Dennis Lehane’s latest drama, “Smoke,” is of a piece. The writer’s work, whether it be in television or novels, has always bridged the gap between pulp and literary fiction, often in the same work. His opus, “The Given Day” — a 700+ page historical fiction about the 1919 Boston police strike and simmering racial tensions in the city — was followed up by two gangster-centered sequels, “Live By Night” and “World Gone By.”  Both were pure genre plays. They were, by design, lesser in the sense that they don’t deal with massive historical and societal change, but they are also pretty damn readable. 
In terms of his TV output, he has operated along similar wavelengths, toggling back and forth between genre and prestige. “Black Bird” — his 2022 miniseries starring Taron Egerton and Paul Walter Hauser — retold the true story of Jimmy Keene’s arrest and subsequent attempts to get his sentence commuted by getting the serial killer Larry Hall to confess to murder. It was an awards play for Apple TV+ that, even if it flew somewhat under the radar, still cleaned up for Hauser’s performance as Hall. 
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So, if “Black Bird” was Lehane’s ‘highbrow’ work on TV, then his newest with Egerton, “Smoke,” plays like a B-side. On its surface, it’s quite similar. Like “Black Bird,” it’s also somewhat based on a true story — adapted from the podcast “Firebug” about the arson investigator John Leonard Orr who was tasked with investigating a serial arsonist who was wreaking havoc through LA in the ‘80s — and sees the return of not only Egerton but also Greg Kinnear. Further, it’s also a cat-and-mouse thriller, centering on two characters circling each other. 
But unlike “Black Bird,” “Smoke” is a pulpy show, one that manages to sustain attention across the nine-episode first season, but also one that becomes more ridiculous as it goes on. That’s not a knock exactly, as the show is consistently watchable and entertaining. But, it often feels like Lehane has purposely downshifted after the intensity of his previous series.
For those who haven’t listened to “Firebug” or weren’t curious enough to Google Orr, the primary interest in his narrative was the fact that Orr was investigating himself. He was a serial arsonist, responsible for almost 2,000 fires before he was caught. Even curiouser was the fact that he wrote a ‘novel’ about an arson investigator who is actually starting the fires. This work was subsequently used against him during his trial.
Lehane takes the bare bones of this narrative and transposes it onto the present. Instead of Orr, we have Egerton’s Dave Gudson, a former firefighter turned investigator who is contending with two serial arsonists while also beginning to write a novel about his experiences. He’s assigned a partner in Jurnee Smollett’s Michelle Calderon, a former marine whose affair with her captain (Rafe Spall) has seen her shunned to arson investigation. Wisely, Lehane doesn’t take too long to let the audience know that Gudson is the arsonist setting fires in grocery stores. From there, the show plays out as a two-hander, with Gudson and Calderon sizing each other up, not unlike the dynamic between Keene and Hall in “Black Bird.”
Yet, if Egerton played the straight man to Hauser’s psychotic weirdo in that series, he has the opposite role here. While Gudson performs as a macho investigator, relishing his lectures about fire safety to firefighter trainees, and putting up a gruff exterior to Calderon, Lehane and his writers take pains to eviscerate that performative masculinity as the show goes on. 
While the pilot episode might, on the surface, feel like the beginning of any other prestige detective show, Gudson’s pretentious narration in the first minutes, where he tries and fails to give poetic voice to what fire means, gives way to a portrait of a supporting character who has convinced himself that’s he’s a protagonist. 
Lehane manages to mine a decent amount of humor from Gudson’s literary endeavours, helped along by his librarian wife (Hannah Emily Anderson). The takedowns of the idea that anyone can write a novel are welcome in a show that sometimes gets swallowed in self-seriousness. It’s a tonal balancing act that I don’t think the show exactly pulls off, though it’s nevertheless interesting to watch. 
It’s also the most range that Egerton has shown, clearly enjoying the meta-layers of his character’s performance. Here, he shifts between hard-nosed investigator, almost as if he’s read too many Lehane novels and thinks this is how a detective should act, and pitiful loser. Smollett is in the straight-laced role here, performing just as well as expected.   Kinnear, Spall, and even John Leguizamo give good supporting turns, even if the latter only shows up in the back end of the series. 
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If there’s a misstep, it’s in a subplot about a sad fast food worker, Freddy (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), who’s eventually radicalized to become an arsonist himself. While the narrative eventually overlaps with Gudson and Calderon, and Mwine is quite incredible in it, the plot nevertheless feels tacked on, to the point that the show seemingly forgets it for long stretches near the end. 
While “Smoke” might feel like a derivative of “Black Bird” without having the same narrative and thematic heft, it’s still a compellingly watchable show. It also allows for a fascinating acting showcase for Taron Egerton. [B]
“Smoke” premieres on Apple TV+ on June 27.