'Painkiller' vs. 'Dopesick': Which Series Tackles the Opioid Crisis Better?"
Painkiller is a show with a story that we have all heard before. Perhaps we have not heard the exact story of Purdue Pharma but we have heard about opiod addiction and those responsible for it.
Painkiller is the second attempt at this story. Dopesick did it first and frankly did it better. That does not make Painkiller a bad show. It is very informative, and the cast is very good, but Dopesick got to these dramatic beats first and handled them in a more resonating way.
Both series feature the Sackler family as they were the real-life family at the center of the crisis. Richard Sackler, to be precise, was the president of Purdue Pharma and the main push behind OxyContin. Played in Painkiller by Matthew Broderick and in Dopesick by Michael Stuhlbarg. It is Broderick who gets that edge simply because they explored the more sublte nuances, and the visions of his egomaniac uncle Arthur, played by Clark Gregg, helped heigten the performance.
As far as the rest of the story, Dopesick handled that better. In Dopesick, you have a young girl who receives an injury at a mine. Kaitlyn Dever is phenomenal in that role, and Michael Keaton starred as a doctor who himself got addicted to OxyContin. Keaton as Dr. Finnix had much more of a plot than any one doctor did in Painkiller. In Painkiller, they presented the doctors as easy to manipulate by the seduction and enticing of the beautiful young women who made up Purdue's sales force.
Both featured real-life prosecutor storylines, and Dopesick handled that much better as well. Dopesick was much better thought out as an individual story while tackling the larger issue with the Sacklers. Painkiller tried to rely on more striking visuals and less development pertaining to the characters that made up the overall narrative. The Sackler family is one component of the story. While Broderick turned in a great and memorable performance, the rest of the cast of Painkiller felt forgotten, and that is due in large part to Dopesick telling this story so well.
The real tragedy here was and still remains the staggering number of people who are addicted to prescription painkiller medicines. Purdue Pharma is one instance of big pharma greed, but we need more education on addiction itself. Both shows were not afraid to show you how bad it was on the streets and just how addictive OxyContin is. As it is referred to in the series, it was like selling "Heroine in a pill form" and the real sadness stems from the fact so many deaths went ignored so one family could line their pockets.
