The Prestige TV Podcast - 'The Dropout' Season Premiere Recap

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

Joanna Robinson is joined by Ringer staff writer Jodi Walker to discuss the first three episodes of 'The Dropout' on Hulu. They discus the real story of Elizabeth Holmes and her rise as well as the breakout performances of this limited series. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Jodi Walker Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Exclusion supplies to home depot.com slash price match for details. I'm going to drop out to Stanford. This machine is going to change the world. These kids don't overthink. They don't get bogged down about the way things have always been done. They want to change things now. Welcome back into the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson and I'm joined today by the great, amazing, very knowledgeable wearing a black turtleneck for the occasion. Jody Walker. Hello, Jody. Hello, Joanna. I did wear this turtleneck just for you. For anyone who is a ringer dish pop culture history lesson listener, this is a different black turtleneck than I wore for my other Elizabeth Holmes podcast because much like Elizabeth Holmes, I own a lot of black turtlenecks.

Wow, is it the full closet? Do you have the full Steve Jobs closet? It's certainly a section of the closet. I am also a bit of a like to wear kind of a uniform for like office zooms sort of person. But where I'd say I'm lacking is in dress slacks. That's that's where I have to, that's where I have to draw the line between Elizabeth and I. You're also not today rocking a bold, bold red lip and unhinged eye makeup. But maybe maybe in a future. I think I didn't think about it. This is the first time we're pod guys together. Maybe you wanted to ease me in. And that to the world. You have already figured out my psyche, much like I am in the process of figuring out Elizabeth Holmes' psyche, is I was like, I have a couple calls after this.

How many people are going to be comfortable with me with a full face of Elizabeth Holmes' makeup? Perfect. Next time. We are here to talk about the drop out episodes one through three. We're going to talk vaguely about some things before we get into the specifics of the episode, including maybe our blanket recommendation. So if you haven't seen the episodes yet, you can hang with us for a second. And then we're going to get into specifics, and you're going to want to jump off and watch the episodes for yourself.

First and quick, prestige TV program reminders. As you've been saying all week, there's a ton of stuff in the feed this week. If you've been watching Severance on Apple or Super Pumped on Showtime or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, on Amazon or wrapping up Euphoria on HBO. We've got shows covering all of those episodes in the feed somewhere for you and more to come. Today

we'll be covering episodes 1 through 3 of the dropout, which include I'm in a hurry, which is directed by Michael Schoalter and written by Elizabeth Meriwether, Satori, directed by Michael Showalter, written by Matt Lutz, and Green Juice directed by Michael Scho Walter and

Hillary Bettis. This show is an eight-episode, limited series, It's based on a podcast of The Dropout by Rebecca Jarvis, as well as some stuff from John Kerry Roo's book, Bad Blood, some Vanity Fair reporting by my old colleague Nick Bilton, and The Inventor, a great documentary by Alex Gibney. So there's a lot of Holmes content for you out there if you want to supplement your viewing. The show was originally meant to star Kate McKinnon. We're going to talk about that in a little bit, but Emmettus Seifred stepped into the role of Elizabeth Holmes. And before we get into specifics, I just want to ask you, Jody, like, overall, if someone's on the fence about whether or not they want to watch this,

would you recommend this show to people? Joanna, I loved it. I really, really enjoyed watching this show. And I was, I honestly felt like just from the trailer that it was going to be what I wanted out of a scammer show. I don't think I'm the only one who was a little disappointed by inventing Anna and the— What do you mean? who didn't like in Montagana. A perfect blend of Russian and Italian, Joanna.

Thank you. Thank you. So, yeah, so I was disappointed by that show. I wanted more from it. I also wanted a little less of it. It was too many episodes, and there wasn't quite enough story to tell, in my opinion. I think that Amanda Seifred is nailing this performance.

I think that the writing is great. the, as we were sort of discussing off air, the bench of side characters, of the actors that they have brought in to play a lot of characters who really just come around for one episode because there was so much turnover at Theranos are so good. They're like better than they even need to be. So yeah, it gets my wholehearted endorsement. I say if you haven't watched it, hop off, watch it and come back and join us. Excellent. One last thing that I will just echo everything you said. I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. I sort of dove into a bunch of these scammer shows all at once. And this, I think, is the one that I would

recommend the highest out of all of them. And Amanda Seifred and Naveen Andrews is her co-lead who plays Sonny Balwani. And Naveen, people who have hung with me for a long time on podcast know how I feel about Naveen Andrews, you know, of lost fame, doing something very different here. Why don't you just give us a few words, Joanna? How do you feel about Naveen? Saeed on Lost? Come on. I mean, Andrews can do no wrong. But he can do a lot of wrong in this show. Right. It's a very, very different performance from Neveen.

But a nice, juicy role for him, and he actually hasn't had a lot of those outside of, you know, since eight, some other things. But I think this is a really, really fun role for him to dig into. And I would say, like, even as good and as impressive as the transformation of Amanda Seifred into Elizabeth Holmes, the work that they have to do to. to make Navine look unattractive is that you have to go pretty far. That is a very handsome man. And they're trying. They're trying. It's hard work, but they're trying.

