4 out of 5

Created by: Chris Lunt

Yes, this is a super compressed Fugitive (even though the total runtime, at three episodes, would be longer than the Harrison Ford film) – excised of Tommy Lee Jones cop-isms and cut and chopped to amplify the chase over the investigation.  It is, for 2 of its installments, madly thrilling.  You know you’re being manipulated by the way the timeline jumps around, but when its in the service of such compelling entertainment, that’s fine.  We open post a car crash.  John Simm would appear to be a prisoner in transport, and he uses the crash – after checking on and helping the other people in the accident – to escape, and his run is fraught with the stops and starts that elevates Prey’s intensity: these moments feel real instead of too Hollywood.  Simm gets pretty messed up, and we feel the bumps and bruises along the way.

We flashback – Simm was a cop: skilled, well-liked, but having a tough time at home post a divorce.  And of course, post a particularly nasty argument with his ex, he stops by one night to discover one of his sons and his ex dead, and the evidence is pointing right at Simm as the perpetrator.  The plot, thereafter, you can mostly piece together from assumptions – surprising alliances, secrets from the past, “You don’t even know what’s going on,” and etc. and etc.  Prey manages to keep the sense of momentum going by shoving most of the heavy-handed explaining into the final chapter, and dropping the who’s on whose side reveals without a massive amount of fanfare.  Otherwise, when the mini does slow down for impact, it shows some rough edges: an early scene of Simm being interrogated has the appearance of being improvised.  Simm perfectly sells the driven, angry cop, but when called upon to drum up deeper emotions, it’s as though we’re watching an actor try out a few different responses.  The response on which he settles is very well effected, but some better editing could’ve distilled the moments into something more impactful.

The supporting cast is solid, particularly Rosie Cavaliero as the detective heading up the investigation, her hopping between tunnel-vision pursuit and self-doubt another dash of realism, though, again, toward the conclusion, our bad guys start to turn into cliches.

‘Prey’ is a great example of a show knowing exactly what it wants to be.  In this case, it’s a rush, so that’s the focus, and to that extent, it’s absolutely succeeds.