Ivan Radford | On 29, Jun 2025

Is it more satisfying to watch an actor erupt in a sudden outburst or simmer like a smouldering fuse? Smoke, Apple TV+’s new drama, is a riveting opportunity for Taron Egerton to both – and it’s a breathtaking watch.

The series, inspired by a true crime podcast that it’s best not listening to before you start watching, is created by Dennis Lehane. Lehane, who worked on The Wire and penned Gone Baby Gone, is a brilliantly brooding crime writer. This project marks a reunion for him with both Apple and Taron Egerton, after they collaborated on the phenomenal miniseries Black Bird in 2022. That was a thoughtful study of masculinity and this once again carries the heft of machismo on its broad shoulders, this time through a fiery new lens.

Egerton stars as Dave, an arson investigator working in the fictional town of Umberland. A former firefighter with a recurring nightmare that recalls a time being trapped in a burning building, he’s now a forensic detective who goes in after the flames have died down to work out how the blaze started. He’s joined by Jurnee Smollett as Detective Michelle Calderon, a police officer who’s been cast out into the long grass after an affair with her married captain (Rafe Spall, in unpleasantly sleazy mode). Together the pair try to track down two serial arsonists, whose D+C (divide and conquer) approach is increasingly stretching the city’s resources thin, as they try to put out infernos across the metropolis.

The result is a police procedural with a satisfying level of detective work, as our lead duo comb through firefighter HR records to try and match absences with incidents of arson. But this is a procedural with a notable difference, and Lehane skillfully uses the subject matter to create a real sense of stakes – an opening monologue that could have come across as cheesy is swiftly undercut, with any risk of cliche swallowed by harrowing, hypnotic footage of flames consuming the whole screen. Whether it’s a milk jug filled with oil or crisp packets in a shop being torched by a cigarette, every time a fire goes up it’s a nail-biting, immediate threat that doesn’t lose its impact – the theme song by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke sets the mood each episode and directors Kari Skogland and Joe Chappelle dial up the atmosphere accordingly.

The performances are fully combustible. Michelle Calderon burns with scorned determination, as she tries to prove her worth to her higher-ups – and to the sceptical lone wolf Dave. She’s a focused, stoic force, but that steely exterior is punctured by haunting flashbacks to a childhood trauma that she is also having to navigate in her adult life – it soon becomes clear that she’s having to push back against opposition in her own family as well as at work.

The entire show is almost stolen by the astonishing Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine (The Lincoln Lawyer) as Freddy, an early suspect for the fires. Mwine is heartbreaking as the deep fat fryer operator, who has been employed by fast food chain Coop’s for many years but isn’t known or valued by those around him. He’s quiet, reserved and heart-wrenchingly lonely, with each attempt to draw him out of his shell – a haircut from a customer, a job interview for management – only leaving him more frustrated in his desire to be and do more. It’s all too easy to see how his anger at other people’s happiness could tip him over into putting a match to their lives and belongings.

Less easy to ready is Dave. Taron Egerton follows his excellent turn in Black Bird with another impeccable performance that’s beautifully layered. We learn early on that he’s trying to write a book – prompting lots of playful comments about shallow female characters and other tropes in Lehane’s knowing script – and there’s dark humour in the clunkiness of his writing, even as others around him attempt to encourage and reassure him. Dave’s prickly but gradually warm interactions with Michelle make for an instantly entertaining partnership, one of mutual respect but laced with a professional, rather than personal, wariness.

But there’s more to Dave than meets the eye, and after the opening episodes set the scene, we begin to see his own pent-up frustration in his complicated family life – something gently drawn out by his wife, Ashley (a generous supporting turn from Hannah Emily Anderson). The more time we spend with him, the more unsettlingly ambiguous he becomes, never losing his sympathetic charisma but quietly unpacking the blistering impact of staring a burning void in the face as the flames and smoke stare back. What a gripping, intense, immersive treat this is.

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