They're putting them in little hats. They're putting them in wide pants. They're going for it. So go ahead and hop off and enjoy the surprising frumpiness of Navine Andrews and the unhinged glory of Amanda Seifred. But if you're already caught up, now we're going to dig into specifics. General spoiler warning for this. We have watched a bit beyond these first three episodes.

We're not going to talk about what happens in a specific way in those next episode. But also, this is a show based on something that actually happened. So, you know, Jody's going to run us through sort of the basics of this Who Willis with Holmes is what Theranos is in case people want a bit of a primer on it. History is not a spoiler as far as I'm concerned, but we won't. I mean, I'm not going to talk about. some major, major things that happen. I think we can jump around them if people want to be surprised by some of the very alarming twists and turns that this story takes.

Let's just start there, actually, Jody. Let's start with who is Elizabeth Holmes? What can you tell us about there or no? I would say it is not a spoiler alert to say that this did not go well for Elizabeth Holmes, ultimately. So Elizabeth was in 2003, 2004, a 19-year-old Stanford dropout. hints the title of this show, as well as the podcast that it's based upon. From a very young age, she had a sort of vague dream to save the world.

And as she began studying the sciences at Stanford, she decided that that would be her route. And she was, you know, adjacent to Silicon Valley. So she dropped out at 19 with this big idea to revolutionize the blood testing industry, which she advertised as her proprietary technology. ability to take just a few drops of blood and run over 200 of the most common blood test via just these drops of blood, whereas with the normal lab testing, it takes syringes and syringes of blood in a way that people really do not enjoy. So as a very young person, she recruits this really impressive board full of former elderly statesmen, notably not many scientists. However,

she does recruit many scientists to her team. She's a huge fan of Steve Jobs and Apple. She poaches a lot of Apple people. Small spoiler alert, they do ultimately quit very quickly. Very fast. And she works on building this technology, and she raises a ton of money throughout the 10 to 12 year course of Theranos. As she is building this machine, which she calls the Edison, she raises nearly a billion

The Theranos as a company is said to be worth $9 billion, which makes Elizabeth herself worth somewhere around $4.5 billion. And I don't think this is a spoiler alert to say, almost none of it is real. The machine doesn't work. They're treading water to be able to make it seem like it works, and things are just absolutely going downhill inside their big, shiny, Silicon Valley offices. And that's what we will be reviewing on the dropout. So, I mean, let's talk about this larger trend that we're seeing of Griff shows. As you mentioned, you mentioned inventing Anna.

We've got WeCrash, which is the WeWork show coming out from Apple pretty soon with a phenomenal accent work from Jared Leto. You thought the Inventing Anna accent was big. Wait till you get a lot of Jared. And then Joseph Gordon-Levitt doing the Uber story over on Super Pumped for Showtime, which you can hear about elsewhere in this feed. So my question for you, Jo, do you start with, is like, why are Griff stories so compelling and satisfying?

Why can't we get enough of these stories? I think that to your average person who has the ability to feel shame, maybe to feel even more shame that they should, that it's, when you look at these stories, you simply think, how? How did they do this? how can a human manage this amount of lying, this amount of hurting people, this amount of literal fraud over and over again is what these stories are about?

And I think just the average person can't really comprehend their own personal ability to do that. And so a lot of times what we look for in TV is relatability. But in these stories, what we look for is the extreme unrelatability of these scammers and what they're up to. And I touched on this in another pop culture history lesson on The Ringer Dish about inventing Anna and the Anna Delvey story.

You know, when you're looking at a scam, it means that someone has failed. And I think in some dark way, we want to see that happen. And we want to see people fail in great fashion because then that means that maybe you shouldn't really try for anything big. And maybe it's fine to not invent a company or not to be an inventor because it doesn't always work out. So watching something explode in grand fashion is always going to be a good time. Yeah, it's similar to like a gangster story, right? You kind of enjoy watching people behave badly, but then you also watch, like, enjoying seeing the inevitable fall that comes with it. And I think

something else is true of these, of this influx of grifter, Silicon Valley-specific grifter shows, is these are what I like to call a Wikipedia show, you know, similar to American Crime Story, where you can watch it and occasionally read a Wikipedia page. And then maybe accidentally spoil yourself on something that's coming because you're like, oh, no, that person's no longer alive or something like that. So, you know, Wikipedia with caution as you're watching this show. But there's a joy in that. You get the joy in sort of a lot of outlets will put up slideshows where they'll be like,

this is what the real person looks like. This is who they cast. Like there's all these. This is how much hotter they are in the show. Yeah, exactly. There's all these like things. around it that really enhance your enjoyment of it.

And I think very specifically, I think the reason that the dropout is one of the most satisfying of the grifts that we're talking about here is because, of course, there are victims of this grift that we feel very badly for

because this is a, this is not your average Silicon Valley grift because this is, unlike Uber, this is about health care. Science. It's not science and medicine, notably difficult areas to disrupt. However, a lot of the people that she, you know, ultimately grifted here are gullible old white men.

