Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
LINDA HOLMES, HOST:
This episode contains discussion of sexual assault.
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HOLMES: The promise of the bloodwork startup Theranos was hard to resist if you don't like needles - a finger stick instead of a big blood draw. The very idea made founder Elizabeth Holmes a star, but she didn't actually ever have the operational technology she claimed to have. And if you watch the news, you know she was recently found guilty of fraud and is awaiting sentencing. Amanda Seyfried plays Holmes in a new Hulu series called "The Dropout," which promises to show you how the tech wunderkind and Theranos went from darlings to defendants. I'm Linda Holmes, and we're talking about "The Dropout" on today's POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR.
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HOLMES: Here with me today is NPR political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben. Welcome back, Danielle.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Hey, Linda.
HOLMES: And also joining us is Anjuli Sastry Krbechek. Anjuli is a producer for NPR's It's Been a Minute. Welcome back to the show, Anjuli.
ANJULI SASTRY KRBECHEK, BYLINE: Hey, Linda.
HOLMES: So I have acknowledged in the past that I am a Theranos obsessive. I have read the book "Bad Blood" by John Carreyrue, who broke the story of Theranos' problems in The Wall Street Journal in 2015. I have, in fact, read it twice. I've watched the Alex Gibney HBO documentary "The Inventor," which I recommend. And I've listened to the podcast that this Hulu series is based on, also called The Dropout." So there is a lot of information about Theranos that's already out there. But if you haven't followed as I have, here is the skinny.
Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford to start a company that eventually promised that they could create little machines that could perform hundreds of tests, as they said, on a drop or a couple of drops of blood. She was fawned over in the media by politicians of all stripes. She raised a tremendous amount of money, and she actually got some of these wellness centers into Walgreens in some places, and they were actually running tests on people's blood. And then that Wall Street Journal article hit, which revealed that the machines Theranos had could not do the things that they were supposed to do. And the company was doing various end runs around that problem by hacking other companies' machines or by, you know, using big needles to draw blood as other labs would do. And the basic foundation of the promised technology was sort of a fantasy.
So the cast here includes Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes, Naveen Andrews as her boyfriend and second-in-command, Sunny Balwani, William H. Macy as a family friend who becomes a nemesis, Sam Waterston as George Shultz, Stephen Fry as a scientist who gets on her bad side, much to his detriment, Alan Ruck as the Walgreens executive who helps her get the big deal for the wellness centers and a lot of other folks. The showrunner is Elizabeth Meriwether, who made "New Girl," which I think is an interesting crossover.
Much of this is, in fact, a drama, even though it has this darkly comic touches. Several episodes of it were directed by Michael Showalter, who was also more of a pure comedy guy before he started directing stuff like "The Big Sick" and "The Eyes Of Tammy Faye" and also the recent series "The Shrink Next Door" - also came from podcasts. OK. We've seen seven of the eight episodes here.
KURTZLEBEN: Right.
HOLMES: Danielle, what did you think?
KURTZLEBEN: I have really complicated feelings about this because on the one hand, I, in general, thought it was really well done. I thought Amanda Seyfried was so good as Elizabeth Holmes. She doesn't, you know, look exactly like her. That's beside the point. She, I thought, really embodied this incredible intensity and the sense of a woman who is so driven that she's going 90 miles an hour toward pure disaster, and you know it from the moment you see her. And that was beautifully done. That said, I was trying to describe it to a friend of mine, and I was saying that the way I felt watching this show is that what you feel after you've had, like, two too many cups of coffee, and you feel kind of unsettled, and you just want to lie down. Like, I felt very cringy and worried and (laughter) stressed out through a lot of the episodes because you know what's coming.
HOLMES: Yeah.
