Blizzard Of The Century – As the third episode of Painkiller begins, Glen Kryger (Taylor Kitsch) is in the hospital. The doctor says they’ll get the detox team in there. Lily Kryger (Carolina Bartczak) insists he isn’t an addict. She says Dr. Hartman claimed it was only addictive in 1% of people. The doctor tells her she has an ER filled with the one percent. Edie Flowers (Uzo Aduba) says there is a long history of the government allowing people to sell things that are bad for you. Arthur Sackler (Clark Gregg) tells Richard Sackler (Matthew Broderick) to MICE them.

Richard tells Dr. Robert Kaiko (Matt Baram) and others how the CIA uses MICE to flip people. He suggests they can use the same method to convince Dr. Curtis Wright (Noah Harpster). Edie says there was an unusual amount of contact between Curtis Wright and Purdue. Richard gets him a webcam so he can meet the team and speak to him over video chat. Edie explains that Purdue needed Curtis to approve language that would allow them to say that OxyContin is the safest opioid on the market. Curtis didn’t approve their application so they continued appealing to his ego. Purdue arranged for Curtis to publish a paper with Dr. Kaiko.

That must’ve made Curtis feel special. Nevertheless, he didn’t fold even after the article was published. They contact Curtis to ask if they could meet in person. Edie admits no one knows what happened in the room during that meeting. Then, she tells them what was said in the approval because she memorized it. The FDA officially said that OxyContin is believed to be safer than anything else like it. Although no one can prove anything illegal happened, Edie knows that Curtis left the FDA a year after OcyContin was approved and eventually went to work for Purdue. Richard throws a party to celebrate the approval.

He tells the crowd that it was approved by the FDA in 11 months and 14 days. Richard says the launch of OxyContin will be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition. Then, there are television news reports about OxyContin being the fastest-growing drug in America. Glen finally makes it back home. When he sees the kitchen in disarray, he remembers what happened. Glen grabs the pill bottle and asks Tyler (Jack Mulhern) and Lily to follow him for a second. He flushes the remaining pills down the toilet because he wants nothing to get between their family. Purdue alleges that any doctor not prescribing OxyContin is practicing inhumane, backward, antiquated malpractice.

Dr. Lorraine Sullivan (Carly Street) speaks to doctors during a conference at a motel in hopes of getting them to prescribe OxyContin. Britt Hufford (Dina Shihabi) and Shannon Schaeffer (West Duchovny) discuss the fact that Lorraine is getting paid $5,500 for this speech. Britt believes it is worth it. After the speech, Britt tells Shannon that her bonus was $42,000. Shannon can’t believe that because she only made $6,500. She questions whether she is terrible at this job. Britt insists she is improving and it is a process. Shannon tells Lorraine she was great. Then, she reminds Britt that she has every doctor on her circuit prescribing. Britt explains the bonus is determined by the number of milligrams instead of prescriptions.

If Shannon wants to make money, she needs to get her doctors to prescribe higher dosages. Britt tells her that they make more money for higher doses. She recommends Shannon go get some doctors to listen to her. Shannon speaks to Dr. Tim Cooper (Johnny Sneed) about increasing his dosage. She suggests he can think about it over lunch. During lunch, Shannon suggests she is showing him a way to be better at his job and he doesn’t seem receptive to it. Tim doesn’t think prescribing more is always going to be helpful though. Edie says this was a very good time for Richard Sackler.

From a law enforcement perspective, they were off the radar. She got a new boss named John Brownlee who was a US attorney from Virginia. Edie says John (Tyler Ritter) seemed like a nice guy but also seemed like a big goofy load of Wonder Bread. In a flashback, John learns more about his coworkers and the cases they’re currently working on. Edie tells him about OxyContin and the robbery she witnessed. John reminds her she needed to report it to law enforcement. Edie says John thought she had a problem with it while the FDA didn’t. She realized she needed to approach it differently.

Edie knew there must’ve been a crime there, but she wasn’t able to figure it out. Riggs (Kyle Gatehouse), who attempted to steal from the pharmacy, ends up overdosing and dying. Edie learns that he had OxyContin pills in his stomach and another guy had even more. More people overdose. Edie continues her investigation and speaks to a sheriff about OxyContin. He asks if she likes horror movies. Edie soon turns her attention to Shannon. Meanwhile, Shannon watches a girl come out of Tim Cooper’s office on crutches. She gives the crutches to another girl and runs across the street to get her prescription filled.

When the girl returns, she gets high with her friend. Shannon tries to check on them, but they panic and cause a crash while speeding away. Back home, Shannon tells Britt what she just saw. She admits she put it in her notes that some of the people there looked like they didn’t need OxyContin. Britt asks for her notes because she claims she’ll handle them for her. She tells Shannon that they’ll always be addicts out there and it is her job to sell. Edie says most people don’t kick an OxyContin habit by flushing it down the toilet. Glen begins struggling as he tries to come off the drug.

He visits Dr. Hartman and speaks to him about what happened. Glen admits the pain is still near a 9 or 9 and a half. Dr. Hartman (Darrin Baker) tells him to be careful because people are starting to snort OxyContin. He gives him a prescription for 40 pills. Deborah Marlowe (Trenna Keating) calls Shannon to tell her that Howard Udell wants to fly her to Connecticut so he can speak to her. Later, Edie plays Tomb Raider and remembers telling Shawn he knew what he was selling would kill someone. They talk about their mom being a crack abuser before they argue about him taking responsibility for this.

Edie eventually storms into John’s office to show him the correlation between OxyContin, overdoses, crime, and unemployment. Edie tells Brianna that this is crack cocaine all over again. Glen’s addiction seems to be getting worse. Edie shows John the stuffed animal. Dr. Gregory Fitzgibbons (John Ales) finds Jess passed out on the lawn. Edie tells John that they should go after Purdue Pharma. Shannon goes to Connecticut to meet Howard Udell.

 

Painkiller Review

Halfway through Painkiller, there have been no signs of improvement so it is hard to be optimistic about the future episodes. This episode was really all over the place because the series is trying to do too much and the writing isn’t strong enough to juggle everything competently. Truthfully, it is a little juvenile at points even though the subject matter should’ve been taken very seriously.

The scenes with Curtis at the pool and rap playing in the background added very little and showed much Painkiller has gotten wrong. There really isn’t any attempt to build sympathetic characters from the victims and those fighting for justice are either obnoxious or shown in brief flashes.

The decision to create a fictional character to portray as the hero has possibly taken away from everything else and has further created a juxtaposition of scenes that carry little weight. In a way, the story is being messily told from the outside looking in so it lacks genuine emotional pull. This episode scores a 4.5 out of 10. Recaps of Painkiller can be found on Reel Mockery here.

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