And there's just a part of that that is extra satisfying in terms of who, like I said, I don't want to gloss over some of the more serious victims of her crimes here. but like, you know, of who she's really duping and what that means for the whole infrastructure of Silicon Valley. So I live in the Bay Area and this is a story I promised to tell you off air. Then I'm going to tell you. I haven't told you yet. I'll tell you on air now, which is in 2015, yeah, 2015 Vanity Fair, which is where I used to work, launched something called the New Establishment Summit in the Bay Area. And it was meant to be sort of this big conference where a bunch of,

tech luminaries and some Hollywood people would come and talk about what it's like to be fabulous and successful. And Elizabeth Holmes was one of the guests. And I think this was just two weeks before the first Wall Street Journal article that really open people's eyes to who she was before it broke. So I got to see Elizabeth Holmes. She was the keynote speaker during like this big luncheon. So the attendees of this conference, and by the way, I was just like a scrub reporter working for Vanity Fair who I think they let me go to this fancy thing. because I lived here so they didn't have to pay airfare or a hotel. So I'm reporting on the room. It's a big fancy luncheon.

Just the richest, most famous Silicon Valley people are here eating like, you know, a million dollar salmon and stuff like that. And Maria Shriver is up on stage with Elizabeth Holmes. Maria Shriver has put on the black turtleneck and the black slacks to be like, look, we're matching. You mean that I have not done a unique and funny thing today? You did not invent this. Maria Shriver invented this.

But they're on stage. And so I just, two weeks before all this happened, I watched a roomful of the quote unquote smartest, quote unquote, most successful people eat up every single word of this grift. And so there is just this extra satisfying twist of the knife of being like, it's all bullshit, man. And even the smartest people can get drawn in by a bold, bold red lip, you know. Well, Joanna, then I have to ask you. I mean, you're a very smart person who was sitting in that room. What did you think of her talking? Were you buying it or were you just like this voice is wild?

I mean, the voice stood out. What's funny is earlier that day, I saw the Mark Zuckerberg keynote. And Zuckerberg was kind of early in his learning how to do active listening phase of his development. as ostensibly a human. So he was still very robotic, but he was doing the robotic active listening, which means he was just like laser focused on the person talking to him

and actively nodding and like all of this sort of stuff. And so coming off of him, she seemed very smooth, but she still, she also has this strange awkwardness that Amanda Seiford captures incredibly. Perfect, perfect performance, I think.

Yeah, that, That is very true. I mean, there's a lot of weirdos in Silicon Valley. You know what I mean? And a lot of them are visionaries, and then some of them are con artists. And yeah, and ultimately being weird is not what her downfall was at all. No. It was the lying.

It was the untruths. So I want to talk a bit about the tone of this show, which is a really interesting one, because the main creative team behind this show are Liz Meriwether, who created you know, sitcom New Girl, and Michael Showalter, who's best known for comedy, when I told a friend of mine who likes is a big film and TV watcher in general, the creative team, he's like, oh, is this a comedy? And I was like, well, kind of. Not really, I mean, certainly if you watch these first three episodes, I would say you probably would not get that vibe off of it, especially given some of the very serious subject matter that's at play here, including like a sexual

assault that Elizabeth Holmes experienced when she was at Stanford. But then, I don't think it's a spoiler, just say episode four, which is entitled Old White Men, in which a cadre of Walgreens reps played by Rich Summer of Madman Fame, Alan Ruck of Succession Fame, Josh Pace and Andrew Leeds, who are also great comedic actors. I mean, that could have been an episode of Silicon Valley, honestly, is how that episode feels. So it's a really curious tone going forward, but these first three feel like, they're existing in a more dramatic space.

How does all of that sort of balance out for you? I had no idea who the show creator was and the director was coming into it. And I would say after the first episode, I immediately had to look it up because it was striking such an interesting tone. And like you said, it's certainly not a comedy, but I think it allows for these very real moments of humor in real life and in just the experience of watching Elizabeth Holmes. there's a bit of you that, in retrospect, knowing that she failed and was not maybe ultimately the leader that she thought she was, I think there is sometimes a feeling of wanting to laugh

at her a bit. And I think the show actually does that in a pretty generous way in giving these funny moments to her. It's really when she's being like the most earnest that it's just so funny. I would say my experience of watching these first three episodes is watching it like wrapped in stone face and then once or twice an episode just going, ha! Like a big, like a big bellow because I was so shocked by something that was so funny. When she, at one point she is talking with someone, this big wig that might invest in her

company. And he is doing the Silicon Valley thing or the Wolf of Wall Street thing where he's making her scream on a boat. And she's screaming like, I get the fucking money. I get the fucking money in a very unconvincing way. but she's trying really hard, and she gets so into it that she whips her life vest off, throws it off the boat,

and then she very earnestly goes, I hope you didn't need that. And it was just so funny. And I think that's great that they're able to achieve that because it's also, like you said, it's a very, it's a dark story, and they're doing something really complicated by not really asking us to empathize with this person,

but just asking us to understand how she got to where she got. Yeah, the Silicon Valley guy in question is Hart Bockner, who's playing Larry Ellison, who's the founder of Oracle. And that's just like another one of those Silicon Valley. We love to see, like, the kind of guy who you love to see skewered. So watching this guy just be the biggest douchebag being like, I don't know anything about boats. Then I bought a bunch of boats and now I got a bunch of boats. Like, you know, that's that fun, you know, that's the kind of Silicon Valley skewering that Mike Judge did perfectly on HBO's Silicon Valley. It was the kind of thing that those of us who live locally and have to deal with

these douchebags like to see, you know, it's a really fun part of it. But yeah, that what the show was trying to do here, especially for people who don't know this story, because we meet Elizabeth when she's a teenager and her family is caught up in the Enron scandal, all of that happens. That's a pretty sympathetic start for her. She's a child of privilege, obviously. She's a child of She's going to Stanford. That's all true. But you see the pressures. You see her earnest desire to build something that is truly good.

