S01.E02: Satori

[Bort]

Quote

In need of money, Elizabeth brings her fledgling technology to the venture capitalists of Silicon Valley. In Switzerland, she is forced to make a difficult decision.

Airdate: 3 March 2022

[SlovakPrincess]

It's Stephen Fry!  Love him.

Holmes' turn to the dark side came pretty quickly, apparently!  Poor Edmund.  And that assistant who got fired for no reason.

All the blood everywhere in that hotel room in Switzerland, as they tried all night to get the prototype to work ... 🤮

 

[Emmeline]

The music and dance sequences written into this series are ridiculous.  This is a series based on a woman who  is a pseudo intellectual flim-flam scammer and that doesn’t belong in this story.  The documentaries are much better viewing.

[SunnyBeBe]

IMO, she seems to demonstrate many traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  Everything is about Elizabeth and how it makes her look or feel.  The focus she makes on helping humanity is really a farce.  She feeds on ego and magical thinking.  Except for her, I don’t think she believed in the actual product.  She did believe that magically she could procure an infinite scam.  

Edited March 5, 2022 by SunnyBeBe

[kassandra8286]

2 hours ago, Emmeline said:

The music and dance sequences written into this series are ridiculous.

It is super cringe, I agree. I recall employees did witness her spazzing out/headbanging when she thought she was alone, but yikes, a little of that goes a long way.

 

46 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

IMO, she seems to demonstrate many traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  Everything is about Elizabeth and it makes her look or feel.  The focus she makes on helping humanity is really a farce.  She feeds on ego and magical thinking.  Except for her, I don’t think she believed in the actual product.  She did believe that magically she could procure an infinite scam.  

Oh for sure. Sociopathic, even. She told Sunny in this episode that she "doesn't feel things" before she told him she loved him. And those scenes of her in front of the mirror, practicing smiling and nodding and feigning interest in others, which is textbook sociopath. Not to mention her utter disregard for her employees. They do say many CEOs are sociopathic. I guess some just are better at faking it than Holmes was.

 

[peachmangosteen]

3 hours ago, kassandra8286 said:

She told Sunny in this episode that she "doesn't feel things" before she told him she loved him. 

I think she said she didn't feel things the way other people do. I thought maybe they were trying to say she was neurodivergent. I don't really know anything about the real story here though.

[kassandra8286]

20 minutes ago, peachmangosteen said:

I think she said she didn't feel things the way other people do. I thought maybe they were trying to say she was neurodivergent. 

Oh, you're right, she did say that. And at this point in the series, before she's gone all in on the fraud, etc., her social discomfort and lack of affect could as easily be attributed to neurodivergence as sociopathy. Sorry for the armchair diagnosis. I guess I'm predisposed to judge her harshly, lol, knowing the outcome of the story.

Edited March 5, 2022 by kassandra8286

[chocolatine]

I didn't know Larry Ellison was an investor in Theranos. I've never met him personally, but I believe his portrayal in this episode to be accurate. I worked for a company that was acquired by Oracle in 2014. We got to stay in our pre-acquisition office, but had to hang a picture of Larry's yacht on the wall, which is apparently the rule for every Oracle office (or was at the time, when he was still CEO). I can't even imagine what kind of ego it takes to insist on something like that.

I'm not the least bit shocked that Elizabeth faked the demo for Novartis; tech startups fake demos all the time. It's just that the stakes aren't usually as high as they were in this case.

On 3/3/2022 at 7:56 PM, SlovakPrincess said:

And that assistant who got fired for no reason.

I'm sure she's happy in retrospect that she was no longer working there when the shit really hit the fan.

[Cinnabon]

6 hours ago, kassandra8286 said:

Oh, you're right, she did say that. And at this point in the series, before she's gone all in on the fraud, etc., her social discomfort and lack of affect could as easily be attributed to neurodivergence as sociopathy. Sorry for the armchair diagnosis. I guess I'm predisposed to judge her harshly, lol, knowing the outcome of the story.

I’m also leaning toward sociopathy.

