Welcome to the Weekend Binge. Every week, we’ll suggest a binge-able title designed to keep you from getting too stir crazy. Check back throughout the weekend for even more gloriously queer entertainment.
The Sickening: Dopesick
Danny Strong, the brilliant writer behind Game Change, Recount and producer of Empire created this riveting limited series about the opioid crisis in the United States…and how one sociopathic family knowingly unleashed a beast for personal gain.
Dopesick centers, in part, on the story of Betsy (Kaitlyn Dever), a teenage miner living in rural Virginia. Betsy still lives with her religious parents, but dreams of escaping town with her girlfriend Grace to a better, openly gay life. As such, she keeps up her work at the mine until a serious back injury threatens her livelihood. Her kindly country doctor, Dr. Samuel Finnix (Michael Keaton), prescribes her a new miracle painkiller, OxyContin. Of course, it doesn’t take long for Betsy to become an addict.
The story of Betsy and Dr. Finnix is just one of several story threads in Dopesick, set in multiple time periods. Another follows Richard Sackler (Call Me By Your Name’s Michael Stuhlbarg, in full mad scientist mode), the eccentric and nefarious head of Purdue pharma, a man obsessed with marketing OxyContin as a non-addictive painkiller to the point of trying to arrange sexual liaisons in the name of selling the drug. Across the country, DEA agent Bridget Meyer (Rosario Dawson) begins to notice a sudden explosion of OxyContin-related crimes. Meanwhile, US Attorney Rick Mountcastle (Peter Sarsgaard) begins to compile a case against Purdue, uncovering the true extent of the opioid epidemic, and Purdue’s efforts to cover it up.
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It’s oh-so-appropriate to cast once and future Batman Keaton in the role of an everyman doctor who plays an important role in aiding the DEA and US Attorney: the scheme at the heart of Dopesick is one worthy of any supervillain. It helps too that Stuhlbarg seems to play Richard Sackler with Lex Luthor or the Riddler in mind. He wants the world to get hooked on OxyContin for the sole purpose of increasing his family’s wealth, and goes to great lengths to accomplish his plan. Sackler and Purdue created fake “pain societies” to help market the drug, spread false information to encourage doctors to increase doses, and fired employees that questioned the ethics of their crusade. Dawson and Sarsgaard both give committed everyman performances in the Commissioner Gordon vein, both trying to wrangle the magnitude of Purdue’s nefarious scam and meeting with one obfuscation after the next.
To its credit, Dopesick focuses on the human drama of its characters as much as the crime thriller aspects of it all. It also includes a healthy dose of queerness on both sides of the camera. Besides Betsy’s coming out and addiction, Dopesick also includes the presence of queer actors Dawson and Raúl Esparza, coincidentally as her husband. Most important of all, though, the combined talents of Dopesick (which also include actors Ray McKinnon, Mare Winningham, Cleopatra Coleman and Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson) drive home the series’ most chilling point: the OxyContin crisis is a scandal on par with Big Tobacco’s inclusion of addictive carcinogens in cigarettes, or the crack epidemic of the 1980s. And it’s still going on today.
Dopesick succeeds as a powerful human drama and riveting conspiracy thriller, one worthy of any superhero epic. Of course, in this world, we can’t rely on people in capes to save us from the poison of an evil genius that we might all live happily ever after. In this world, people die while corporations post profits.
Streams on Hulu.
man5996853
It is a difficult watch. My uncle had chronic pain due to an accident on the job and was prescribed Oxys. Three years later, he died of an overdose. It’s heartbreaking to watch this show knowing that these predators are still living in their mansions without a care in the world. They should all be shot.
edwardnvirginia
of course, one of the many historical, systemic, racist reasons WHY no many in Appalachia are pain-pill and otherwise addicted is because
metro elite economies, societies and cultures have of so long denigrated, belittled, devalued, and oppressed Appalachian places, economies, and communities
extracting stuff metros need – like energy, like mined products (to make their technology, to build their skyscrapers, subways, etc), like food, like cheap labor – but paying horrible wages, for dangerous jobs like mining, lumbering, food productions, energy production
cities owe Appalachia, and rural area BIG BIG BIG reparations!
ondaboat0069
Average base salary
Data source tooltip for average base salary.help-tooltip
82 salaries reported, updated at October 12, 2021
$21.15
per hour
The average salary for a underground miner is $21.15 per hour in West Virginia.
6% lowerthan national average
Most common benefits
401(k) matching
Vision insurance
401(k)
Dental insurance
Health insurance
ondaboat0069
Lumberjack Salary
How much does a Lumberjack make?
The average Lumberjack in the US makes $46,402. The average bonus for a Lumberjack is $879 which represents 2% of their salary, with 100% of people reporting that they receive a bonus each year. Lumberjacks make the most in Washington, DC at $56,072, averaging total compensation 21% greater than the US average.
U.S. Average
$46,402
$22,150$69,920
Base Salary
$45,523
Bonus
$879
Get Bonus
100%
Cam
And it has nothing to do with people in those areas supporting politicians that vote against anything going to the area. Joe Manchin blocked paid leave, didn’t support a minimum wage, etc.. all of which would have helped these areas.
Coal barrons are allowed to close down without fixing the land and can declare bankruptcy and get out of paying the miners who got sick working for them. All supported by the politicians continually voted back into office.
So there is enough blame to spread around, and it is a very very easy cop out to say “Things are bad and it’s all those big cities fault!
jaimedance3
So, what’s the part of the gay story ? I didn’t see that in the trailer!
AJAnders
Probably a blink and you’ll miss him gay character. The guy who gets about 20 seconds of screen time and then the creators of the movie give themselves a pat on the back for being “inclusive.”
jfabz
Didn’t you read the article? One of the characters is a woman who wants to leave town with her girlfriend.