‘Furious’ Star Lola Petticrew Is Giving TV’s Best Performance

Photo Illustration by Victoria Sunday/The Daily Beast/Getty Images/Hulu Hulu’s hot new crime series Furious, which wraps its thrilling first season Monday, begins on Halloween, a night of costumed and masked revelers.

The young woman we meet in the first episode, however, is no longer play-acting.

“I don’t really like listening to you,” she whispers to the man who lies dying next to her, gasping for air after being injected with an unidentified substance.

When he stops breathing, her face crumples into a moment of real pain.

The woman saves her disguises for the next few of the show’s excellent eight episodes, switching wigs, identities and personas in her quest for revenge against the men who not only trafficked and raped her as a teenager but who she believes also killed her friend.

Played with chameleonic flair by 30-year-old Irish actor Lola Petticrew—their past work includes the BBC series Bloodlands and Three Families and the FX show Say Nothing—Furious ’ Catherine Grace can be sweet or sexy, astutely identifying and weaponizing men’s weaknesses against them.

When she catches the eye of one target (Rob Delaney) at a party she’s waitressing, she suppresses a giggle as though flattered by the attention; it’s really a move designed to flatter his ego.

Later, she entices him with the idea that he could own her, only to reverse the dynamic and hold him captive instead.

To get to another target (Campbell Scott), she takes the opposite approach.

Having slept with his son (Nicholas Podany), she overstays her welcome at his house the next morning, brazenly asking his wife (Janel Maloney) for WiFi access and coffee.

She’s commanding and unflappable, soon wearing out her hostess’ patience by refusing to leave.

Catherine knows the woman will call in her husband to deal with the situation.

He’ll recognize her and then acquiesce to her demands so as not to be outed.

When she nestles against him in the elevator, however, he still clings to the illusion that he has power over her; it’s this obliviousness that enables her to get close enough to jab him with a dose of fentanyl too.