KURTZLEBEN: And you're just watching her sprint towards it. And at least for the first few episodes, before we get into the journalists of it all, the whistleblowers of it all, i was kind of in knots. And I kind of had to push myself to watch it, even while I was watching and going, this is still impressive. So it's a tangled mess for me.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: Yeah, completely agree. I also - I couldn't look away when Amanda Seyfried was on screen. Like, I am a huge fan of hers. And I feel like she's a master in whatever she does. And she really gets Elizabeth Holmes' mannerisms down. Like, she clearly studied Elizabeth, like, in all of the interviews she did, the awkward Theranos commercials that Elizabeth Holmes (laughter) recorded. And I couldn't look away. And like Danielle said, the show is just super well-made, but it's glorifying this bad behavior. And that's also why I couldn't kind of handle it. And I had to take breaks between watching the episodes. And like you, Linda, I'm also a Theranos obsessive.
KURTZLEBEN: (Laughter).
SASTRY KRBECHEK: I've absorbed all Theranos content. And even though we know what happens - but, yeah, it just left me unsettled.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah, not bingeable.
HOLMES: Yeah. It's interesting. I didn't find it to be terribly sympathetic to her. It's not that it's not humanizing 'cause I think that's always part of the goal of something like this. But, like, I come into this having very little, if any, sympathy for her. Like, I don't have that same sense of like, Oh, I know it's coming, and it's too terrible to look at. I'm just like, go, go, go. Get her, like, 'cause I...
KURTZLEBEN: (Laughter).
HOLMES: ...Because I see this as having been such a failure on so many levels to stop this from happening a lot sooner. And that is actually - to me, the strongest parts of this. You know, there have been so many of these series that are about these really super-driven tech people, entrepreneurs, you know, whether it's a documentary style or you're seeing, you know, something like "Super Pumped," which is the Showtime show about the Uber guy. Or, you know, there's an upcoming show on Apple about the WeWork guy - the sort of this grasping tech entrepreneur thing I feel like I've seen so many times that that I don't really find that fascinating. I don't think it takes that much to explain why people sometimes are greedy. What I find more interesting is the way that I think this series in particular is aimed at the question of, like, how did this not get stopped...
KURTZLEBEN: Yes.
HOLMES: ...Sooner than it...
SASTRY KRBECHEK: Yeah.
HOLMES: ...Got stopped? And so my favorite part of this series is in the middle, the section with the Walgreens guys...
SASTRY KRBECHEK: Yes.
HOLMES: ...Which is...
KURTZLEBEN: Yup.
HOLMES: ...Who are, you know, played by this really wonderful group of actors headed up by Alan Ruck.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah.
HOLMES: And they come in and you see how they have all these different motivations. Like they - you know, Ruck is kind of taken in by the idea that this is all exciting and cool. His boss just kind of doesn't want to get outflanked by CVS. One of my favorite super-reliable actors is Rich Sommer, who plays the lab guy.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah.
HOLMES: And sometimes he gets caught playing these kind of disappointing husbands...
KURTZLEBEN: Yes.
HOLMES: ...(Laughter) I feel like.
KURTZLEBEN: Oh, yeah.
HOLMES: And this is not that.
KURTZLEBEN: (Laughter). Yeah.
HOLMES: This is a different - he's, like, a good dude who's a lab guy.
KURTZLEBEN: It was weird seeing him be the competent one for once. Yeah.
HOLMES: Exactly.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: Yeah.
HOLMES: That Walgreens section, which is in the middle around 4 and 5, is my favorite.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: There's that scene with Rich Sommer and Alan Ruck. And who knows if this really happened, but this dramatization is amazing. He hears the lyrics to Katy Perry's "Firework," and he jumps out of the vehicle, and he runs to the Walgreens CEO's car.
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ALAN RUCK: (As Jay Rosan) Wait.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FIREWORK")
KATY PERRY: (Singing) Like the 4th of July.
RUCK: (As Jay Rosan) Wade.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) What the hell is he doing?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FIREWORK")
PERRY: (Singing) 'Cause, baby, you're a firework.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) He's throwing a Hail Mary.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: But just such amazing acting.
