Spoilers ahead for the first two episodes of Smoke, available streaming with an Apple TV+ subscription now.
Smoke has finally arrived in the 2025 TV schedule to reunite Black Bird's Dennis Lehane and Taron Egerton for a brand new series. Inspired by real-life events, the drama kicked off with a firefighter-turned-arson investigator and a cop joining forces to try and catch two arsonists who have been wreaking fiery havoc. In a surprising twist, the show didn’t hold off on the reveals of who each arsonist is, and one of them completely changes the game. Lehane, who created Smoke, explained why the reveal dropped as early as it did and what comes next.
Loosely based on the Firebug podcast, Smoke stars Jurnee Smollett in her first big TV role since Lovecraft Country as the complicated Detective Michelle Calderon, while Taron Egerton plays retired firefighter/arson investigator/aspiring novelist Dave Gudsen. Both characters brought their own baggage to the investigation, but for most of the two episodes the released on premiere day, Dave's biggest flaws seemed to be selfishness, overconfidence in his skills as a writer, and a spectacular inability to read the room with his wife and stepson.
Then came the reveal at the end of Episode 2 that Dave has a method of releasing the stress that he can't unleash on the people in his life, and that method is by starting fires across the city by igniting potato chip bags in grocery stores. Taron Egerton nailed his portrayal leading up to the creepy smile after Dave set his fire, and I had to know: why did Smoke solve the potato chip arsonist mystery so soon? During Apple TV+'s press junket for the drama, Dennis Lehane explained:
I wanted to get it out of the way. Look, audiences today are extremely smart. They are always looking for the twist. They are always looking for the curve ball. They're always ahead of us as writers, and so I just said, 'Stop messing around. Let's just get it out. Let's just let the cat out of the bag so we can really dive into what the story is about.' It's not about who's behind this arson. It's about why.
The first two episodes built up to that reveal at the end of the second; now, according to the creator, the momentum of the show is following why Dave does what he does rather than who is lighting those chip bags. Shortly before he started his first on-screen fire, the episode revealed that Michelle already suspects "one" former firefighter behind the blazes, with the clear implication that she thinks her partner might be one of the two arsonists.
A fire investigator doubling as an arsonist is a wild enough twist that it's hard to believe it was pulled from a true story, and Lehane cleared up how much was inspired by the Firebug podcast vs. entirely original to the series:
There was a jumping off point, which was that there was an arson investigator who was chasing a serial arsonist who happened to be the arsonist and was, oh, wait a minute, writing a book about the experience and shopping it around New York at the time. Those were the elements and the element of fire itself, which I find interesting on a psychological and emotional level. Those were the things I took from the podcast. Everything else in Smoke is pure imagination. It's pure fiction, and we had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun, and my writers had a lot of fun with the characters we created once we realized everybody in the show is just a little bit nuts.
So, Smoke has elements pulled from real life, but not quite in the same league as Black Bird a few years ago. Per Lehane for his latest streaming show, Dave isn't the only one who's "just a little bit nuts," and we'll presumably see more of that across the board as the season continues. He is the only one so far who seems particular dangerous with his state of mind, and I have to credit Taron Egerton's performance in Dave's scenes with his wife and stepson in Episode 2.
Dave was increasingly close to flipping out on both of them, and both Ashley and Emmett looked scared of him by the time he plastered an insincere smile on his face and walked out for a break. His most sincere smile of the opening two episodes? After setting that potato chip bag fire, wearing sunglasses, a hood, and faking a limp to hide his identity. It's good to have hobbies, I guess?
In all sincerity – seriously, don't start fires – the show switching from "Who?" to "Why?" early on should make for some tense interactions between the two partners in particular. After the two-episode release on June 27, Apple TV+ will release one episode on Fridays weekly through August. Be sure to keep tuning in to see how long Dave can keep his secret, while he and Michelle also have to track down another arsonist.
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