 

SHE ABSOLUTELY HAS SOCIOPATHIC TENDENCIES”: ELIZABETH HOLMES, SOMEHOW, IS TRYING TO START A NEW COMPANY!

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/elizabeth-holmes-is-trying-to-start-a-new-company

Edited March 6, 2022 by Cinnabon

[gesundheit]

I'm really enjoying this so far. Hate to pull the cliché of comparing it to Inventing Anna but it's virtually impossible to avoid -- so far this is so much better. They're actually showing us an arc instead of any overly simplistic "she started out evil just because, and ended up the same kind of evil" version. People's curiosity about her doesn't seem at all unfounded. And that moment of desperation leading to a terrible choice for the demo actually tracks, especially given her sources of advice and her misread on all of it. I hope the quality continues. Seyfried is terrific.

[xaxat]

On 3/5/2022 at 11:53 AM, Emmeline said:

The music and dance sequences written into this series are ridiculous.  This is a series based on a woman who  is a pseudo intellectual flim-flam scammer and that doesn’t belong in this story.  The documentaries are much better viewing.

Agreed. It runs counter not only to the character we have seen so far, but also counter to the real life individual whose life has been so well documented in the last five years.

[Cinnabon]

27 minutes ago, xaxat said:

Agreed. It runs counter not only to the character we have seen so far, but also counter to the real life individual whose life has been so well documented in the last five years.

Not to mention that the music chosen is all over the place.

[Ms Blue Jay]

5 hours ago, gesundheit said:

I'm really enjoying this so far. Hate to pull the cliché of comparing it to Inventing Anna but it's virtually impossible to avoid -- so far this is so much better. They're actually showing us an arc instead of any overly simplistic "she started out evil just because, and ended up the same kind of evil" version. People's curiosity about her doesn't seem at all unfounded. And that moment of desperation leading to a terrible choice for the demo actually tracks, especially given her sources of advice and her misread on all of it. I hope the quality continues. Seyfried is terrific.

Love your post, and agree with the bolded.

I honestly like the music.  Elizabeth and I are peers (blech) so I really did listen to all that music when I was in university.   I don't know the facts of whether it relates to Elizabeth or not, but I believe it's used to set the scene of the 2000s when this was happening.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Ms Blue Jay

[Cinnabon]

1 hour ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

Love your post, and agree with the bolded.

I honestly like the music.  Elizabeth and I are peers (blech) so I really did listen to all that music when I was in university.   I don't know the facts of whether it relates to Elizabeth or not, but I believe it's used to set the scene of the 2000s when this was happening.

The biggest WTF to me was the odd country music she was listening to in high school.

[Ms Blue Jay]

47 minutes ago, Cinnabon said:

The biggest WTF to me was the odd country music she was listening to in high school.

LOL, I guess I didn't notice that one!

[Whimsy]

24 minutes ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

LOL, I guess I didn't notice that one!

That’s the only one we can say for a fact she liked. She put in her senior year book that that country song was her favorite. 

[CrystalBlue]

6 hours ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

Love your post, and agree with the bolded.

I honestly like the music.  Elizabeth and I are peers (blech) so I really did listen to all that music when I was in university.   I don't know the facts of whether it relates to Elizabeth or not, but I believe it's used to set the scene of the 2000s when this was happening.

I'm enjoying the music too.  It's not what I know and listen to but I feel that was her heyday's music and what she and her crowd were listening to.  The only artists I know from the series soundtrack are Alabama, Amy Winehouse ( ❤️ RIP) and I've heard of Missy Elliott.

Fun fact (for me I guess):  We share the same birthday, different years of course.

[dovegrey]

I’m not feeling this show. Seyfried is good, but there isn’t really anything compelling about Holmes, at least as depicted, and I can’t with all these people who should know better…not actually knowing better. Some entitled twenty-something college dropout who can barely hold a conversation couldn’t actually change the world and lied about it? Baffling.

At least Anna Delvey was sort of fun to watch. This show takes itself too seriously. I’m out. 

[Ms Blue Jay]

This is what really happened though.  LOL.  From what I understand, the show is hewing very close to reality.  Anyone can correct me if I am wrong.

