'The Dropout' Episode 5 Review: Holmes is wily and heartless in scam-filled chapter
Spoilers for 'The Dropout' Episode 5 'Flower of Life'
Hulu returned with the fifth episode of 'The Dropout' which chronicles the gripping story of the rise and eventual downfall of entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes who was once dubbed as a visionary.
So far on 'The Dropout' Elizabeth's (Amanda Seyfried) shady actions have resulted in her making a deal with pharmaceutical giant Walgreens despite having technology that gives inaccurate results. Lying about protecting company secrets she bags the deal, but her actions will have consequences as we see from this episode. She and her boyfriend Sunny Balwani (Naveen Andrews) may have held problems at bay, but for how long will they last? So read on to know what happened in the fifth episode and our thoughts on it.
RELATED ARTICLES
'The Dropout' Episode 4: Fans dub Elizabeth 'truly evil woman' post heartless actions
'The Dropout' Premiere: Fans laud Amanda Seyfried's acting, call it 'so f**king good'
Episode 5 begins as the heads of Walgreens mount pressure on Elizabeth to give them a definite launch date. The year is 2013 and in the three years that have passed, she has sucked $140 million out of them without having delivered a working machine. They give her an ultimatum of launching in September, giving her 6 months to get her act together or they walk. This leaves her in a fix with problems piling up for her.
The episode sheds light on the relationship between her and Sunny as just like the Edison machine, their relationship doesn't seem to be working as well. Tensions mount and we see them fight and even consider breaking up and well as letting go of the company. But as they say birds of a feather flock together, and these two form a devious couple patching up their problem by plagiarizing the Siemens machine. We also see just how clever Holmes is and how she managed to swindle the investors. Words are her weapons and her speeches are tools to gain confidence. She is also getting more heartless and unempathetic each passing episode and we see that when she hears about Ian's death. The chemist's suicide was mourned by her for about 5 seconds before she pointed out that it meant that their patent was safe. Ian's death brought sadness in the scam-filled episode and we must commend Stephen Fry's portrayal of Ian when he was void of hope.
Elizabeth's actions had its first major victim who couldn't cope with the life she forcefully handed him. But it's about to get worse as Theranos launches its technology across stores putting millions at risk. However, sly actions come to bite people in their backs and Holmes is about to get what she deserves. The episode ends on an exciting note that shows Richard Fuisz (William H Macy) contacting Holmes' professor Phyllis Gardner (Laurie Metcalf) at Stanford to enquire about her former student. The lines by Gardner saying, "She's a fraud. She has always been a fraud", lay an exhilarating foundation for the next episode.
'The Dropout' returns with new episodes on Hulu every Thursday.
