Summer season has come to the 2025 TV schedule, which frequently means the arrivals of a few of the most highly-anticipated streaming TV reveals. As a fan of Chicago Fireplace on community TV who has been identified to dabble in Station 19 and 9-1-1, I had a sense that Apple TV+’s flame-filled Smoke with Taron Egerton was going to be proper up my alley. After the streamer launched a trailer with some thrilling footage and reminders of the implausible Black Hen, nonetheless, I see that I had no thought what I used to be in for, and Smoke has change into considered one of my must-see reveals of the summer season.
What can I say? If the crew from Black Hen got here again collectively for Smoke, I can not see the brand new undertaking going up in flames.
What To Anticipate From Smoke
The brand new crime drama was created and written by Dennis Lehane, starring Taron Egerton as arson investigator Dave Gudsen in addition to Jurnee Smollett as police detective Michelle Calderone. Primarily based on the trailer (seen above), they will have an advanced relationship, to say the least! The forged can even characteristic the likes of Rafe Spall, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Hannah Emily Anderson, Anna Chlumsky, Adina Porter, Greg Kinnear, and John Leguizamo.
The story follows Gudsen and Calderone as they reluctantly crew as much as try to cease two arsonists who appear to be wreaking fiery havoc on the world. Though Smoke is a fictional story, the brand new drama was impressed by fact.media’s “Firebug” podcast. The primary two episodes will launch on Friday, June 27, adopted by one episode per week by to August 15.
After watching the trailer and considering again on Taron Egerton and Dennis Lehane’s earlier collaboration, I can not assist however marvel how true-to-life the story will probably be. Black Hen was based mostly on an autobiographical novel and went the additional mile to keep away from “exploiting” the true story. And that brings us to…
Why Black Hen Is An All-Time Favourite Streaming Crime Thriller
Virtually precisely three years earlier than Smoke will premiere for any viewer with an Apple TV+ subscription, Black Hen kicked off the story of Jimmy Keene (Taron Egerton), who makes a plea deal to get out of his personal jail sentence if he can get a full confession from serial killer and rapist Larry Corridor (Paul Walter Hauser, who gained the Critics Alternative Award, Emmy, and Golden Globe for Finest Supporting Actor for the function) behind bars. The collection additionally starred Sepidah Moafi as Jimmy’s FBI handler, Greg Kinnear as police detective Brian Miller, and Ray Liotta as Jimmy’s father in one of many Goodfellas star’s final performances earlier than his demise.
This wasn’t an action-packed crime thriller comprised of six episodes of riots and explosions and gunfights galore, however somewhat a chilling miniseries that basically lingers. Even three years later, I vividly bear in mind the pictures of Egerton’s Jimmy in isolation, frantically making an attempt to recreate Corridor’s map in his personal blood earlier than he forgot the finer particulars. There was no true completely happy ending, with not one of the burial websites from the map being unearthed, and the present was an intense expertise.
So, as a fan of crime dramas, I would be optimistic about any undertaking reuniting the inventive crew behind Black Hen, which incorporates Dennis Lehane as soon as extra as author/creator and Taron Egerton as soon as extra as star/govt producer. Smoke‘s trailer simply provides – pardon the pun – gasoline to the hearth. I am formally psyched for the brand new present.
You possibly can take a look at the collection premiere of Smoke on Friday, June 27 on Apple TV+. In the event you missed out on Black Hen when it first launched in 2022, you could find that on the streamer now.