Painkiller: Recently released on Netflix, this 6 part series is meant to shock you. Outlining in the series a number of parallel stories, we the viewer are able to see the early days until today what the “opiod crisis” has done. Specifically, we are shown the Sackler family, the company Purdue and their opiod creation Oxycotin. A powerful drug with even more powerful marketing and business model, which turned the Sacklers and Purdue in a multi-billion dollar company. We see the effects on individual families, including introductions by real people showing real victims to drug addiction before each episode begins.
The series starts off pretty slowly. As someone of my generation, it is hard to think of Ferris Bueller (actor Matthew Broderick) as a bad guy. He plays Richard Sackler. We are introduced to Edie Flowers who from all appearances seems jaded to being brought into a law office to discuss new efforts to “go after” the Sackler family. Then we look backward in time. Edie has her own issues with Purdue and she is formerly with the Attorney General’s office. She decided earlier in her career to pursue a case against Purdue. Elsewhere we see the Purdue team ratcheting up the marketing effort by hiring new attractive female recent university grads to sell to the mostly male doctor clients. Purdue is looking to incent sales people to sell more, by also incenting the doctors to prescribe higher dosage of the new drug, which incidentally is basically prescribed heroin. Some doctors understand this, but many others prescribe because they are making money from the drugs. One of the more intriguing aspects of the show was looking to get the FDA to approve the drug and the particularly diligent agent at the FDA handling the case. Talk about Purdue making a full court press with this individual. By the end, with the lives of many falling apart at the seams, something has to give. But one wonders “I think I remember a big settlement in the news for billions by Sackler” and you would remember correctly. Sadly that isn’t the full story and those who have watched enough series like this will not be overly shocked of the outcome. Yes, the producers and director wanted you to be, but it seems like there can be different layers to “justice”. This was decent. I don’t consider the performances particularly noteable, although Edit probably stands out among them. This series is all the more reason to be avoiding precribed drugs, and especially drugs for pain.
SpiderMan: Across the Spiderverse: So what do you say about a Spiderman cartoon when you aren’t really much of a Marvel superhero? It’s a challenge. I had seen the prior cartoon incarnation Into the Spiderverse from 2018. This is a sequal and builds upon it. It should be said that you should likely watch the original to better understand this one and the characters. You are introduced to Miles Morales who is bitten by a radioactive spider. Pretty standard Spidey stuff.
I spoil nothing if you have any familiarity with this series that there are multiple existing spider-errr people. This is the Spiderman series that someone who loves time and existential plains would write, so someone like a Christopher Nolan and his brother. In short, there are multiple Spideys (like Peter Parker) but he is not the only one. Others can be fighting the good fight. Miles like all new Spiderman has to better learn the skills and keep his existence under wraps and away from his police dad. In the first episode he made some friends, but he still keeps mainly to himself. He is smart in school but struggles with balancing his roles. In this episode his parents are a bit worried about his studies and what is happening with him.
In the end, this is another installment and there is more to come. It was a smash hit earlier in the theatres with mostly positive reviews. I find it hard to keep track of all the plains and who is in that plain. Further it is a challenge with opening up windows of existence (think Doctor Strange if that means anything to you) and moving around that way which animation handles adeptly better than a real version ever could. There is a guy who looks oddly like Roschach/Walter Kovacs. There is an explanation given for this characters skills, but it is beyond my comprehension as my eyes were glazing over. He is pretty important but still. In the end, this was quality animation, with really good use of colours and cool visuals. It was a complex, if not a little confusing story for me, but your viewing and understanding of the material could be a LOT better than mine. So I was somewhat entertained. I still don’t see what all the fuss is about, but everyone has their own thing. So it was decent for someone who was not a big fan of these multiple Spidermans and actors who play them.
Mondays With Robbie 