S01.E01: The One to Start With, The One to Stay With

[gesundheit]

"Seizing an opportunity, Richard bets on an opiate that relieves pain. College graduate Shannon takes a job at Purdue. Glen suffers a workplace injury."

So far this one has the edge on Dopesick, if only for the presence of Uzo Aduba and the remarkably lower rate of terrible wigs on everyone.

 

It feels promising.

[QQQQ]

This is really good! 

 

Wondering about the production backstory as I see other forum topics were created over 3 years ago. Was it delayed because of Covid?

[gesundheit]

3 hours ago, QQQQ said:

Wondering about the production backstory as I see other forum topics were created over 3 years ago. Was it delayed because of Covid?

I wondered the same thing -- perhaps it got pandemic-delayed and then further delayed due to the glut of other releases on the same topic?

[SeanBug]

I watched Dope Sick and it was gut wrenching. I don't know if I can take another look at these sick fucks and what they did.  My father was being over prescribed Oxycodone and Ambien by his doctor, and even after I threatened to sue him, he wouldn't stop writing prescriptions for huge amounts of both drugs. 

Watching Broderick wander thru that house in the first minutes of the show makes me sick to my stomach, knowing they got wealthy off the deaths of people and ruination of families. 

I saw SCOTUS isn't allowing them to pay off plaintiffs and not be held responsible for what they did.

Burn in hell, mother fuckers. 

[PrincessPurrsALot]

This is really well done.  I like how they are viewing it from different angles: drug company, Sacklers, drug reps, doctors, pharmacists, patients, families.  There are so many people in the chain with the top spreading lies throughout.  It also features an excellent cast.  I'm in. 

I cannot see a mansion like that without thinking about how many people could actually live there comfortably.  Then to learn how much of his wealth was smoke and mirrors, leading to Richard Sackler's push to develop Oxycontin.  How do these people never feel rich enough? 

[Sweet-tea]

I liked the first episode but it’s very similar to Dopesick, which was excellent. Wonder why they made two series so much alike so close together in time. 

The scene where the guy got hurt was hard to watch. Tense as I could see it coming. 

[lovinbob]

On 8/10/2023 at 9:40 PM, gesundheit said:

"Seizing an opportunity, Richard bets on an opiate that relieves pain. College graduate Shannon takes a job at Purdue. Glen suffers a workplace injury."

So far this one has the edge on Dopesick, if only for the presence of Uzo Aduba and the remarkably lower rate of terrible wigs on everyone.

 

It feels promising.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head. I thought Dopesick was brilliantly done, but the wigs were truly distracting.

One episode in -- Matthew Broderick is nailing the Richard Sackler creep factor. Clark Gregg as Arthur, haunting Purdue and all of the Sacklers' victims, is also great. I'm so intrigued by the dysfunctional Sackler family. It's shocking how terrible people can be. 

This take on the pharma sales side of things adds a different layer that Dopesick didn't have. IIRC, the young male salesman in Dopesick seemed already established, so the young Ohio State grad escaping her horrible family through this sales gig is promising. 

And Uzo Aduba is really great here. Looking forward to watching more.

 

[MaggieG]

On 8/14/2023 at 7:58 PM, Sweet-tea said:

I liked the first episode but it’s very similar to Dopesick, which was excellent. Wonder why they made two series so much alike so close together in time. 

The scene where the guy got hurt was hard to watch. Tense as I could see it coming. 

I know, I kept waiting for it to happen. I kept thinking his brother was accidentally going to hit him with that claw thing. 

[PurpleTentacle]

I'm always kind of split on this. On the one hand, how this was marketed, like it wasn't addictive, was obviously wrong. On the other hand, some people obviously needed these stronger opiods. We saw a guy piss himself because he couldn't get off the couch because of all the pain he was in and then walk around normally on oxycontin.

For those people, I think the bigger problem was, that the government and doctors went full panic mode and made it basically impossible to get opiods continously, which made these people have to switch to street opiods. Had they just continued to get their medication, the opiod epidemic wouldn't be half as bad as it is now.

So I see this as a problem with two causes, a greedy company pushing an addictive drug under false pretenses and then an overreaction by the government.