The Dropout is just one of three different shows about startup founders and their demise out right now. It’s also part of a larger trend of dramatization of real stories that are seen in other shows such as Inventing Anna, Pam & Tommy, and The Girl from Plainville to name a few. It’s a tricky prospect, trying to create a sense of tension and mystery around public figures who have had very recent- and highly publicized- falls from grace. Thankfully, The Dropout gets more things right than wrong.
Anchored by a deposition where a very disheveled Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried) giving a deposition to the SEC, the show takes us through her humble beginnings as a wide-eyed teenager who’s convinced she will become a billionaire and searches for purpose at Stanford, eventually deciding to drop out and start a biomedical company called Theranos to revolutionize the blood-testing industry. As time progresses, Holmes realizes that she’s out of her depth, and in a moment of desperation, decides to falsify test reports from her machine (which was still very defective) during an investor presentation.
Holmes digs deeper into the lie as she onboards an impressive board of directors such as General Mattis and former Secretary of State George Shultz (Sam Waterson) and makes large retail deals with companies like Walgreens. Assisted by her secret boyfriend Sunny Balwani (Naveen Andrews), who came on board as the COO, Holmes feels untouchable until two whistleblowers came forward and exposed Theranos’ operations to a Wall Street Journal reporter. Suddenly, her house of cards comes tumbling down.
The show is boosted by several strong performances.
Seyfried delivers one of her career-best turns as Holmes, portraying her slow transformation into a lying executive who charms almost everyone into believing in her mission.
The show doesn’t make Holmes a sympathetic figure, but you get to see some of the influences that forged her into her executive persona, such as her fondness for Steve Jobs and all things Apple, and a pivotal moment in her college life where her mother advises her to just move on after being assaulted.
Naveen Andrews is also solid as Balwani, portraying a complicated man who falls for a younger woman and readily agrees to be her right-hand man as he suppresses the truth and disciplines employees when they try to investigate the truth of Theranos’ blood-testing process. Then there’s Stephen Fry’s Ian Gibbons, who delivers a poignant turn as a man who bought into Holmes’ vision and is betrayed and punished as Holmes scales up her lies. Others, like Dylan Minnette, Camryn Mi-young Kim, and Sam Waterson, who played Dylan Shultz, Erika Cheung, and George Shultz respectively, also gave important performances that underlined how difficult it was for whistleblowers to come forward, and also how for some investors it was difficult to believe the truth because they didn’t want to believe they had been duped.
Showrunner Liz Meriwether and directors Michael Showalter, Francesca Gregorini, and Erica Watson do a commendable job in making an engrossing story around something whose eventual outcome was already known. The soundtrack, full of electronic and percussive beats reminiscent of Trent Reznor’s score for The Social Network, also does a great of job of adding to the atmosphere.
Unfortunately, in all of the three shows on the air right now about startup CEOs who suffered dramatic declines, none of these ‘villains’ are really humbled.
Sure, we see Holmes lose her company and reputation, but by the end of the series she’s also in a happy relationship with her new boyfriend who came from wealth, one that eventually resulted in a marriage. The finale misses a prime opportunity to put the spotlight on Holmes as she crumbles under questioning during the deposition, instead opting for an encounter where her former chief counsel accuses her of hurting people and Holmes reacts by running away with her dog and screaming into the void before putting on her smile as her Uber arrives. It’s a decent point to end the series, but those who know more are likely to feel disappointed that Holmes never gets her just desserts.
Unfortunately, that’s the way these things turn out in most cases. It’s the consumers who lose out, as well as the thousands of employees who find themselves without jobs. Of course, Holmes may still face jail time for her crimes, but if you were to ask me, I wouldn’t be holding my breath for that verdict.