Smoke Review: This Uneven Arsonist Thriller Isn’t What You Think (But Doesn’t Know Quite What It Wants to Be, Either)

It seems fair to warn you now, you’re probably going to want to give up on Apple TV+’s arsonist thriller Smoke at some point during its first two episodes. You shouldn’t—at least until you can tell if its real premise is something you’re interested in.

It’s unclear how many viewers will stick around to the hard right turn that reveals what the show is really about—and, to be fair, that second, hidden premise doesn’t always work either—but it’s at least a more interesting show than Smoke’s initial installments offer.

Loosely adapted from the podcast “Firebug” (don’t Google that if you don’t want to be spoiled) and created by crime writer Dennis Lehane (Black Bird), Smoke follows the story of Dave Gudsen (Taron Egerton), a former firefighter turned arson investigator who’s busy chasing a pair of serial arsonists in the Pacific Northwest. 

He’s joined by police detective Michelle Calderone (Jurnee Smollett), an investigator who has a complicated personal relationship with her commanding officer, Steven Burk (Rafe Spall), and a dark history of her own that she’s working through that helps explain her particular choice of career and apparent interest in arson cases.

The pair are begrudging partners as they chase two very different criminals—one who likes to set time-delayed public fires in one location to distract from his real target, and another who uses milk jugs to contain the accelerants that fuel his blazes. 

The cat and mouse chase that ensues is full of cinematic shots, frequently clunky dialogue, and more than cop show cliches. Yet, it’s strangely appealing at times in its swing-for-the-fences mindset when it comes to storytelling. 

Gudsen and Calderone have wildly divergent approaches to their work. He’s flashing big smiles and playing the big hero to cover up his own insecurities, she’s as subtle as a sledgehammer, a dogged investigator. and considers everyone a suspect.

The unique push-pull of their partnership (are they going to have an affair or start punching each other?) fuels much of the tension in Smoke’s early going, as they spend long hours investigating various crime scenes, evidence rooms, and even employment logs. 

While one of the cases is a true whodunnit (at least initially), the other culprit is revealed fairly on: A poor, socially awkward fry cook named Freddy (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) who works at a local chicken shack and regularly fantasizes about fire. 

Though Smoke ultimately struggles to connect Freddy’s arc to the rest of the show, Mwine is the series’ quiet MVP, alternating between terrifying focus and heartbreaking doubt as he sells the depth of Freddy’s pain and isolation, even when the script itself doesn’t give him much to work with. 

Unfortunately, Freddy’s arc ultimately sputters out as the show shifts its focus to the flashier of its two villains, a move that not only robs Smoke of its strongest performer but requires almost every other character in the show to start behaving in increasingly dumb and unserious ways. 

To be fair, Smoke is plenty stylish and genuinely has some surprising things to say about delusion and the stories we tell ourselves about who we are across its nine episodes (all of which were available for review). 

But its bloated runtime, increasingly unbelievable character choices, and an overall narrative that doesn’t quite connect the two halves of its story mean that Smoke can feel as ephemeral as its title suggests. 

That’s not to say that there aren’t bright moments. Egerton does reliably solid work as a character who walks a fine line between hard-nosed investigator and slightly overcompensating white guy who’s fully convinced of his own main character energy, whether or not his front-and-center status is deserved.  

Some of the series’s most hilarious moments come from the snippets from the fiction novel that Gudsen is concurrently writing about his exploits investigating various fires. Spoiler alert: He is a terrible writer. His prose is awful, and his “characterization” of his lead is an unsubtly idealized version of himself, complete with a jaw that could cut glass, outsize sexual prowess, and some clunker one-liners that he clearly thinks are slick. 

But Dave’s (again, terrible) book also does some important character work under the table of the show’s larger narrative, lampshading not just the things he thinks are most important/sexy when it comes to masculinity and power, but how fragile his ego can be when faced with any kind of criticism or unexpected setback. 

Calderone’s story isn’t particularly groundbreaking on its own—there’s an ill-advised romance, a traumatic childhood, a rough relationship with a parent at the root of that trauma, among other things—but Smollett is compelling as a shoot first ask questions later sort of badass, and her chemistry with Egerton is strong, even when their relationship is all over the map.  

Unfortunately, Smollett also gets stuck with the thankless task of trying to sell not one but two of the show’s most unbelievable plot twists, which isn’t her fault but will likely leave you wondering how we, as viewers, are meant to interpret her choices and larger arc. 

This isn’t a problem that’s isolated to the character of Michelle, either, as much as Smollett is the worst victim of it—much of Smoke seems to be torn about how it thinks we should be viewing any of what we’re watching, or even how much of it is fantasy versus reality at any given moment. 

There’s also a surprising lack of resolution to several major story arcs that’s straight up baffling. (I can only assume this is the show hedging its bets about the possibility of a second season, and y’all, I am tired.) 

Happily, the supporting cast is excellent, particularly Greg Kinnear’s portrayal of Gudsen’s everyman boss to John Leguizamo’s delightful turn as a disgraced former investigator who spends a lot of time drinking and swearing. 

(Truly, his character is the one part of this show I would have happily watched more of rather than less.)

In the end, Smoke is…let’s just call it hard to quantify, and “uneven” doesn’t really even begin to cover it. Genuinely thrilling moments of high-stakes tension sit side-by-side with self-indulgent pulp and bewildering narrative choices that don’t serve the story’s characters or its audience. 

Much like Dave’s novel, perhaps this is a show that really could have used an editor. 

Smoke premieres June 27 on Apple TV+.

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