‘Killing Eve’ Meets ‘Ocean’s 8’ in Apple TV’s Best Crime Thriller Series of the Year
Amanda M. Castro is a Network TV writer at Collider and a New York–based journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, where she is an Associate Editor, and The U.S. Sun, where she previously served as a Senior Consumer Reporter.
She specializes in network television coverage, delivering sharp, thoughtful analysis of long-running procedural hits and ambitious new dramas across broadcast TV. At Collider, Amanda explores character arcs, storytelling trends, and the cultural impact of network series that keep audiences tuning in week after week.
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Amanda is bilingual and holds a degree in Communication, Film, and Media Studies from the University of New Haven.
Apple TV has a habit of making crime look expensive. Despite the fact that its protagonists may be fleeing from the FBI, hiding embezzled funds, or trying not to be killed by a mobster, there is generally sufficient sophistication to make it seem like a much bigger-budget production, and Lucky is no exception.
Created by Jonathan Tropper and based on Marissa Stapley’s novel, the seven-episode limited series throws Anya Taylor-Joy into the middle of a botched multimillion-dollar heist and then refuses to let her catch her breath. There is a clever, unpredictable woman at the center, a determined investigator on her trail, and a crime story that is just as interested in personality as it is in plot.
Anya Taylor-Joy Makes Lucky a Compelling Criminal to Root For
Lucky begins the series in Las Vegas, celebrating a successful heist with her husband, Cary (Drew Starkey). There is nearly $10 million in stolen cash, a luxury hotel suite, and the promise that the two of them are finally free to leave their criminal lives behind. Then Lucky wakes up, and Cary is gone; so is the money.
Lucky soon finds herself caught between the FBI and the criminal organization whose money she and Cary stole. Agent Billie Rand (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) is determined to track her down, while Cary’s mother, Priscilla Masterson (Annette Bening), has her own reasons for finding Lucky. Priscilla is a formidable mob boss, and she is not exactly thrilled that her daughter-in-law has disappeared with millions of dollars and potentially put her son in danger.
The result is essentially a cross-country game of cat and mouse, with Lucky constantly forced to improvise. The show wastes little time establishing that she is very good at this. She can lie convincingly, read a situation quickly, and find an escape route when the obvious options have disappeared. Apple TV describes Lucky as a woman who abandoned the criminal world she was raised in, only to be forced back into it one last time.
'Lucky' Is at Its Best When Family Gets in the Way
The heist is what gets Lucky moving, but the show’s strongest material comes from Lucky’s relationship with her father, John Armstrong (Timothy Olyphant). John is serving time in prison, but that does not stop him from having an enormous influence over his daughter. He raised Lucky around cons, teaching her how to manipulate people, recognize weaknesses, and stay one step ahead. His advice has become part of the way she thinks, which is both useful and deeply damaging.
Lucky loves her father, but she also knows exactly what he has taught her. John is charming enough to make his worldview sound almost reasonable, yet there is something dangerous about a parent teaching his child to treat everyone as a mark. Olyphant leans into that contradiction, making John likable without making him harmless. It also gives the series something more substantial than another chase for stolen money. Lucky is not only trying to outrun the FBI or the people who want her dead, but she is also trying to figure out how much of her father’s life she actually wants to carry with her. Lucky has spent her entire life being told that survival comes down to knowing when to lie, when to run, and when to manipulate the person standing in front of you. The question is whether those skills have actually made her lucky at all.
Annette Bening and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor Give the Crime Thriller Real Teeth
Taylor-Joy may be the center of Lucky, but the supporting cast is one of the show’s biggest draws. Apple TV assembled a particularly strong ensemble, including Bening, Olyphant, Ellis-Taylor, Clifton Collins Jr., and William Fichtner. Bening gets to have some fun as Priscilla, a woman who can be terrifying without needing to announce it. Her relationship with Lucky is especially effective because there is already a complicated family dynamic underneath the threat. Priscilla is Lucky’s mother-in-law, Cary’s mother, and a powerful criminal with plenty of reasons to distrust her.
Ellis-Taylor’s Agent Rand provides the other half of the show’s central tension. Rand is intelligent, relentless, and capable of matching Lucky’s resourcefulness from the opposite side of the law. Their pursuit gives the series its Killing Eve-style tension, even though their relationship is more firmly rooted in a traditional fugitive thriller.
At times, Lucky understands that it is important for characters to become involved in increasingly absurd situations before figuring out how to escape them. The show’s various set pieces are conveniently and easily laid out, which is more important than it seems at first. The series largely works because it recognizes the obvious truth that in an action sequence, audiences lose their grip on events if they cannot understand what is going on. However, not everything is perfect here. The structure of seven episodes sometimes seems stretched as the central continuation repeats itself, which might create some complications. Also, some of the more serious ideas of the series regarding family, victimhood, and the impact of living in a lie do not fit well within the framework of its comedic, action-biased plot.
Still, there is something undeniably watchable about it. Taylor-Joy gives the series a star who can sell both the glamour and the danger, while Bening, Ellis-Taylor, and Olyphant make the world around her considerably more interesting. Lucky may not reinvent the crime thriller, but it knows exactly why people keep coming back to the genre in the first place: stolen money, complicated loyalties, people who cannot be trusted, and a protagonist who is always one bad decision away from making everything worse.
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