[dovegrey]

7 hours ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

This is what really happened though.  LOL.  From what I understand, the show is hewing very close to reality.  Anyone can correct me if I am wrong.

I know that. For a show, it just doesn’t work for me. Holmes is unlikeable and dull; the manic dancing and iPod rubbing doesn’t make her interesting. Sunny is creepy. Her parents are creepy. Her investors are weird. No one is likable enough, IMO, to root for or care about, so I’m having a hard time putting more time in this series. I know how it ends and I guess I don’t care how this weird, uninspiring teenager and her weird enablers get to prison. 

[bluegirl147]

1 hour ago, dovegrey said:

I know that. For a show, it just doesn’t work for me. Holmes is unlikeable and dull; the manic dancing and iPod rubbing doesn’t make her interesting. Sunny is creepy. Her parents are creepy. Her investors are weird. No one is likable enough, IMO, to root for or care about, so I’m having a hard time putting more time in this series. I know how it ends and I guess I don’t care how this weird, uninspiring teenager and her weird enablers get to prison. 

All of what you say is true.  With a few exceptions the people involved in this are unlikable.  And the manic dancing is out of place.  Who does Elizabeth Holmes thinks she is?  Meredith and Christina dancing it out?   But I find the whole story fascinating.  How this one woman started a con (and while it is debatable I think she knew it wouldn't work but hoped she could somehow fake her way through it) and kept it going for so long.  How otherwise intelligent men (and it was almost always men) kept falling for it even when confronted with the truth. Which was Elizabeth Holmes and therefore Theranos was spinning it wheels and going nowhere but was somehow increasing in value.  

[dovegrey]

7 minutes ago, bluegirl147 said:

All of what you say is true.  With a few exceptions the people involved in this are unlikable.  And the manic dancing is out of place.  Who does Elizabeth Holmes thinks she is?  Meredith and Christina dancing it out?   But I find the whole story fascinating.  How this one woman started a con (and while it is debatable I think she knew it wouldn't work but hoped she could somehow fake her way through it) and kept it going for so long.  How otherwise intelligent men (and it was almost always men) kept falling for it even when confronted with the truth. Which was Elizabeth Holmes and therefore Theranos was spinning it wheels and going nowhere but was somehow increasing in value.  

I think I would enjoy it more if it was told more from that perspective than hyperfocusing on Elizabeth and telling the story through her. I don’t care about her. I care about understanding the people who bought her BS. I have no idea why any of these people buy into her (seriously, she’s charmless) and I would like more of their perspective. Damn it, this show has helped me appreciate the framing devices and journalist perspective used on Inventing Anna. Booooo.

[bluegirl147]

56 minutes ago, dovegrey said:

I think I would enjoy it more if it was told more from that perspective than hyperfocusing on Elizabeth and telling the story through her. I don’t care about her. I care about understanding the people who bought her BS. I have no idea why any of these people buy into her (seriously, she’s charmless) and I would like more of their perspective. Damn it, this show has helped me appreciate the framing devices and journalist perspective used on Inventing Anna. Booooo.

I agree different perspectives about a well known story can add a lot.  Julie K Brown the Miami Herald journalist who wrote about Jeffrey Epstein and later wrote a book about him focused on how the Epstein's accusers were treated by law enforcement and the media. Regarding Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos we have not heard a lot about or from people who were duped.  Probably because they don't want to admit how easily they were duped. Some very rich people lost a lot of money.

[SlovakPrincess]

The singing and dancing actually work for me (in the small-enough doses we've had so far, at least -- we'll see if it wears out its welcome in future episodes).    It illustrates how Holmes' go-to was always pumping herself and her company up, rather than allowing herself to critically examine the feasibility of her idea and her own ability to pull it off.  And it shows how invested she is in happy-talk motivational bullshit ... even when she's alone.  