You see that in her. And it does have the framing device of this deposition that she's giving later on. But I think if you went into this cold, you might not know how bad things actually got and how chilling some of her decisions become. So I'm wondering if you feel like I kind of felt like the show was almost seducing us in a way that Elizabeth Holmes kind of seduced Silicon Valley into thinking like in the very way that she weaponized this idea of I'm just a young woman trying to make her way in this male-dominated tech world. What do you think about that? I am someone who knows a lot about Elizabeth Holmes. I've been following it from the beginning. Sometimes I just check back in on what's happening. I'm listening to the future episodes of the dropout about the trial. I have a general interest in scammers and she's one of the best. And one of the most fascinating and her scam, if we could even call it, that ran for so long. And so there's a lot to sink your teeth into. So it's hard for me to put myself in the mindset of someone who doesn't know about it. But, But even as someone who knows a lot about this story, what I found that the show was really

achieving that has never been achieved for me before is finding her charming. That's what people always say about her. And they say that about a lot of these scammers, Anna Delvey, Billy McFarlane, who did Fire Festival. You'll watch these documentaries and they say they describe these people as charming. And then you watch video clips of them and you're like, I'm sorry, this guy is who you're talking about. Like, maybe you want to believe they're charming because you got roped in by them, but this guy is an idiot. And obviously, Elizabeth Holmes is not an idiot. She's very intelligent, but also watching real-life clips of Elizabeth Holmes or if you're Joanna and get to experience

her in person, Joanna, I will never forget you saying, have you met Elizabeth Holmes? Very earnestly to me. I was like, no, have you? Of course I haven't met Elizabeth Holmes. You're a scammer scholar. I don't know. I don't know who you meant. I stay far away lest I get involved in the scam, which is incredibly possible for me. So, yeah, so even as someone who knows a lot about this story, that was a brand new invention to me. That was a new side of Elizabeth Holmes to actually find her to be this captivating person.

And, of course, she's not charming. She's awkward and she's bumbling and she's off-putting a lot of times because she is putting on these affects. But what I think people mean when they say they found her charming is that they found her conviction to be so alluring. Like, no one believes in herself more than Elizabeth Holmes. And it makes other people want to believe in her and her mission and her vision, too. And yeah, so I think that the show does a really good job of achieving that for people who know a lot about the story

and for people who don't know a lot about the story. And they're threatening a very. fine needle, like you said, of showing her early life is, I think, you know, I kind of mentioned this earlier, but I really didn't find that I was asked to be, to empathize with her as much as I was just asked to understand her and where she comes from and this like waspier than wasp family. I mean, like, their sweater vest are wearing sweater vests. The way that they have cast her parents and her brother is so hilarious. She's so...

Oh, my God, her brother. Her brother, young and old nightmare. So, yeah, I think that they do a really good job of that. And I found myself really captivated by the character and certainly by the performance. And I think the way that it's framed, especially, like, if you look at the interaction that she has with Lori Metcalf's character, Phyllis Gardner, all of these are real-life characters. And Phyllis Gardner will come back around later in the... narrative. But that interaction where Phyllis Garner shuts her down in a very brusque manner, it's straight out of a different show or movie where we're rooting for the protagonist to succeed

against all odds, that we're like, this scrappy little nobody's going to make this. She's going to show them all. She's going to make this invention. She's going to show this doctor what medicine is. Yeah, exactly. And then as you watch show, you're like, Oh, Lori Metcalf was right, as for usual, you know. And so I think that's a really clever way to frame all that. And I think in certain things, like when she's studying abroad, I mean, as like a deeply awkward, oftentimes too studious, like teen as I was, I felt for her on her study abroad when she, like, could not make a friend to save her life except for this.

I mean, I never befriended a strange older man the way that she befriended his Navine Andrews character there, but like, you know, all of that or her psyching herself up to go to a college party that ends traumatically, but like in the psych up, you're watching it and you're like, I don't know, for me, this is familiar. Like, you know, a psych up to go to a party sort of thing. So I think there are elements of that in there. And I think they're not hanging you out to dry with it. Like they're not trying to make a fool out of you.

But I think that they are using some tropes that are. familiar to upend this story a little bit. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And I think, to sort of, like I was saying before, for me at least, as someone who knows a lot about her, to tie up some loose ends of this story for me of things that I've never understood. And a lot of those things are the very personal aspects of it, which I think is what they're nailing with using these kind of tropes that you're referring to or things that you related to. I don't relate to her psyching herself up in the mirror. necessarily, but I liked watching it because it made a lot of sense to me about her.