HOLMES: I hope it's real. I hope that's completely true. I hope that's completely true. And I think they do a good job in that section of shifting the thing from, like, there are so many people who have kind of asked about Theranos, like, how did nobody catch on to what she was - like, no. Many people caught on. And it goes through figuring out like, what is the multi-factor attack that somebody like her with all of these resources, the lawyers and the investors and a very cooperative press - the number of weapons that people like that are able to employ to keep their whole thing from getting blown up. That is where I thought it was actually the most interesting.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: Yeah. It was so weird how they were able to get away with it for so long. Like at one point in the middle - I think it was Episode 5 - where they're tearing apart or opening up the Siemens machines. And then they end up putting their own stickers over the Siemens machines. Like, OK, you don't even know how the original machine worked. And you think that you can actually get away with having it in your labs. And then covering it up in that way was just WTF moment for me.
KURTZLEBEN: Right. I very much appreciated - the show did give me something that the book, the podcast, all the other Theranos stuff didn't give me, which was a real sense of, oh, this is why people bought it - and the whole idea of, we don't want to be left behind. And it really also showed how Elizabeth Holmes was not just obsessed with image. That doesn't quite go far enough. Yes, she has her whole turtleneck Steve Jobs thing going on, which is, of course, important. And it shows her doing the voice transformation, which was another one of those cringe, can't-look-away scenes.
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AMANDA SEYFRIED: (As Elizabeth Holmes) Don, this is an inspiring step forward.
MICHAEL IRONSIDE: (As Don Lucas) You have a cold?
SEYFRIED: (As Elizabeth Holmes) No, I - no, I'm fine. Everything's fine.
KURTZLEBEN: Also, just how she was really presenting people with a story - and it's a story they had heard many times before, I imagine, in Silicon Valley, of I am young and hot and new. I have a young, hot, new thing. You don't want to miss out on this, therefore you should latch on - and just how seductive that was for so many people. I appreciated that I came away getting that in a way I hadn't before. So, yes, totally agree.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: And I think another aspect to this too is, like, who she was in terms of getting away with it. Like, she was a white woman - and this notion of, like, white feminism and the scam that she was pulling. And I think at one point, the William H. Macy character - he plays, Dr. Richard Fuisz - he's talking about why she ended up getting away with it. And his answer is, it's 'cause she was pretty, and she was blonde. And I think the show does try to get at what she had to do in order to get the scam done and succeed as a woman in Silicon Valley. And it...
KURTZLEBEN: Right.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: ...I think, in that sense tries to portray her in a sympathetic light.
HOLMES: Yeah.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: But I, personally, didn't fall for it. But this is sort of when she employs the baritone voice.
HOLMES: Well, and I think this show is smart not to go for an oversimplified, all these men were hot for her...
SASTRY KRBECHEK: Right.
HOLMES: ...Kind of thing, which - in all this stuff I've read about Theranos, I have not really read anybody saying, you know, she was pretty and they wanted to have some sort of relationship with her other than Sunny, who actually was having a relationship with her. I've always seen it as more the daughter or granddaughter form of flirting, like sort of inviting people to see her as their plucky granddaughter. I feel like that's the way she went, especially with George Shultz.
It's interesting that you mentioned, Anjuli, the William H. Macy character 'cause I do think that one of the issues with the show is that at the beginning, I do think the tone takes a little while to settle down. I think the Stephen Fry character who is in this kind of very sad arc about this scientist who gets on the wrong side of her does not necessarily seem like it belongs in the same show as the William H. Macy character...
SASTRY KRBECHEK: Exactly.
HOLMES: ...Who is quite broad. I think it does better when it settles into that somewhat drier humor of that Walgreens stuff and the character who is played by Laurie Metcalf, who I know we are all fans (laughter) of this character...
KURTZLEBEN: (Laughter).
HOLMES: ...You know, a real person - this professor that was never terribly impressed by her and remained unimpressed by her.
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LAURIE METCALF: (As Phyllis Gardner) Work together.
SEYFRIED: (As Elizabeth Holmes) Yeah.
METCALF: (As Phyllis Gardner) You're a what, freshman, sophomore?
