"Smoke" is a twisty new nine-episode miniseries created by Dennis Lehane, loosely based on the crimes of arsonist John Leonard Orr. It offers some very stylish, entertaining examinations of multiple arsonists and investigators, to the point where "Smoke" is as much psychological drama as it is a crime thriller. However, don't be fooled by the sterling cast list, the Thom Yorke song over the opening credits, or the fancy fire effects provided by ILM. It may have designs on being prestige television, but there's a lot of sensationalism and sleaze in this show where you might not expect it, and some of the plot turns are pure fantasy.
Arson investigator Dave Gudsen (Taron Egerton) is trying to catch two serial arsonists in the Pacific Northwest, while working on his first novel. A police detective, Michelle Calderone (Jurnee Smollett) is assigned to be his partner on the investigations. Rafe Spall and Greg Kinnear play their superiors, and Hannah Emily Anderson plays Dave's wife Ashley. However, I expect that the most well-remembered performance of the show will be Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine's. He's playing an unsettling fast food worker named Freddy Fasano, one of the arson suspects. John Leguizamo and Anna Chlumsky also show up later in the series in roles that I will not spoil.
I like the structure and the storytelling aims of "Smoke," which seems determined to take the usual tropes of a crime story, with its clearly delineated good guys and bad guys, and undermine them at every turn. Every single character we could view as a hero turns out to have some kind of dark side, and the most clear cut baddie is one of the most sympathetic figures in the show. The show also plays with unreliable narrators, constantly calling into question whether the events we're shown can be trusted, since we're seeing them from the POVs of untrustworthy characters. You could definitely make the case that some of the wilder events in the show's last few episodes don't actually play out the way that we see them.
However, this works for some parts of the series better than others. "Smoke" is good about creating opportunities for the smaller roles to leave big impressions. Everyone gets their moments, whether it's Dave's teenage stepson or a hostile police captain who only shows up in the very last episode. The Freddy Fasano storyline is deeply engrossing and compelling, presenting the sad, limited life of a disadvantaged man in search of some way out of his unhappiness. Mwine's performance is fantastic, despite him having barely any dialogue in most of his scenes. It also benefits from being unhampered by any of the metatextual trickery used in the rest of the show. The other storylines involving the other suspects and investigators are significantly less interesting, especially since it's clear from pretty early on where the creators' sympathies lie.
The performance I had the most trouble with was Taron Edgerton's. I like him as an actor, he's got plenty of chemistry with Jussie Smollett, and I admire the willingness to tackle tough material, but his portrayal of Dave Gudson doesn't ring true. He's clearly putting in a lot of effort, but it feels like he was a last minute replacement for another, more seasoned actor who had to drop out unexpectedly. Smollett also doesn't quite seem to fit the walking car crash that is Officer Michelle Calderone, but she generally comes off better. The incongruity of the casting might have been on purpose, given the tricksy nature of the plotting, but it's more distracting than anything else.
Still I found "Smoke" an easy watch, with plenty to recommend in it. There are some good mysteries, novel character dynamics, and shiny production values to enjoy. Solid character actors like Greg Kinnear and John Leguizamo deliver the goods. I wish the writing had leaned into the pulpiness instead of trying to be too clever, but I expect that the narrative sleights-of-hand will work fine for other viewers. As detective shows go, this is not one of the better ones I've seen this year, but it had me invested all the way to the end, and that's no small feat.
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