It just made this person make so much more sense to me. And that certainly includes the trip, the immersion program in Beijing and her meeting Sonny Balwani there, because that is a relationship that is very complicated and very hard to understand. But what they really nail home in those scenes that are both totally platonic and very romantic. It's like constantly dusk. The sun is much like in outer banks, the sun is always setting on Sunny Pawani and Elizabeth Holmes. And Hogue Life in Beijing, you love to see it. Where's the fan boat? Unfortunately, she is a kook. But it makes you understand how this power dynamic got put in

place and how she began to rely on him as this figure who made her feel not like she, she was normal, that doesn't really seem to be something that she's concerned with, but like what she wanted and what she was doing made sense because he saw it as important as she did. Unfortunately, he was 38 and she was 18 and he should have bought her one meal and cooled it, but big yikes. So the sunny relationship, I do want to talk about this for a second. So Sunny Balwani, who as we've seen in these first three episodes, is her romantic partner and then eventually like her business partner here. And their dynamic is like a little bit Sven Ghali.

It's complicated. There's like there's a controlling aspect. There's the needy aspect. It's all in there. And what what I thought was really interesting that I learned, um, via the Wikipedia ing and reading outside articles. You did it. You Wikipedia, Joanna. Well, is that in her trial, and I don't know if they're going to get to this, but then in her trial, Elizabeth Holmes tried. to argue that like everything that happened was something that Sunny orchestrated and manipulated her into. She tried to shove all the blame onto him. And what's true is that the showrunners of this particular story are like, we see some manipulation here, but we're not buying that story that she's telling. We're putting Elizabeth in the driver's seat of her own fate

here. We don't buy this narrative that she told at the trial. And then I was reading this great interview that Amanda Seifred gave my old colleague Joy Press over at Vanity Fair about how after they had already filmed a lot of the series, due to the trial, the text messages between Sunny and Elizabeth came out, which I think they peppered back into the show, but something that Amanda Seiford said was like it was really gratifying because those text messages revealed to us that we felt like we were really on the right track with how we characterized this relationship. How do you feel about all of that messiness? It is messy.

I think that the show has made the smart decision or the smartest decision they can in sort of going with what the reality of the outcome is. And the trial and the jury that ultimately convicted Elizabeth Holmes of fraud also did not no matter what their personal feelings were about the story that she told about this relationship and abuse and manipulation, they did not ultimately decide

that it is what made her make these decisions. And so I think that that's kind of the only thing that the show can do is go forward with sort of how she's been convicted and how the trial went along. And I'm curious about, you said that in that interview that Amanda said

that the entire show had filmed before the trial? I don't think the entire show. I think before, I think the scripts had been written and they had shot some of it before, at least the text messages, like, came out and were a public record. Right. Those sort of explosive text messages. And, yeah, I think that there was a lot that they put in the show that came from the trial,

which I also think was a smart move, you know, because those are things that people are less familiar with. And those, a lot of the sort of reality of Elizabeth Holmes' personal, like, came out in that trial, and you've got to have that stuff in a show that is so central to this one character and to also these two characters and the relationship between them. So I think that so far, at least in these first three episodes, they have given that relationship a lot of nuance and a lot of tension. I mean, it is, it is scary.

It's scary to watch them together and think about what they'll do and how they influence one another, and both of those performances are playing. a lot into that as well. Yeah, and I think, I mean, the title of the third episode, Green Juice, which is an allusion to this really disturbing interaction between the two of them that turns violent. I think the way that dynamic goes where, like, he is out entirely out of pocket in that first exchange around the Green Juice where she winds up with Green Juice all over her shirt and stuff like that.

But by the end of the episode, she is the side. She needs him to secure her. place with the board. And so she ends the episode docilly sipping green juice, but because she needs him where he is. So she's doing this because it puts him in the place where she needs him. So who's really doing the manipulating and the controlling here, you know? Right. And no matter, no matter how unhealthy that this dynamic is, Elizabeth Holmes, it is sort of pounded into us over and over throughout these three episodes is that she is someone who is creating her own persona, who kind of sees herself as a blank canvas, that she dresses up like a paper doll in her black

turtleneck, she affects this voice, she practices her lines in the mirror. And she sees no shame in that. That is who she is. And in Sunny, she's found someone who also wants to shape her into that person. And so in some ways, he is supporting this sort of like, sustainable lifestyle that she has created for herself. And yeah, no matter how unhealthy that partnership is, you do understand how they fell into it and how that might have been kind of the only sort of person that she could have been with for that amount of time. Because when she says in interviews that she's not dating anyone, it's like, oh, yeah, you don't seem like you're dating anyone. And so then when it comes out that she's in this 10-year-long relationship with

The man who's 20 years older than her, that's even more believable. But it's yet another thing that this show is making sense of to me and making me sort of like understand on a deeper level. The release schedule for the show is that the first three episodes drop, it's a three episode drop and then a week by week after. And I think this first three episode, if you look at it, you know, when you are Hulu or the creators deciding how to do the mini binge and then the week to week, these first three episodes, act as a really smart villain origin story, right? Essentially, you're watching a villain get their costume, their voice, like all that together. It ends with her in the turtleneck with the lip and the voice in place and all that sort of stuff. And the scenes where she's trying to, she's trying out the voice in the mirror, which we see a couple times,

that I think is the perfect encapsulation of the line that the show. shows walks between comedy and horror, because it's almost like a horror movie watching her do that. Because you know what's coming. But it's also, like, actively hilarious watching her do it. So it's, you know, it's a tough balance, but I think they pull it off really well. Joina, you've maybe missed my favorite part of that scene where she's finally, you know, shored up her costume, determined her deep voice. And they score it to back to black by Amy Winehouse. Yes.

