PEACOCK’S ‘DR. DEATH’ SEASON 2: A TRUE-CRIME BALANCING ACT
First Published on TheAtlantic.com
A screening of Peacock’s thrilling anthology series, Dr. Death, delivers entertainment and education in equal measure
As I step into the grandeur of the Motion Picture Association theater in Washington, D.C., I hear a hum of animated murmurs. The audience is about to embark on an absorbing, disconcerting cinematic journey: a glimpse into the latest installment of Peacock’s true-crime anthology, Dr. Death, based on the hit Wondery podcast. In its second season, the show delves into the story of the charismatic surgeon Dr. Paolo Macchiarini (played by Edgar Ramírez) as those in his professional and personal orbits attempt to unravel the falsehoods of his life, and their murderous implications.
On the evening of the screening, we are gathered to watch the penultimate episode of Season 2 and take in a subsequent panel discussion. True crime’s soaring popularity in the past decade has yielded disquieting questions that drive the panel’s conversation. Are we, as consumers, glorifying criminal behavior? By engaging with this content, are we exploiting victims and their families for our personal enjoyment? Are we sensationalizing real deaths for the sake of profit? But as unease grows regarding the genre’s impact on human behavior, there emerges an opportunity for true crime to flip the script—and the evening’s post-screening panel presents Dr. Death as just that.
“You can take really good stories and build them out, not only to entertain people, but to educate them,” says Ioli Filmeridis, social action and philanthropic adviser for Littleton Road Philanthropy. Littleton Road Philanthropy is an extension of the production company responsible for Dr. Death’s creation. Filmeridis was specifically brought onto the team to implement tangible social action initiatives for the show’s rollout, including a community-based campaign focused on patient safety. The campaign emphasizes efforts to reduce and prevent negative outcomes in medical care. “I think a lot of times we think of viewers as passive, but we wanted to really engage them,” she explains.
In a discussion that is just as much about dismantling structural global health issues as it is about capturing a seductive true-crime story, Filmeridis shares the stage with Ashley Michel Hoban, the showrunner, executive producer, and writer of Dr. Death Season 2, and Dr. Kapil Parakh, a cardiologist and the author of Searching for Health.
The first shot of the 45-minute episode places the audience in the lifeless body of one of Paolo’s former patients. Three suspicious colleagues hover over the body as they begin a clandestine investigation. Throughout the episode, a grim reality sets in as these scientists confirm their fears: Paolo’s miracle trachea procedure is an unethical scam, resulting not only in the avoidable loss of life but also in the implication of the doctors who worked alongside him. As the narrative unfolds, Paolo’s colleagues decide to bring light to the wrongdoing by filing a complaint with their employer, Sweden’s Karolinska Institute—one of the world’s foremost medical centers, known for distributing the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. However, their efforts are met with significant resistance from an institution determined to preserve its reputation.
Halfway around the world, in New York City, investigative journalist Benita Alexander (played by Mandy Moore) encounters a parallel challenge as she endeavors to unveil the truth about Paolo and the impact he has had on her own life. When Benita meets Paolo in the season’s first episode, she is producing a news story on regenerative medicine featuring the famed “Miracle Man.” As their professional relationship evolves into a whirlwind romance, Benita finds herself entangled in Paolo’s deceitful lifestyle, propelling her into an intense quest for truth.
In this second to last episode of the season, it becomes evident that the heart of the show is not the disgraced doctor, but the whistleblowers fighting structural issues within the medical system. These whistleblowers (played by Luke Kirby, Ashley Madekwe, and Gustaf Hammarsten) bear the burdens not only of revealing the truth but also of grappling with their own complicity in Paolo’s deceptions.
“We’ve seen it happen over and over: People who try to speak out and tell the truth are the ones who suffer in the end,” an exasperated Benita says at the close of the episode. “The system is rigged. Good people learn to stay silent. And men like Paolo, they win.”