Painkiller review: Netflix's opioid-crisis miniseries is too offbeat for its own good

“This story is a tragedy,” Uzo Aduba elucidates in Painkiller’s premiere, setting up six episodes that chronicle the horrifying rise of the opioid epidemic. Purdue Pharma’s deceitful, evil ways to market the addictive OxyContin pill and the nationwide crisis it caused are already well-documented in various forms: Dopesick, Crime Of The Century, The Pharmacist, All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, and Recovery Road are just a few noteworthy examples from recent years. So to stand out and justify its existence, Painkiller, which debuts August 10 on Netflix, adds surrealism to the mix, much to its detriment. Despite an essential and timely narrative, the show often resorts to goofy dialogue, distracting needle drops, and out-of-synch creative choices that chip away at its sincerity.

Painkiller director Peter Berg claimed in an interview that they wanted to boldly captivate audiences with this move: “It’s tough material. It’s sad, it’s heartbreaking. If we want people to engage, there has to be an entertainment component to it.” While the intention is somewhat understandable, for our money, the opioid crisis feels like too dark a story to infuse with offbeat humor. It’s pointless and gross to see Purdue chairman Richard Sackler (Mathew Broderick)—mainly responsible for relentlessly promoting Oxy—dance around his luxurious mansion in silk pajamas, staring the camera dead in the eye, as he keeps getting richer as people overdose. Painkiller undoubtedly invokes rage, shock, and sympathy. But it doesn’t allow anyone to sit with those emotions for long. It’s too busy being ridiculous.

The show struggles to juggle multiple timelines, character POVs, and tones, only allowing some interesting angles to get surface-level treatments. It has a confusing mix of genres, too: The drama is obviously fictionalized yet it feels like a docuseries, with excessive use of voiceovers, graphics, and headline clippings. Plus, every episode opens with real people remembering their loved ones who died. So there’s whiplash when a tearful mother talks about her son who passed away, and then Richard Sackler is introduced right after with Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound Of Silence” blaring loudly. So yeah, there’s just too much going on.

At least Painkiller primarily uses Aduba’s Edie Flowers, a medical investigator, to thread its myriad stories pretty well. The Orange Is The New Black star is phenomenal here as the catalyst pushing the story forward. Her subtle, sentimental approach grounds everything that is obtrusive about the show, even if she’s frequently only narrating the devastation caused by the Sackler clan. In the early ’90s, Edie discovers how Oxy is being pedaled through doctor prescriptions and pill mills across America, with Purdue using naive young women as their sales reps, among other techniques. She makes it her mission to bring the whole operation down with the aid of her new boss, lawyer John Brownlee (Tyler Ritter).

Edie explains how Richard Sackler came into power after his uncle Arthur’s (Clark Gregg) heart attack and emerged as the mastermind behind creating and supplying OxyContin—without giving a damn about its lethal outcome. Broderick and Gregg face off against each other in absurd ways throughout the six episodes, including a physical fight at the end played for pointless, offbeat laughs. Arthur keeps “appearing” to Richard to guide him on how Purdue Pharma can take advantage of everyone—doctors, FDA administrators, their own employees—to manipulate the public. There’s a never-ending spiel on the “legacy” of the Sacklers, who have once again become the main story as opposed to the families whose lives they destroyed.

That’s not to say the series doesn’t examine the problems of addiction. It does just that via Glen Kryger (Taylor Kitsch), a business owner who is prescribed Oxy after an onsite accident. The medication slowly takes over his life, ruining his entire career and family in the process. Glen’s cautionary tale is distressing to witness because it effectively unpacks how folks got dependent on Oxy, promoted as the ultimate pain-reliever, without realizing it. Painkiller touches on some of the nuances well. But it’s a shame those perspectives weren’t given a better chance to shine. Furthermore, the show sadly and completely ignores how people of color were disproportionately impacted by the opioid epidemic (a problem that’s also in HBO’s Crime Of The Century, directed by Alex Gibney, who co-produced Painkiller).

The show also heavily focuses on Purdue reps Shannon Schaefer (West Duchovny) and Britt Hufford (Dina Shihabi, stuck in an extremely one-dimensional role), who excel at their jobs for the perks before it takes a toll on one of them. Once again, Painkiller spends far too much time on Purdue’s internal corporate culture, depicting everything with a slightly comical lens. Take Richard’s constant debates with his family and board members. Grown white men yelling at each other in a conference room can get really tiring really fast, especially if we already know how corrupt they are.

It also feels like mixed messaging, with the series creators losing their grasp on the meaningful story they want to tell in favor of “entertainment value.” Painkiller might be worth watching for anyone who wants to learn about the epidemic. However, far better projects about the crises exist—and this one just comes off as wasted potential.

Painkiller premieres August 10 on Netflix