TV Show Review - Dopesick (Mini Series)

Season: Mini Series
Genre: Drama
Number of episodes: 8
Year: 2021
Starring: Michael Keaton, Kaitlyn Dever, Rosario Dawson, Michael Stuhlbarg, Peter Sarsgaard, Will Poulter, John Hoogenakker, Will Chase, Mare Winningham, Ray McKinnon

Description: The series takes viewers to the epicenter of America’s struggle with opioid addiction from the boardrooms of Purdue Pharma, to a distressed Virginia mining community to the hallways of the DEA.

Review: When Purdue Pharma introduced its new painkiller OxyContin in the US, the opiate was touted as non-addictive. The result was an epidemic of drug abuse that has destroyed tens of thousand of lives since the late 1990s. “Dopesick” charts the epidemic from different perspective.

For people with chronic pain, OxyContin seemed like a panacea: an effective painkiller that gradually absorbed into the body throughout the day, all without the drawback of habitation or addiction. The pills caught on eagerly, and for patients who still felt pain came pills with the double dose. And then pills with fourfold dose, eightfold dose, and so on. Now the drug is used in the US by eleven million people who have no pain symptoms at all, but are addicted to it.

The question, of course, is how on earth doctors, pharmacists and regulators could let this happen. The eight-part series “Dopesick” tries to answer that question, which is not easy. The creators portray the history through the Sackler family (owners of Purdue Pharma) and the sales representatives who convince doctors to prescribe the pills. In addition, we see the doctors and their patients, the cops who see how addiction in turn leads to crime and the drug enforcement agency DEA doing everything in its power to take down Purdue.

What makes “Dopesick” so brilliant is on the one hand the incredible but true story, and on the other the human way it is told. We are introduced to Samuel Finnix, played excellently by Michael Keaton. He is a family doctor in a mining town who initially gets great results with OxyContin, but then sees how addiction destroys lives and families. Betsy Mallum, played convincingly by Kaitlyn Dever, is one of his patients who slips into an existence as a junkie because of the OxyContin. Both actors shine in their performances and Keaton won an Emmy for his role.

Will Poulter also plays one of the better roles, as the smooth-talking salesmen Billy Cutler, who at first picks up fantastic bonuses, but then slowly  falls into conscience. This does not bother Richard Sackler (Michal Stuhlbarg): as boss of Purdie Pharma, he sees the billions pouring in. Stuhlbarg manages to portray Sackler as an emotionless businessman only wanting more. Furthermore, Peter Sarsgaard, John Hoogenakker and Rosario Dawson, among others, play some of the driven agents who want to take the pills of the market. The good fleshing out of all these characters keeps the series from becoming a documentary.

Based on Beth Macy’s book of the same name, the creators of “Dopesick” so not tell the story neatly in chronological order but jump back and forth in time. And it actually helps to see the big picture and connections without confusion.

While watching “Dopesick” you will most definitely feel many emotions and the one most presence is anger. As in how so many people could be so greedy and corrupt to allow this drama of unprecedented magnitude to happen. We never really get an answer to that, which makes it even more frustrating. But “Dopesick” is one of the most intense and realistic mini series based on true events I have seen in a long time. I loved it.