[TV]
DOPESICK
The good doctor? Michael Keaton as Samuel Finnix.
★★★★
OUT NOW (DISNEY+) EPISODES VIEWED 3 OF 8
SHOWRUNNER Danny Strong
CAST Michael Keaton, Peter Sarsgaard, Kaitlyn Dever, Michael Stuhlbarg, Will Poulter
PLOT The true story of how giant pharmaceutical company Purdue was at the centre of the opioid prescription-painkiller crisis in America, told through the experiences of those who became addicted to their game-changing drug OxyContin, those who created and marketed it, and the investigators who exposed its lethal dangers.
JAMES COMEY (ADAM Fristoe), famous director of the FBI in the Trump era, pops up in Episode 2 of Dopesick, when, as then deputy attorney general, he summons two prosecutors investigating big pharma corporation Purdue in 2005, to ask why they’re on the trail of “the chicken guy”. Turns out Comey was confusing poultry-processing company Perdue, spelled with an ‘e’, with opioid drug manufacturer Purdue. It’s a rare moment of almost goofy comedy in what is, for the most part, a bleak but engrossing account of horrendous corporate greed. It also actually happened. Luckily, said prosecutors Rick Mountcastle (Peter Sarsgaard) and Randy Ramseyer (John Hoogenakker) continued their dogged pursuit of Purdue, and their inquiries form the most urgent strand of Dopesick’s sprawling narrative.