Courtesy of Peacock

An assassin hunting for one last kill, a determined law enforcement agent racing to stop him: We’ve seen the elements that make up Peacock’s The Day of the Jackal many times before on screen. So it’s a massive credit to the series — debuting Thursday, Nov. 14; I’ve seen the first five episodes — that it manages to make those well-worn elements feel fresh and exciting. It’s a rivetingly tense, effortlessly cool thrill ride that delivers plenty of pulse-pounding moments worthy of the big screen. But it also takes time to examine the very real human toll that all this action takes, with a surprising emotional depth that helps puts it right near the top of this year’s TV dramas.

Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne stars as a highly trained and highly paid hitman known as the Jackal, using an array of disguises and speaking multiple languages to pull off his daring kills. (It’s based on the classic novel and film of the same name, but it also closely matches the coldblooded vibe of David Fincher’s The Killer.) After he pulls off a daring assassination and then vanishes, MI6 agent Bianca (Captain Marvel’s Lashana Lynch) is tasked with tracking him down before he kills again. As the investigation heats up, both killer and cop push things to the absolute limit, and beyond, to get what they want — with everyone in their path paying the price.

This is really high-level stuff: Writer Ronan Bennett, who created the acclaimed British crime drama Top Boy, has built a sturdy narrative that is complicated but not confusing, commanding our attention with crisply executed twists and turns. The scripts are relentlessly smart, and so are the characters; they’re not forced to make dumb decisions just to keep the plot alive. It’s a beautifully shot series, too, with the Jackal hopping from Germany to Spain to France in picturesque fashion. (If nothing else, it serves as a handsome travelogue for Europe’s finer locations.)

The Jackal pulls off his hits with chilly precision, and it’s mesmerizing to watch Redmayne methodically go to work, employing an arsenal of James Bond-esque gadgets and weaponry as tools of the trade. The action scenes are genuinely thrilling as well, with expertly staged shootouts and car chases reliably provided in each episode. Plus, the moody indie-rock soundtrack — I heard multiple songs by Radiohead and Thom Yorke in there — helps establish a dark, cinematic tone.

Redmayne and Lynch are both fantastic here, adding an essential humanity to all the gunfire and explosions. (They’re backed up by strong supporting turns, too, including Money Heist’s Úrsula Corberó as a woman in the Jackal’s orbit who suspects he’s hiding something from her.) Lynch’s Bianca is just as driven as the Jackal, in her own way: Both are extremely good at their jobs, maybe too good, ditching their loved ones to stay on the grind and more than willing to bend the rules… sometimes with tragic consequences. It leads to fascinating moral conundrums in the vein of FX’s The Americans, as their cat-and-mouse games start to cause significant collateral damage that reverberates well beyond anything they planned.

That’s the tricky tightrope that The Day of the Jackal finds a way to balance on: Redmayne brings such nuance and dimension to the Jackal that we almost root for him to get away with it, but the show never shies away from the trail of pain and misery he leaves in his wake. And Lynch’s Bianca would usually be the hero of this story, and yet she makes choices that horrify us as viewers. Everything here is pulled off with admirable skill and elegance, just like clockwork… almost like the Jackal pulling off one of his hits, actually.

THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: Peacock’s The Day of the Jackal is a top-notch thriller, with dazzling action sequences and smart storytelling.