REVIEW: ‘Smoke’ Is Another Apple TV+ Home Run

Apple TV+ has become something of a hub for engrossing television. Smoke, developed by novelist and screenwriter Dennis Lehane, provides another shining example of the high quality standard set by the streamer. Re-teaming Lehane with his Blackbird collaborator Taron Egerton (Carry-On), Smoke (2025) is loosely based on the true crime podcast Firebug chronicling the crimes of serial arsonist John Leonard Orr.

Despite those true crime trappings, this series is anything but traditional. Smoke draws on a supersonic pair of performances from Egerton and Jurnee Smollett to tell a story that starts as a procedural only to reveal itself as something darker, bolder, and braver.

Smoke is one of those series that hinges on a major reveal at the end of its second episode. While that reveal won’t be given away in this review, it marks a distinct shift in the series’ scope and intention. Therefore, for our purposes, it’s important to look at the before and after. At the onset of the series, Smoke could be mistaken for any other run-of-the-mill True Detective clone. 

Don’t discount Apple TV+’s Smoke.

After a near-death experience, firefighter Dave Gudsen (Taron Egerton) settles into a role as arson investigator in the Pacific Northwest. With the onset of purposefully started fires in the area, Gudsen and the Fire Department Chief Harvey Englehart (Greg Kinnear) suspect that there are two serial arsonists in the area.

Unable to take on this burden alone, Dave enlists the help of Detective Michelle Calderone (Jurnee Smollett) to find the culprits and stop the fires. Meanwhile, mentally unstable fast food worker Freddy Fasano (Ntare Mwine) attempts to better his life, only for his compulsion to set homes ablaze to take over.

Though sharply written by Dennis Lehane and a rotating cast of collaborators, there’s a gnawing feeling in the first two episodes that Smoke is a bit generic. Taron Egerton gives an amicable performance as the seasoned arson investigator. At first, however, the show gives him little to work with. He’s competent at his job, a family man, and is even channeling his experiences into a novel of his own. In short, Dave Gusen is a static character with very little going on.

Detective Calderone has a bit more going on. Still, outside of the clear effort put forward by Birds of Prey‘s Jurnee Smollett, her story plays like it’s from the cop drama playbook. She’s a headstrong, no-nonsense detective with a mysterious past whose former boss (Rafe Spall) is having an affair with her.

Hardly breaking the mold, no? Even the gimmick of showing who one of our arsonists, Freddy, is from the get-go feels a bit like playing from the Taxi Driver, or more recently Joker, playbook of an unwell loner continually spiraling. Then the twist comes. 

One image at the end of the second episode changes everything. Smoke exits the realm of the procedural and dives headfirst into psychological thriller territory. Now the audience knows exactly who is starting the fires, and the implications are terrifying. Specifically, everything that has come before is now called into question as it was seen from a skewed perspective. That’s a tough trick to land, yet one that showrunner Dennis Lehane pulls off with gusto. 

Firestarting hits a fantastic high in Smoke. 

Part of what makes this work is focusing more on the character of Michelle Calderone. Her portrayal earlier as the archetypical stern woman cop is revealed to be a presumption of another character’s perspective. In reality, Calderone is a professional simply trying to exist in a system that actively works to oppress her.

As a Black woman, Calderone deals with various microaggressions related to her race and gender. This ultimately pushes her to play the character of “badass lady cop” to survive. For better and sometimes worse within the context of the story. 

Her investigation unveils a deep moral rot in the Fire Department, a Boys Club that protects its own until they can’t anymore. Jurnee Smollett nails it all the way, keeping up the facade to get closer to the truth even when the weight of hatred, spoken or unspoken, threatens to smother her. 

Taron Egerton takes on the role of a lifetime. The less said about specific developments of his character the better. What can be said is that Egerton leans hard into the theme of putting on a persona. His affable Dave Gudsen is as much of a front as Calderone’s, if not exponentially more.

Underneath his own facade is something truly unnerving that represents not only the institutional bigotry at the heart of the fire department, but something much darker and more psychological. I didn’t know Egerton had this kind of role in him. One thing’s for sure: we haven’t even begun to see his best yet.

Smoke, the further it goes on, confronts its viewers with a harsh dose of reality. Furthermore, it plunges into the psychology of its characters in a way that most series would not dare to go. Dennis Lehane asks the question “why do people start fires?,” and the answers aren’t easy ones.

Apple TV+’s Smoke (2025) looks to get at the why, which makes the how so much more intriguing.

The slow-burn (no pun intended) of Smoke allows the show to gradually shed layers to reveal something challenging and uncomfortable at the core. A bravura final shot in the finale is something that will stay with me for years to come, serving as the perfect exclamation point to the complicated journey. 

If there was one major issue concerning the show, it’s that the ensemble isn’t always put to good use. John Leguizamo shows up for a thankless part that doesn’t make effective use of his versatility. Greg Kinnear and Rafe Spall show hints of more going on with their characters that don’t ultimately come to fruitition. Most criminally, Ntare Mwine’s affecting work is slowly phased out of the series, leaving his character feeling extraneous once all is said and done. 

Thankfully, the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses. Smoke (2025) is a winner, one that presents its audiences with the familiar only to flip it on its head. Dennis Lehane’s series is less concerned with the intricacies of arson investigation and more concerned with the “why” of the act of arson, the answers leading to uncomfortable truths that exist in society in many other areas, that are simply the act of starting a fire. Benefitting from layered turns courtesy of Taron Egerton and Jurnee Smollett, Smoke is the series to look out for in the summer of 2025.

Smoke (2025) premieres on Apple TV+ on July 27.