‘Painkiller’ trailer: Uzo Aduba investigates Purdue Pharma in Netflix’s series on opioid crisis

Uzo Aduba and Matthew Broderick in a still from ‘Painkiller’
| Photo Credit: Keri Anderson/Netflix

The trailer of Painkiller, Netflix’s upcoming limited series on the US opioid crisis, was released by the makers on Wednesday. Headlined by Uzo Aduba, Matthew Broderick, Taylor Kitsch, Dina Shihabi, and West Duchovny, the six-episode series premieres on Netflix on August 10.

The trailer shows Uzo as Edie, an investigator with the US attorney’s office investigating a case against Purdue Pharma. We then see Purdue’s CEO Richard Sackler (Broderick) explain how all human behaviour revolves around running away from pain and towards pleasure. “If we place ourselves right there, between pain and pleasure, we will never have to worry about money again,” he says. We then see the rise of OxyContin as the leading opioid in the country.

“This series is a fictionalized telling of real events, explores some of the origins and aftermath of the opioid crisis in America, highlighting the stories of perpetrators, victims, and truth-seekers whose lives are forever altered by the invention of OxyContin,” reads the logline of the series.

Painkiller is based on the book Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic by Barry Meier and the New Yorker Magazine article about the Sackler dynasty, The Family That Built an Empire of Pain, by Patrick Radden Keefe.

The series is created by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster. It also features Clark Gregg, Jack Mulhern, Sam Anderson, Ana Cruz Kayne, Brian Markinson, Noah Harpster, John Ales, Johnny Sneed, Tyler Ritter and Carolina Bartczak.