“Women are supposed to be hit and raped then go away, die quietly and not start murdering people.” So we’re told in Furious, a grim but gripping serial killer thriller from Elizabeth Meriwether, who recently brought us the excellent Dying For Sex with Michelle Williams. This is another show burning with righteous anger. Grappling with violence against women, it touches on everything from domestic abuse to sex trafficking, blurring lines as it edges you towards sympathising with a calculating avenging angel.

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This eight-episode drama, loosely inspired by the 1987 film Black Widow with Debra Winger and Theresa Russell, starts as it means to go on. It’s Halloween in New York and we’re introduced to the son of a billionaire hedge fund manager crawling across the floor of a plush apartment in visible pain. Outside, a woman (Lola Petticrew) sits on a stoop, wearing a cat mask. She returns to find him halfway down the stairs. “I love your smile,” she purrs, before injecting him with a fatal dose of fentanyl.

So far, so nasty. On the right side of the law is FBI agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum). A former NYPD homicide cop, she’s got more baggage than a Louis Vuitton store. Her ex-boyfriend Marshall (Jake Lacy) is also a cop and was abusive towards her. It’s part of the reason she’s now transferred to a desk-bound job answering the telephone to crank callers. But when ex-partner Danny (Scoot McNairy) needs help with the aftermath of the aforementioned crime, her Spidey senses start tingling.

Before long, she’s linked the crime to another murder with the exact same M.O. – only this victim was a drug-dealer and suspected sex trafficker, far removed from the luxurious world of hedge fund management. What links them, and who is this female killer? Initially, Meriwether keeps the mystery of Petticrew’s character Catherine locked up tightly, as she switches identities, dons a red wig and finds anonymity in a woman’s refuge shelter where she clinically plots her next move.

Rising Irish star Petticrew – who is next up in the Cannes hit I See The Buildings Fall Like Lightning – is suitably chilling. Likewise, Rossum (Shameless) takes it to extremes – not least when her character is seen going from a get-together with her soon-to-be-married sister to a “first date” where she’s turned on by a deliberately violent encounter. As Alice and Catherine draw ever closer, the complexity of Furious increases. Meriwether puts broken human pathology under the microscope.

Directed by Brian Kirk (Dexter), the early episodes have a slightly lurid quality but come with an underlying seriousness. Furious flips the overworked serial killer genre on its head to explore a story carved out in the post-Epstein era, where women forced into prostitution are considered “human garbage” and the law rarely affords true justice. With a cast that also includes distinguished players like Hope Davis and Campbell Scott, Furious will lure you in – keeping you hooked and horrified in equal measure.

The first three episodes of ‘Furious’ are available to watch on Disney+ now, with new episodes released weekly