Where there’s smoke: the twist that takes this crime series into a new dimension
This procedural drama of two troubled cops hunting two serial arsonists isn’t about who is behind the crimes – it’s about why.
“If you’re trapped in fire – if you wake up and the building you’re in is on fire – it’s up to the fire at that point,” writer Dennis Lehane says in an interview with the Shoot website. “It’s really up to the whims of the fire, whatever’s going to happen to you. And I find that lack of control fascinating.”
He’s talking about Smoke, his new TV crime series for Apple TV and it’s a surprising, twisty show, which, after an interesting if not particularly remarkable beginning, swings a shock that takes the drama into a completely new dimension.
Like those “whims of the fire”, Lehane’s narrative takes on a completely unexpected direction, but unlike the fire it’s tightly focused and highly organised. The procedural drama of two troubled cops hunting two arsonists turns into a psychological play on identity and self-delusion, and how, as he says, people can be “turned on by the things that can kill them”.
Solving the mystery itself of who was responsible for the fires was something he says he just wanted out of the way. “Look, audiences today are extremely smart. They are always looking for the twist. They are always looking for the curve ball. They’re always ahead of us as writers, and so I just said, ‘Stop messing around. Let’s just get it out. Let’s just let the cat out of the bag so we can really dive into what the story is about.’ It’s not about who’s behind this arson. It’s about why.”
Lehane once survived a fire himself, so he writes with forensic authority. The fire in which he was involved began when a propane tank on the roof of the apartment building in which he was living exploded, says the AP website.
The writer was in his 30s at the time of the blaze. The landlord was replacing the building’s smoke detectors, so none were working, the website reports. Lehane is lucky to be alive, and he credits, in part, the flames.
One of the masters of crime fiction, winner of almost countless awards, Lehane first gained public attention with his hard-nosed novels featuring dynamic Boston duo, private investigators Angie Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie. It started with 1994’s A Drink Before the War, but the neo-noir Mystic River was the breakthrough for the Boston crime writer, filmed in 2003 by Clint Eastwood.
Other film adaptations followed: Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, (the illustrious Kirkus Reviews called Lehane’s novel “a lollapalooza of a corkscrew thriller”), and Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone and Live By Night. Lehane himself was lured into TV by David Simon, writing and producing for The Wire, and later working on Boardwalk Empire, Mr Mercedes, and developing and creating the 2022 miniseries Black Bird.
TV is a world he loves. “It’s great because you don’t have to deal with the finery,” he said in an interview with Boston Magazine.
“With a book, I lose a lot of time agonising over describing a room in a way that’s not hackneyed or cliched. I can lose weeks, sometimes. In a screenplay, it’s: ‘Interior. Kitchen. Day.’ You get to the heart of a scene a lot faster, and I find it immensely easier because my challenge as a writer lies in description. Static description is extremely hard for me.”
The new series was inspired by a podcast called Firebug, which recounts the story of how, in 1991, federal investigators arrested an arsonist in Los Angeles. It’s hosted by Oscar and Emmy winner Kary Antholis, who is also an executive producer of Smoke. The arsonist was John Leonard Orr, a fire captain and arson investigator who was responsible for around 2000 fires across 30 years, murdering four people. Most were set between 1984 and 1991, using timed incendiary devices and he often attended investigations into his own arson attacks.
Lehane, initially, was reluctant to adapt the podcast, but was interested, “if I can throw out most of the original story because that’s what interests me”. He changed names and set his story in contemporary America in a fictional town called Umberland, fascinated by the podcast’s exploration of the emotional and psychological motivation of arsonists.
“What interests me is this idea of denial, of lying to oneself, of telling yourself stories about who you are when it’s not even close to who you are in terms of persona. That was what I was interested in,” Lehane says in an interview with Decider. “And then, I like fire. I’m scared of fire, but I like the idea of what fire means emotionally and psychologically, and what that could bring out in people. So ‘I can start from there. If you let me run really far afield on this, then I’ll do it.’”
His director is the versatile Kari Skogland, a veteran of bigtime shows like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, The Handmaid’s Tale, Penny Dreadful, The American and The Walking Dead. She has not only a gift for character but a unique eye for visual poetry.
The series starts with an epigraph that becomes clearer as the drama proceeds, “Creativity – bringing something into existence; producing through imaginative skill”. As it turns out, this is probably a nod to the way that arsonists view their work, artistry of the highest level.
Then a voice calmly talks to us, quietly, almost reflectively. “Fire doesn’t give a shit if you are gorgeous, how many followers you have, what clothes you are wearing, because those clothes are going to burn straight through the flesh, into the marrow.” Voices interrupt, as if we are suddenly immersed in the flames. “Over here,” one yells. The quiet voice continues. “Whatever you do, whatever you know, however much lifetime wisdom you’ve accrued, fire puts a lie to it all.”
The voice belongs to Taron Egerton’s Dave Gudsen, experiencing a dream based on his past life as a firefighter in which he is trapped inside a burning house and mistakes his reflection in a mirror as another firefighter. He survived but stepped back from the action and is now an investigator. Despite being a top arson expert, so far he’s been unable to crack two important cases, one arsonist operating for a year and the other for six months.
He’s reluctantly teamed with Jurnee Smollett’s Detective Michelle Calderon, a rising star in the robbery division, a former marine, and an expert in crime scene investigation. It appears she’s been banished to arson, known as the place where careers go to die, after an affair with her captain, Steven Burk (Rafe Spall). “So many of us say we want to be happy and yet we are drawn to the very thing that will destroy us,” Lehane says of her complicated character.
The first arsonist, known as “D and C”, as in Divide and Conquer, likes to set fire to packets of potato chips in the aisles of grocery stores using a cigarette. He wears sunglasses, a rainproof jacket, and a cap with no logo. He walks with a limp, which Calderon is certain is faked. Maybe he’s a firefighter given his understanding of how arson works and how it’s investigated?
The other suspect places jugs of accelerant under the porches of random homes and sets fire to them, possibly watching on. He seems to stalk those he likes to burn, using oil sourced in restaurant kitchens as accelerant and while investigators have DNA, there’s no one yet with whom to match it.
“Serial arsonists tend to be powerless in their own lives,” Gudsen tells Calderon. “Nothing makes you more powerless than being trapped in a fire.”
And Lehane in a big reveal introduces the woebegone Freddie Fasano, a superb performance by Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, the second arsonist, a wretched soul working at a fast food chicken joint, who we see starting a fire targeting a happy couple, delighting in their misfortune as fiery pieces of the inferno rain around him.
If the early episodes are a little lacking in momentum, the highly visual direction by Skogland in collaboration with her director of photography Sam McCurdy is wonderfully immersive and often frightening, never allowing you to not stay involved. Even if at times you need to shut your eyes.
It’s backed up by splendid performances from two actors who understand the moral implications and ambiguities of Lehane’s wonderfully complicated story. “Every now and then, you meet a villain,” Lehane says. “But most of us? We’re just trying to figure it out. And that’s who I write.”
Smoke streaming on Apple TV.
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