The show's thesis seems to be that Holmes genuinely deluded herself, and believed she would eventually create reliable blood testing -- but it doesn't (so far) shy away from emphasizing the immorality of her lying to and manipulating everybody while the technology is failing.  It's a  tricky balance, but so far this is working for me.   Holmes and Balwani are unlikeable people - but this show lets them be interesting without excusing them.  (The issue I had with Inventing Anna  is that it showed Anna being horrible and manipulative, but then used other characters to wring their hands about "oh poor Anna is in jail!", make unconvincing excuses for her, and imply some of the people she scammed deserved it).  

[zenithwit]

On 3/3/2022 at 7:56 PM, SlovakPrincess said:

It's Stephen Fry!  Love him.

Stephen Fry is really good as Ian Gibbons.  But it is sad seeing how sweet and loveable Ian is knowing how his story ends.

In general, it's tough watching these earlier episodes in a vacuum.  The details of this story are so well-known that it's almost impossible not to prejudge all of the characters.  But I think the show knows this and is doing a decent job at sticking to facts while trying to fill in some of the gaps.

I like how the show is foreshadowing future events in relatively subtle/natural ways.  It almost feels like Easter eggs within the story.  A good example this episode was Ian mentioning that Elizabeth put her name on the patent as an inventor.  Also, I noticed the subtle move of Sunny buttoning the one button on Elizabeth's blouse and then the next scene Elizabeth un-buttoning and re-buttoning the same button while walking to the boat.  It'll be interesting to see how the show will portray that relationship once Sunny joins the company (particularly considering Elizabeth's recent abuse claims against him).

[LuvMyShows]

On 3/6/2022 at 9:01 PM, Cinnabon said:

The biggest WTF to me was the odd country music she was listening to in high school.

OK, so what was more confusing was that something was shown that said the year was 2004 (or maybe 2002), but the Alabama song "I'm In a Hurry" she was listening to was from 1994, and they seemed to be portraying that it was a popular current song on the radio. 

[SunnyBeBe]

On 3/6/2022 at 9:01 PM, Cinnabon said:

The biggest WTF to me was the odd country music she was listening to in high school.

That shocked me too.  Is that part true?  It’s a little disturbing, because I liked that song too.  

[Cinnabon]

2 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

That shocked me too.  Is that part true?  It’s a little disturbing, because I liked that song too.  

I think it’s true. My reaction was the opposite because I hate most contemporary country music. It just seemed odd that she went from loving that song to the music she listened to in college. 

[MaryPatShelby]

I thought, from Bad Blood, The Dropout podcast, and other things I'd read, that it was Elizabeth who was phobic about needles. But this show makes it about her mom being that way. Do I remember wrong, or did the show change it?

[Hanahope]

I think Elizabeth completely believed she was the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg, having a good idea and then letting other people figure out exactly how to make it work.  but eventually it became clear it wasn't going to work.  it almost seems like it was fluke the machine worked right once or twice at all.  and i get her desperation in Switzerland, flying all that way and suddenly the machine didn't work again.  though why she didn't bring some of tech people with her, instead of just 'the sales team' was pretty stupid.  

[Kel Varnsen]

On 3/7/2022 at 2:10 AM, CrystalBlue said:

I'm enjoying the music too.  It's not what I know and listen to but I feel that was her heyday's music and what she and her crowd were listening to.  The only artists I know from the series soundtrack are Alabama, Amy Winehouse ( ❤️ RIP) and I've heard of Missy Elliott.

Is the weird variety of music supposed to show her personality or maybe lack of one. Like one episode she is listening to Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the next she is listening to Missy Elliott. It makes me think that she is so focused on being a success she has no time to really get into things like culture and music and just listens to whatever (indie rock one day and hip hop the next). Sure someone can be into more than one music style but I see her more on the side of not caring about styles or being really interested in music rather than someone who is passionate about music and likes everything.

On 3/8/2022 at 6:34 AM, dovegrey said:

Sunny is creepy. 

The whole thing at the end where he a guy in his 40's was driving through some main street in his Lamborghini and revving the engine at the stop light was super embarrassing. Also I don't get why he isn't a major investor at this point, didn't he say when. They first met he made 40 million off something. But in this episode she said she has only raised $6 million in capital off her parents and family friends.