‘Smoke’ Boss Says ‘Everyone Is Playing With Fire’ in New Apple TV+ Thriller

An episode of the based-on-truth podcast Fire Bugs about a real-life grocery story arsonist “who liked to burn Frito Lays and was known as the Frito Bandito” inspired writer/executive producer Dennis Lehane (Blackbird, Mr. Mercedes) to create Smoke, a taut, shocking thriller where “a cat and mouse game” is played among two fire investigators and a fast-food cook, each of whom harbors dark secrets and grudges, as the probability of two arsonists grows.

The main players in the thriller are Dave Gudsen (Taron Egerton), a tenuously married veteran investigator and would-be novelist and Det. Michelle Calderon (Jurnee Smollett), who’s been demoted to the arson squad after an affair with her boss, Capt. Harvey Englehart (Greg Kinnear) goes bad. A top-notch investigator, Michelle quickly prioritizes three former or present firefighters as culprits. The third spoke: Freddy Fasano (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), a beaten down loner who wants more in his life. “In this show,” says Lehane, “everyone is addicted to this need to feel alive which can end up in either their own self-destruction or other people’s. Everyone is playing with fire.”

“Michelle,” he adds, “comes from an extremely abusive background. She’s come back from the Marines, becomes an ambitious police detective, but she can’t get out of her way. She runs off half-cocked a lot.”

Dave, who is married to librarian Ashley (Hannah Emily Anderson) and has a stepson, says Lehane, “is on the surface, extremely charming and well put together. He’s our classic hero, except I don’t do classic heroes. I thought, ‘What if he’s holding onto a persona?’ A lot of people do that, and I think it makes them deeply subconsciously unhappy and angry. That’s where Dave might be. He’s a white grievance guy who believes he’s been passed over for opportunity.”

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With Freddy, says the writer, “I wanted to show a character who truly has had society stacking the deck against him. He literally never had a chance, with a biography that is one tragic emotional, psychological car wreck. Freddy is what Dave thinks he is, a real victim of social apathy. He’s one of my sympathetic monsters.”

After a shocking twist fairly soon, “the show becomes a wonderful, wild, extremely unpredictable ride in the very conflicted hearts of these people,” Lehane shares. Expect a lot of character revelations, as the show digs “deeper and deeper” into Michelle’s life uncovering the horrors of her childhood and her dysfunctional, codependent relationship with Harvey and into Dave’s unruly life and those of his ex-wives.

Other major characters, says Lehane, include Esposito (John Leguizamo), “who’s somebody from Dave’s past and a wonderful, somewhat comic character and Brenda [Adina Porter], the person that Freddy begins to believe he has a chance at a relationship with.”

Don’t expect “any true heroes in the show,” Lehane warns.

Apple TV+

For those who have an interest in the excellently staged fire scene, when asked how the onscreen conflagrations, starting with the opening terrifying scene, were filmed, Lehane answered, “I was obsessed with the fact that the better the technology got, the worse fire looked on screen. So I, along with my technical crew, came up with a plan based on using practical real fire in little places, so that when they went back in with special effect, the real fire was there and we could match it. In the opening fire where Dave is trapped in the fire in his dream, that was all actual fire on what’s called the burn stage, where you’re blasting that out through pipes. The trick is to be able to shut it off in a millisecond if anything goes wrong.”

Thankfully, it didn’t.

Smoke, Series Premiere (two episodes), Friday, June 27, Apple TV+

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