, noting that Alice got "what she wanted" by moving into the sex crimes unit. "But I think that you know she's on the next mission."
Whatever that next mission is, I'm seated. "Furious" is streaming on Hulu now.
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).