In the end, FBI agent Nora Washington (Quincy Tyler Bernstine) was right that billionaire Jay Easton (Peter McRobbie) would never be prosecuted for his litany of crimes. But Nora didn’t quite land the prediction that he would “die comfortably in his bed.”
The location of his demise is spot on. Yet, the Furious finale delivers one last twist when we see what really happened during the time fellow FBI agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) was alone with the sex predator just before his death.
Justice, or rather, the lack of it, is central to the events of Hulu’s crime thriller of the summer that draws on a familiar story. Furious furthers a trend in which TV writers are finding new ways to draw on the particulars of the crimes committed by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and the abusive systems that let him operate so freely in plain sight for years.
Instead of a straight-up ripped-from-the-headlines narrative or a direct dramatization, creator Elizabeth Meriwether expertly uses a powerful, Epstein-like figure to explore the lives of women irrevocably affected by their proximity to a man like Jay Easton. Catherine (Lola Petticrew) and Alice’s harrowing experiences, the law enforcement official who looked the other way, and the other people in Jay’s circle who enabled these crimes (or did nothing) have roots in reality.
It has been 15 years since Law & Order: Special Victims Unit first depicted an Epstein-inspired character, in a Season 12 episode that included a rare disclaimer at the start: “The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event.” But with the Epstein Files still making headlines six years after Epstein was charged with sex trafficking—and subsequently died in prison—unsurprisingly, it has prompted a deeper exploration of the long-lasting ripple effect in our TV shows.
Earlier this year, Industry ended its fourth season with a character turn that is equally hard to stomach. Marisa Abela’s Yasmin channeled Ghislaine Maxwell by continuing the cycle of abuse that was enacted on her by her father as she is now providing an array of young women (ages not always known) to wealthy men.
Going into the Season 1 finale, Catherine has been given a head start to complete her hit list of people she holds responsible for the death of her best friend. Instead of arresting Catherine at the motel for the murders of at least five people, Alice uses Catherine’s desire for revenge to get access to sexual predator Jay Easton’s home. If Catherine is arrested inside the Easton mansion, Alice doesn’t need a search warrant for this property; she can just walk in. Easy, right?
Unfortunately, Alice and Nora’s FBI boss, Ed (Danny McCarthy), ignores the fundamentals of their law-enforcement role to protect Jay. At the end of the penultimate episode, Ed tells Jay’s daughter Emma (Hope Davis) that Catherine is coming.
You cannot have an Epstein-esque depiction without a Ghislaine figure. Here, Emma serves as her father’s middlewoman, accompanying underage girls into a secret room where they will “entertain” Jay. The older man might be in a wheelchair, huffing on oxygen, but his appetite for minors has not been quashed.
Money isn’t Jay Easton’s only literal get-out-of-jail-free card. More than a decade earlier, he provided key evidence in what became a career-making case for Ed, ensuring the FBI has long looked the other way. “It was one dead girl, and she would’ve died anyway,” Ed pitifully reasons when Nora presses him about covering up the death of Catherine’s best friend, Isabel (Larissa Campos).
By the end of the finale, Ed still has his job, but Nora is coming for him with a treasure trove of evidence that Jay’s lawyer Hal (Campbell Scott) was compiling before Catherine killed him. The great news is Furious has been renewed for a second season, and it would be incredibly satisfying to see Ed face the music for obstructing justice. The same applies to Emma, who quickly switches into victim mode about her role in her father’s illegal activity—even as she is in the midst of destroying the hard drives that will prove just how depraved he is.
“It’s not my fault. He’s my father,” Emma says. If you are about to have any empathy toward Emma (because we don’t know what her childhood was like), then her response to Catherine referring to herself, Isabel, and Jay’s other victims as “little girls” might make you think twice.
“They weren’t little girls. You weren’t a little girl. You were a teenager, OK? And there’s a big difference.” Yikes! It is the same argument used by those trying to make Epstein’s actions more palatable or less repulsive than they are. Looking at you, Megyn Kelly!
“What’s the punishment for people who know what’s happening and do nothing?” is a question Catherine asks Hal before she killed him with a needle in his eye. Emma doesn’t suffer the same fate, and in the final montage, she sobs in her greenhouse refuge.
Meriwether doesn’t spell out who these tears are for. A generous reading toward Emma is that they are her guilt; a more likely answer is that she is experiencing the ramifications of this horrifying secret being made public. In the same way that the name Epstein has created a stench around the living in real life, Emma’s reputation is likely in tatters. Unlike Ghislaine Maxwell, Emma Easton is not in prison—yet.
Emma is pushed to the point of throwing her father under the bus, but Catherine doesn’t kill the billionaire. She is already in handcuffs by the time Jay’s life comes to an end. In the room where unspeakable horrors occur, Catherine finally remembers what happened the first time she came to this home in 2012 when she was a teenager in a scene that further showcases Petticrew’s searing performance. Isabel’s death drives Catherine to punish the men she blames, but experiencing power for the first time in her life is a hell of a drug.
It is revealed that Catherine gave Isabel a fatal dose as her friend bled out due to post-birth complications while they were at the Easton mansion. Despite what Emma believes, Catherine and Isabel were children who should not have been in that house in the first place.
After various law enforcement agencies enter the building, Alice slips upstairs, where Jay slumbers safely in his bed. Emma has given her father drugs so he can sleep, but there is one final horror for him to unleash when he calls Alice a movie star: “I like your video. It was always one of my favorites.” Rossum conveys bone-deep disgust upon hearing this comment. What follows is that Jay begins to choke and dies of natural causes. It looks quick.
However, Alice is not a passive observer, as a key flashback at the end of the finale reveals. From a new angle, we see Alice standing on his oxygen tube, and then placing her hand over his mouth and nose. Jay’s last moments are in agony and fear as he gasps for air.
But Jay’s face is not the last one we see. Instead, Alice is sat in front of a computer, looking at the names of users who had interacted with the video of her underage self. It has been downloaded or transferred a staggering 50,042 times.
Epstein’s name is infamous, but those hiding in the shadows who made it possible for ongoing cycles of abuse have not had the same spotlight. One reason why the Epstein files continue to generate public interest (and outcry) is that justice has not been served for all.
That is why it continues to inspire fictional depictions. Like Epstein, Jay Easton is dead, but the hard work on Furious—and real life—is far from over.