It's just the perfect. I mean, eat your heart out euphoria with these needle drops. Like, they, the, the soundtrack in this show is both so bad and so good that, you know, it's just this perfect encapsulation of this time period of like 2006 to 2012 when this was going down. And yeah, I mean, it's, it's a little corny to do back to black when she has on her whole black outfit, but it's also perfect. I mean, I just like, and that's the, I think, like you said, these three, these three first

episodes that are dropping all as once really work as a package and they've gotten the story far enough along to really be interested in it. And I think to end with a needle drop like that and a moment like that, I hope we'll keep people coming back week to week. We discussed this earlier, but the needle drop that really got me was when Feist 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3. 4. Like, nothing says early odds more to me that perfect and standing in line to get the, the first. And the, that's another sort of Silicon Valley comedy moment is this like fervor, the guy who comes out of the Apple store saying like, I got the first one and everyone's screaming about the first iPhone and how excited they are to have it. And you're just like, oh my God.

Silicon Valley. The iPhone or even more so the iPod in this show is like, I haven't seen this ubiquitous Apple branding since the morning show. It's so. And the way that they use it, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of interested, Joanna, what you thought about the scene where she's sort of, there's two scenes. One where she's sort of like dancing at Steve Jobs on a poster to the tune of I'm in a hurry to get things done. And then the other time when she's in, I think, episode three when she's, or maybe episode two, when she's finally come up with the idea for Theranos that she thinks is going to work with the finger pick drop of blood. And she's rubbing an iPod on her face? That's what she's somewhat sensually rubbing an iPod on her face.

I mean, the Black Turtle, like, tells you really all you need to know, but her Steve Jobs fanaticism. And what's what's interesting to me is, I thought Apple's policy was that villains were not allowed to use Apple products in film and television. But like, here she is with her all click wheel iPod and the iPhone, you know. Right. This is outdated technology. So we know that villains can't use iPhones, but what about a chunky, chunky iPod? Is that on the table?

She has the phone that she smashes later. She does, right. But it is a chunky boy. Yeah, I don't know. I have questions about that, or maybe they convince themselves that she's not quite a villain, but she is.

She definitely is. So the genius bar scene is among my favorites, the genius bar leading into the sort of board meeting that she watched. walks into the way in which she, you know, because we talked before about these like girl boss tropes that are peppered into here. And she goes to this genius bar to get her phone fixed. And she talks to the girl, the genius bar about sort of like what her dreams are, whatever. And the girl gives her this, you know, is taken aback by this very weird question by this unhinged looking person.

What was your childhood dream? Yeah. She asks. And at the genius bar, after handing over a splintered iPhone screen a shattered. That could have only been destroyed by rage. There's absolutely no other way that that screen got like that. Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, in the,

bewildered Apple employee gives her this answer, which Elizabeth Holmes then goes and repurposes, adding some tears and I'm just a girl, I don't know what I'm doing, narrative to prevent the board from firing her.

In just one of the most cynical, weaponized, you know, girl power moves I've ever seen. I absolutely ate it up. I thought it was incredible, would you think? Absolutely. I was just thinking about like, oh, no, I'm about to fawn over another scene. I think I should, you know, on the prestige TV podcast, be bringing some sort of critical eye, but I just really ate this show up.

And that back-to-back scene of her at the Genius Bar with that girl, and that young woman did a really good job too. It was like Elizabeth Holmes is looking in this fun house mirror version of herself. And she's seeing a young woman that in a sliding door scenario, she could have become. But of course, she never could have become that

because there has always been something inside her that had a childhood dream that they were going to see to fruition no matter what. And so to watch her absorb this sort of showing, that scene also got another one of the biggest laughs out of me, another one of my gaffaws when she's speaking to her in a way that she seems to think is like

complimentary and she says, nothing you do will matter because you don't really care because you have no ambition. And this woman, this poor young, young woman is just trying to restore her iPhone. But that she takes that human emotion from that girl and then mirrors it back to this board full of old white men. You know, it does show her, as much as she speaks to maybe not always understanding human emotion, she does understand human behavior and she weaponizes it in this scene in a way that, yeah, could be a little over the top or a little too straightforward. But I found really interesting and really well done. No, and I think Amanda sells it really well.

And I think what's so interesting about at least the case they're making for the seductive. act that Elizabeth Holmes does to these old white men of Silicon Valley and eventually DC, etc., is that it's not, it's, it both is and isn't sexual, right? You know, like the red lip and the blonde hair and all that sort of stuff is part of it. But really, given the age of these men, it's more like a daughter, father. It's paternal. They drive that home a good bit that, that, you know, it's like they're watching their daughter up there crying and saying, I did all the right things. I tried so hard. And they believe her. She did try hard. She shouldn't get another chance. She has failed. But she's found the right people to give her another chance because they don't understand science,

but they do understand a woman crying. It's great. It's genius. The show is flirting a little bit with this idea that Elizabeth Holmes might be somewhere on the spectrum or neurodivergent. She says this thing to Sunny about how she doesn't feel things like other people does. He says, I know. she says, I love you. And, you know, there's the way in which she interacts with that genius bar employee, you know.

