Smoke – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review

The Review Geek

a day ago

Pilot
Episode 1 of Smoke starts with a man named Dave Gudsen narrating about the indiscriminate way fire will target everybody and rip everything to shreds.
Gudsen is a former firefighter, a man haunted by the ghosts of his past stemming from a housefire rescue gone horribly wrong. He's suffering from nightmares about the incident, which as we later find out, involves Gudsen staring into the abyss and only managing to escape from the building thanks to running to a mirror.
Gudsen lives with his girlfriend, Ashley, and things are a little tentative between them. They walk on eggshells with each other, as they're living with teenager Emmett. Gudsen is Emmett's step-father and they don't have the best relationship with each other.
Gudsen works in Arson Investigations, and when he shows up at his office, he finds Detective Michelle Calderone waiting for him. She's been sent by Metro PD to assist the department given there appears to be two serial arsonists on the prowl.
There are no significant leads right now for either and this has been going on for over a year. Calderone doesn't know anything about arson but she does know a lot about crime scene analysis. She was in robbery before this (something we learn later on) and Gudsen believes she's looking to network and use this as a stepping stone in her career.
Out in the field, Gudsen explains that there are four types of fire – natural, accidental, undetermined and incendiary. Both of these serial arsonists, appear to be fans of incendiary devices.
The first arsonist has a habit of using a tool called D&C, which colloquially means Divide and Conquer. Essentially, he'll start one fire (most typically in the potato chip aisle of a shop) to bring the department out, with a specific time delay in each location to avoid detection.
The guy clearly knows his way around the blind spots, and from the brief bits of CCTV footage we can see, he wears a rainproof jacket and a ball cap with no logo. The guy also limps with his right leg and seems to be a white male. Gudsen believes it could be an ex-fireman.
The second arsonist has been dubbed Milk Jug and predominately operates in Trolley Town using a jug of gasoline, always at night, slipping under doors and setting them on fire. As Gudsen explains, nothing makes you feel more powerless than getting trapped in a fire.
This leads us in nicely to take a look at an overworked, underappreciated fast food worker, Freddy Fasano. He's an outcast and lives alone, while also casually watching porn and drinking too.
Freddy is clearly disillusioned with life and could well be one of our arsonists. More on him shortly!
As for Michelle Calderone, she has a pretty dark past too. It turns out she was having an affair with a married man, Steven Burke. While that name means nothing, he's also the senior officer she's working with in the department.
After one of their sessions, he admits he's made the jump and broken up with his wife. He's imploded his marriage and time with his kids to be with her properly. Michelle is not one for commitment and immediately pulls away, telling him he didn't need to do that for her.
Steven is pissed and promises to make her life a 'continuous stream of losing'. This explains why she's been 'demoted' into the arsonist department in the arse-end of nowhere to investigate these cases.
Unfortunately, it doesn't take long before another arsonist case lands in their laps. Someone sets light to a store and it's a complete mess. Investigating afterwards, Gudsen figures out the point of origin. The fire was started in three locations using lit cigarettes on a timer.
The department are under pressure though and the department head, Harvey Englehart, explains that if they don't catch one of these arsonists (or both) then not only is Harvey going to be fired, but he'll take Dave Gudsen with him.
The group get to work and Calderone immediately calls BS on the limp for our D&C arsonist. She believes it could well be an active firefighter and while Gudsen has been hitting a roadblock on this, Calderone thinks they can push it with her credentials so they're forced to open the files.
Sifting through files one by one, the pair settle on someone called Arch Stanton. He has a bad attendance record, and with a brother on city council and a sister as comptroller, he has the perfect alibi.
Dave and Michelle question him over his absences, but Arch is very prickly and defensive. In fact, he basically calls her a DEI hire and questions her motives. Unfortunately, they get nowhere with him.
Scotty Bucyk is another name that crops up, given he too is absent on the days of the arsons. Dave and Michelle question him too, where Scotty proves he's definitely not the guy given he's an engineer and needs to drive people to the fires.
Calderone leaves with egg on her face, so the pair decide to turn their attention to the Trolley Town arsonist instead. Dave deduces it may well be a fast food worker and as we now know for certain, this is Freddy.
He stakes out local joints looking for his next targets and settles on those who look the happiest in life.
Fire is Freddy's 'happy place' and he marvels at the ash and fire falling whenever he starts these housefires, seeing it as some form of cathartic euphoric release from his life. He watches these houses burn from a distance too.
That night, Michelle finds Steven outside her place. He's a Captain now and taunts her a bit, but she more than holds her own with him. However, he's wearing an unmarked hat and a hoodie, so… could the captain be our other arsonist?
The Episode Review
Striking while the iron is hot, Apple TV+ roar out the gate with their latest Friday night scorcher, Smoke. Apple tends to either deliver hard misses or big hitters, and so far at least, Smoke appears to be the latter.
The first episode gets off to a great start, introducing us to both Gudsen and Calderone, along with the two separate cases we're going to be following across this season.
Although we know who the first serial arsonist is, given we get an introduction to Freddy and his life, the second is far more illusive. It would make sense that Freddy is our second arsonist, given we've seen him smoking, flicking cigarettes, wearing unmarked caps (like at the end) and having the right prestige and cover to fly under the radar… but could he be a red herring I wonder?
With another episode released today though, we'll have to wait and see where this one goes next but so far, this is looking to be quite a promising crime drama.
Next Episode
Expect A Full Season Write-Up When This Season Concludes!