Related Articles
The national opioid crisis has inspired a new series that hopes to lead to change. On Tuesday, Netflix released the trailer for Painkiller, a six-episode fictional series inspired by the real events that led to the rise of Purdue Pharma and Oxycontin.
Uzo Aduba plays the lead prosecutor Edie Flowers, who works to take down Purdue Pharma, as her character accuses the company of “doing the same as every crack dealer in America, but they’re getting rewarded for it.”
The trailer follows Matthew Broderick in the role of Purdue Pharma’s chairman Richard Sackler as he pushes to make oxycontin grow and more doctors begin to prescribe it. The trailer teases how the company sent beautiful saleswomen to convince hospitals and clinics to give it to their patients and “take pain seriously.” (“You’re just a drug dealer with a ponytail,” one addict’s family member later tells her.)
Broderick’s character bases his oxycontin sales at Purdue Pharma on one main principle: “All of human behavior is essentially comprised of two things: Run from pain, run toward pleasure. If we place ourselves between pain and pleasure, we will no longer have to worry about money again.”
The trailer details the rise of Purdue Pharma and how its leaders celebrate its exponential growth with massive parties while its lower-tier saleswomen are rewarded with gifts as they spread oxy across the U.S. “They know they are killing people,” assures Aduba as she works to prosecute the family.
Taylor Kitsch, Dina Shihabi, West Duchovny, and John Rothman are also part of the cast. The show is being executive-produced by Eric Newman, who led Narcos and True Story, and director Pete Berg, known for his work on Friday Night Lights.
The series uses the book Pain Killer by Barry Meier and the New Yorker‘s article “The Family That Built the Empire of Pain” by Patrick Radden Keefe as references for the series.
“The show begins with a disclaimer that clearly spells out that, while based on real events,
we’ve taken creative license to tell this story. That disclaimer is being read by the loved ones of victims
of America’s opioid crisis, which drives home just how real this story is,” Newman told Netflix‘s Tudum. “Some of our characters are clearly versions of real people. Other characters, like Edie Flowers, are composite characters — a fictional amalgamation of a few different people.”
“But even the fictionalized elements of this show are grounded in the knowledge that the painful repercussions of opioid addiction are playing out across America every day,” he added. “That’s what lies at the heart of Painkiller; trying to understand how this all started, so that we can maybe finally stop it.”