SEYFRIED: (As Elizabeth Holmes) I had just started my sophomore year.
METCALF: (As Phyllis Gardner) So you've had a couple of classes, maybe a seminar or two, and now you think you know enough to start a company.
SEYFRIED: (As Elizabeth Holmes) I just thought as a woman...
METCALF: (As Phyllis Gardner) As a woman, let me explain something to you. You don't get to skip any steps. You have to do the work.
HOLMES: So there are some performances that are really like. I love the Laurie Metcalf performance.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah
HOLMES: I do think in the early going, it takes a little while to settle into a tone.
KURTZLEBEN: Yes, and I agree with that. And I would add her parents on top of that. It's not that the actors portraying her parents are bad. It's that they aren't given a lot to do. And I really never quite figured out what her parents were doing besides being kind of these...
SASTRY KRBECHEK: Enablers.
KURTZLEBEN: ...Who - yeah, enablers who are also so blinded by adoration of their daughter...
HOLMES: Yeah.
KURTZLEBEN: ...And blinded by ambition, vicarious ambition, that they didn't see what she was doing and that she was not doing anything, really. I suppose as long as we're talking about stand up performances, I thought Naveen Andrews as Sunny Balwani was so good.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: Yes.
KURTZLEBEN: I really liked him, partially because as a "Lost" obsessive and I just finished the first season of "Sense8," he plays gentle characters in other things. And he is a genuine, terrifying, menacing elder boyfriend.
HOLMES: He's a bully.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: Yes.
KURTZLEBEN: He was great.
HOLMES: But I appreciated the fact that while they do go into things like, you know, they talk about the fact that she reported a sexual assault when she was at Stanford. They definitely deal with the fact that Sunny, as presented in this series, is a bully. He is manipulative. He puts her down. He pushes everybody around. But I think it resists using those as explanations of why she was like this, which is kind of one of the things that she tried to sort of do at her trial and that people kind of said, I get it. This is all sad and bad. I'm not sure what it has to do with you not telling your investors the truth. I think the show does a good job of explaining about the fact that these things are all present and that they were all very traumatic for her without making them exculpatory toward her at all, I don't think.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: Yeah. She was very much in the know from the beginning, and that is clear in these episodes as well in this particular show.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah. I would add one point on that, which is that at first it doesn't portray her as actively malicious. But in the end, it does show that, look; she was so single-minded and blinded by Silicon Valley culture and success and power and, like, sloganeering that, you know, even if it's not act of malice, it's still malice. And she still really screwed up a lot of people's lives, and that that point is very well made. But yeah, she's human. She may have had reasons. We don't fully understand them. And she was still kind of horrible - not just kind of, very horrible.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: And I guess the Theranos story itself does make me think about the fake-it-till-you-make-it culture of Silicon Valley and what lengths you go to, no matter what, just to succeed. And in this case, like, maybe you can do that with other companies, but you can't do it when you're talking about people's lives.
HOLMES: Yeah.
KURTZLEBEN: Right.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: And that's what I see from the beginning in this depiction.
HOLMES: Yeah. I think drawing that line between like, OK, if you are renting out office space or you are developing an app to play a word game or whatever, that side of tech, money is one thing. You know, when you apply that mindset to health care, it becomes very ill-suited to that unless you have an incredible number of guardrails, which they, of course, didn't.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah.
HOLMES: Well, at any rate, you can find the opening episodes of this on Hulu. We want to know what you think about "The Dropout" when you've had a chance to see it. Find us at facebook.com/pchh on Twitter @pchh. That brings us to the end of our show. Danielle Kurtzleben and Anjuli Sastry Krbeche, Thanks to you both for being here to talk more about Theranos. I can never get too much.
KURTZLEBEN: Same here. It was great.
SASTRY KRBECHEK: Thanks, Linda.
HOLMES: This episode was produced by Rommel Wood and edited by Jessica Reedy. And Hello Come In provides the music you are bobbing your head to right now. Thanks for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes. And we will see you all tomorrow.
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