In today’s episode of Bingeworthy, our revitalized TV and streaming podcast co-hosts Mike DeAngelo and Rodrigo Perez dive into Hulu’s Theranos/Elizabeth Holmes biotech catastrophe mini-series, “The Dropout” from creator/writer/showrunner Elizabeth Meriwether (“New Girl”) starring Amanda Seyfried. Based on A true story, the TV series chronicles Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes’ attempt to revolutionize the healthcare industry after dropping out of college and starting a cutting-edge start-up tech company. Holmes’ groundbreaking, radical idea is to essentially get rid of needles to test blood, instead, creating a wellness machine that can diagnose all your health problems with a drop of blood within minutes. No weeks-long wait on lab results necessary. Unfortunately for her and all the investors that poured millions into her idea, not only did the technology not exist, it seemed decades away from being more than a dream.
Of course, that didn’t stop Holmes from forging ahead anyhow, with a combination of arrogance, self-belief, but also, the massive stress of having to deliver and all the ways she kept fudging all her company’s results in a way to obtain more funding for what she hoped would eventually lead to actual results. It’s a really complex and layered series about an ambitious young woman with great confidence but also desperation as she tries to hide the imposter syndrome that is always threatening to overcome her. Elizabeth Holmes had good intentions, and she didn’t mean to be a fraud. It’s just that a vast confluence of forces led her to make a series of escalating bad decisions she could not renege on. Of course, it’s all led by a superb performance by Oscar-nominee Amanda Seyfried (read our review here).
At the top of the episode, our hosts discuss their thoughts on the limited series, the outstanding bits of nuance that are integrated into the story, Seyfried’s Emmy-worthy performance, and more.
After the conversation, writer/showrunner Elizabeth Meriwether stops by to discuss what made her want to tell the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.
“I was aware of her story, kind of as the downfall was happening. I read an article in Vanity Fair -— I think that was the first time that I had heard of her — and I was like so, so interested,” Meriwether explained. “I was fascinated by her, and I remember reading it and just thinking like, ‘This is incredible!’ And then I just kind of put it away for a couple of years, and [Fox] Searchlight reached out to me, and they had optioned the podcast, and I hadn’t had a chance to listen to the podcast yet, and so I listened to the podcast and what felt different about the podcast for me was that Rebecca Jarvis, who produced it, was asking more in-depth questions about who Elizabeth was and is and what shaped her and what motivated her.”
Meriwether also knew that it was essential to ground even the most basic points of the character of Elizabeth Holmes in deep emotion, even when it came to the infamous Holmes turtleneck look that defined her for so many years.
“It was really important to me that we didn’t start her off in the turtleneck because that’s how so many people [see her], that’s how she’s been portrayed, and I feel like that had almost become a joke. Like I had heard while we were making the show that some companies had ‘Elizabeth Holmes Thursdays,’ where people would wear black turtlenecks to work. It felt like it had become so much of a joke that I wanted to really examine what it took emotionally to get there.”
The finale of “The Dropout” debuts on Hulu on April 7th. You can listen to the entire podcast below:
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