Finished this about a week or so ago and it really hasn't left my mind. This series is next level awesome. With standout performances from Michael Keaton, Peter Sarsgaard, and the truly amazing Kaitlyn Dever, this is a must watch. Throw every award under the sun at Keaton and Dever for this!

From Wiki:

"Dopesick focuses on "the epicenter of America's struggle with opioid addiction" across the U.S., and specifically the drug OxyContin."

This is often hard to watch and absolutely gut-wrenching in parts but a cracker of a show all round.

Check it out if you haven't already.

I just...

There were some great things about Dopesick (I still think about the Michael Keaton character immediately hitting up colleagues for oxy when he's still in rehab - really great way to establish to how insidious opioid addiction is, just how fucked those who got hooked are, and that recovery takes years of hard work, not just detox).

But Danny Strong (creator) always seems to take the path of least resistance when writing. He can't deal with moral nuance. The Sackler characters are not just evil and capitalistic, but they're so fundamentally evil that not a single Sackler character voices a single concern about addiction - which, in real life, I find hard to believe. I would be willing to believe that, within Purdue Pharma, there were many executives who held heavy heads about the impact of Oxy. Which would have been interesting to explore, but instead we get Stahlberg's Bond Villain interpretation of pure evil.

Further - Besty (Dever's) character couldn't just be an innocent victim of the crisis, she had to be the most morally perfect character who ever walked the earth before she succumbs to addiction. I really dislike black and white characterisation - Betsy is a victim, so she must be the perfect victim - she got her Oxy script via legitimate need from a legitimate doctor, and didn't start misusing the med until far into the script. These people are real, but why not show us more of the people who sought out legal highs and got over their heads? Are they not worthy of eulogising?

Another example - Strong chooses to contrast Will Poulter's drug rep character's misgivings about the drug with Phillip's Soo complete lack of care about the morals of the situation, and villainous actions. Thee is just NO middle ground. Why not have Poulter become aware of Oxy's impacts but continue to reap the financial benefit until he sees the impact on Keaton (for instance), then do his 180? He would be a less morally "perfect" character for doing so, but this more likely how people approached the issue.

The procedural cop/prosecutor elements work fine, but the time jumps are SO frustrating. I thick having Dawson try and fail to stop drug production and then move into the federal prosecutor's attempts would have better captured the nightmare that the process was, and let the audience feel Dawson's complete resignation. It would have let the ending feel a little more earned.

Another thing I liked -- the what Betsy's parents came to accept her sexuality. Very realistic - not all at once, it happened over time, and still neither parent totally got everything right.

The scenes at the FDA where the FDA managers are CONSTANTLY being asked to sign off on papers by juniors and complete work, even while being interviewed agents, was a good way to describe government overwork (as a government worker). I also like that Saarsgard's character was unashamedly Christian, and aksed to pray for his friend, and it wasn't plot related - that's just how life is sometimes. It wasn't a flaw, or positive trait - some people just find srength that way.

Finally, another missed opportunity -the show sort of shows the way the drug itself destroyed communities in Appalachia. There's a few scenes that do this. But this could have really dug deeper, showing the systematic rot in these places, the lack of opportunity, and drug-related poverty. A few scenes with teens ODing in cars doesn't capture the way these towns have been destroyed by Purdue Pharma.

Just my rant. I still enjoyed it - very compelling. I just couldn't stop feeling that Strong (writer) missed so many opportunities.