But I mean, if I have a criticism of the show, I think you either have to, when you bring up something like that, I think you either have to actually engage with it or not bring it up at all. And I would say the super lightweight that they're bringing a maybe sort of thing into a subject that is very sensitive for a lot of people. I don't know. I think maybe they could have just left that out if they weren't prepared to go fully into it. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that line stuck with me as well because it is pretty specifically implying

that she may be neurodivergent. And I think that that is not something that Elizabeth Holmes herself has ever said or that is any sort of public knowledge about her. And so I also think to make that assumption or assertion in the show would probably be, the wrong move. And they might be, they might be flirting with it a little too much to sort of be kosher. I think where it's, where they are successful is, is just showing the way that she's a very

unique person, is showing her as a person. And in all of these, one of my favorite little moments of her time at college is when she's on the phone with her 40-year-old friend, Sonny Balwani, talking about microfluidics. Super normal. But then her roommate is totally normal college experience. We've all had it. And then her roommate or a friend comes in and holds up a copy of Vanilla Sky on DVD and a bong. And Elizabeth nods.

She gives a little smile and she nods. Like she does, you know, she is interested in other experiences. But then I think as the episodes progress and what we see hounded in more and more is this sort of nature versus nurture dynamic of, yes, she was born with these ambitions. But then all of these. other things come up for her from different angles, the Silicon Valley expectations, meeting with these CEOs who are telling her she has to fire people in order to be a leader.

And we watch those parts of her get pummeled down more and more until she is sort of convinced herself that she is this certain type of person who can be totally heartless and this person who can just be selling a product that doesn't exist and who can just outright lie over and over to everyone around her. There's also this arrested development aspect to her.

So as someone who spends many hours a week talking about geek properties on the Ringer podcast network, I am not going to hold anyone's fondness for Yoda against them. But the way in which she uses Yoda in a quasi-professional academic setting, and then later, again, this isn't a spoiler because it's true to real life, has the do or do not, there is no try, I was emblazoned in large letters on the wall of the entryway of the Theranos building. Do you know what I mean? That this is like, that speaks to, I mean, on a different person, maybe I would feel like, oh, that's some fun whimsy.

But here it just sort of feeds into this whole stunted. Like she's weaponizing this idea of, oh, I'm just a girl. I don't know what I'm doing. But there is also just some ways in which, and, you know, we see some. some disturbing behavior from her father, you know, when he shoes her away from the hospital bed and stuff like that. There are some ways in which, you know, she was stunted in her development, you know, that is outside her own control. Yeah. And the title of this show is the dropout. So much around her narrative is that she dropped out of college. But what we see over and over

is that she really probably could have used a few more courses in chemistry and biology and microfluidics to be able to maybe comprehend more that this wasn't going to work. And I think they do a good job with that Yoda bit with Dr. Phyllis Gardner of showing that, yeah, she's not just using this as a fondness for Star Wars and geek culture. She sees reality through this lens of something that Yoda has said. And that's what Dr. Gardner says back to her is, science is real. This little green man is not. And you can't, you can quote this if you want to, but you can't use it as your founding principle for a biotech company. And then, and it, and I really love that scene. I love that Lori Metcalf performance. If you have seen Dr. Phyllis Gardner in real life or in any of these

documentaries, it is perfect casting. I mean, she is like a tornado on flats. I mean, she, she's so good. And yeah, you see in that moment, like you said, in an ordinary story, this would be a protagonist moment. But right here, we're seeing Elizabeth Holmes already inventing this narrative in her head that opposition means you're doing something right. And someone telling you you can't means that you have to try even harder to do the impossible. And that's a Silicon Valley narrative. And it makes a lot of sense why she would think that.

but it ultimately, again, spoiler alert, leads to her own doom. And I mean, the thing about any grifter story is there's a, there's the added frustration of those of us watching at home because, like, I mean, maybe not the fire festival guy, but like most of these grifters, like, you have to be really smart in some way to pull off a grift of this magnitude, to land on the cover of Forbes and, you know, bilk people for billions. You know what I mean? You have, there is, there's a lot of intelligence there. And you have to have like the mental fortitude. Yeah. To lie to that many people and to man it, to juggle this many lies. It's just to watch them use those gifts for this rather than like, hey, if you would just buckle down and take in Dr. Gardner's advice and, you know, state the course.

Maybe you could have done this for real. Right. then you could have perhaps invented something that did change the world, but maybe didn't land you on the cover of Forbes and Fortune. And I think I mentioned this in the, you know, IRL podcast we did on Elizabeth Holmes yesterday. But the show sort of asks this question, or rather presents an answer to this question, is, does Elizabeth Holmes want to change the world? Or does she want to be seen as someone who has changed the world?

And I think they definitely land on the last. latter. Yeah, exactly. And I think that it also speaks this larger. I was rereading the article that the Vanity Fair article that Nick Bilton did October, I think 2016 issue, which was so great because Nick was at the summit and then just like turned right around and wrote this devastating article. But in it, he taught, you know, because Nick has covered Silicon Valley for so long, he talked about this idea of like the reason why Theranos, a reason why Theranos was so attracted to so many people is, you know, Silicon Valley is a gamble, right? Like you're gambling on all these various people with an idea. But the way in which these people with, you know, these hedge fund investors or whatever

with too much money, the way in which they could feel good about themselves because they were investing in something that was just going to change health care, help people. Like that whole beautiful spin on all of this, this like your... that they were investing in a woman who was going to change the world. It was a huge aspect of it. It was going to change the world. And you're going to line your pockets while you do it. I mean, everybody wins.

Yeah, exactly. Amazing. All right, before we go, I wanted to just see if there were any other, in these first three episodes, at least, any other side performances you want to shout out. I want to say that I am delighted by the casting of William H. Macy as Ray, um, R. Richard, how do you pronounce this last name? Is it like Fuse? Fuse. Fuse.

Fuse. Her, like, you know, friend of the family and business nemesis, eventually. Because William H. Macy himself was involved in a grift very recently. Wow. Great point, Joanna. Wildcasting to put William H. Macy in this show. He was like, I'm going to look this grifter culture in the eye. Let's get down to brass tacks, William H. Macy said.

And I love, I mean, his character is. incredible, incredible stuff. Anything else that stood out to you? Well, he's the one that I would bring up as well. The casting is great. The wig is simply unfathomable. It's maybe the only miss I see in the show is that's not how Richard Fuse's hair looks, really. Oh, I forgot to look up how he looks. I briefly looked him up. Is it a ton of William H. Macy's own hair shoved under a bald cap? Is that that what's happening? I assumed it was a full, a full wig. I don't know, there's a lot of, there's an extra amount of forehead that I can't really make sense of. Like, it's not just the bald cap. Something else odd is going on. I mean, he is a real zany character, and I guess that does

play to it, but that character, I'm keeping my eye on. I would say that's actually the, part of the show that I'm a little less sure about why they have brought that in. He's, Her suing him was definitely, you know, a part of all of these stories, the documentaries, the podcast, and his take on her. But he's filled with so much hate towards her from the very beginning. And it's telling an interesting story to me about, you know, that sort of a mockery is made of these older white men who do buy her shtick. but it's also a very ugly look on this other character for not believing in her, I think,

as a young person who has a lot of ambition and a lot of conviction in herself. And those are not things to be knocked down. But you see him doing it from a very early time. And I think, you know, maybe that is sort of maybe that is like a bit of a representation to the audience of we're not hitting down on this person just to hit down on her. her were hitting down on the bad things that she did. But there is a sort of acknowledgement of like this isn't, it's not just bad to have ambition and conviction in yourself and a dream and belief that you can do a good and noble thing.

It's bad to lie about it. Maybe that's what that character's up to. I don't know. He's an interesting one. Yeah, it's certainly a big performance. I want to shout out James Hirouki Liao, I think. who plays, you know, one of the technicians, I think he gives like a really sort of like

beautiful empathetic performance as like someone who sees the dangers of what they're doing very early on. We also have Stephen Fry's in here as Ian Gibbons, you know, a great like sort of shambling performance from Stephen Fry as another member of the lab. You know, great cast. And then eventually, like not to spoil things,

but eventually the show kind of turns into and all the president's men kind of journalism thriller. Right. Enter the white hairs. I love a journalism thriller. So the Wall Street Journal is coming. The Murdochs are coming.

All of that's happening. So that's a really strong place for the show to go. It's not just staying in the lab, but it's sort of spreading out from there. And I think that's a really fun thing to look forward to. Anything else you want to shout out? There are a lot of future performances that, that, you know, I would otherwise shout.

out. So I would just stay tuned because like we said earlier, there are a lot of these sort of of one-off characters. They maybe come in for one episode because there was so much turnover over the course of this company that there were a lot of people who had

really, you know, strong experiences for the good and the bad. And they have cast each one of those players, I think, so well and that just bring a lot of nuance to the story. So stay tuned. Stay tuned for the dropout. We may or may not be back to cover more of it. We shall

see. I hope I get to see it. I think we definitely liked it. Yeah, you're about to, I'm about to have to dive into other colors, unfortunately. As it turns to spring here, I might have to get a lighter weight. Oh, some pastels. All right. Well, we'll see as it all unfold. Hopefully we'll be back. Jody Walker, until then, where can folks find you? Oh, they can find me all overtherringer.com. Like I mentioned, We are doing pop culture history lessons over on the Ringer Dish channel. And if you have a general interest in grifts or scamming, there's a lot of that going on over there. And yeah, they can find me writing about TV on the ringer.com. Excellent.

Big thank you, as always, to our senior producer, Steve Allman, for this. And we'll be back in this feed with more grifts, more prestige. And we'll see you then. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items, then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes. So you can feel confident it's what you ordered. Fresh groceries, your way, with Ralph's delivery and pickup.

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