Dope season 2 recap and review (Netflix)
Netflix
A mask gives a drug deal anonymity from the camera’s lens, but a text message in plain English after one has been caught red-handed does nothing but provide a stronger case to the prosecutor.
We have all dabbled in drugs, know someone who has, or has binged a few cop shows by now. Addiction clinic stats and Netflix programming tell us so. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about Dope. It is the very basic of “Who is distributing what, how and where?”
Left begging in every episode is the tertiary effects on the individuals spotlighted. The docu-series doesn’t spend much time dwelling on why these people are dealing drugs. It’s more interested in the practicalities of dealing, and it’s an approach that barely gives any opportunist the basics of dealing or capturing a dealer.
The second season of Dope was like the roach found in that poor girls on the Ambassador Bridge. It isn’t worth the time and paperwork. Like the teeth of a meth addict, patience for a poorly done drug documentary is fading fast.
A Google search will return a bunch of message board threads wondering if the characters in Dope are authentic or just actors. Most assuredly they are real-life cops and hustlers, with all the characters playing to their cliché. No actor, even one with experience in buying illicit substances, will get all the mannerisms correct. They would be trying to act.
This is why the Coast Guard footage seems a lot like a training operation. The music building tensions was out of place. Dope was edited to make it seem like the different crews being filmed might run into each other, but that was never believable. It can be trusted, the dealers are acting in the good faith of their desperation.
Drugs are a means to an end. To end would Netflix go to make every scene seem legit and therefore gripping? Either they tried too hard, or not hard enough. Either way, the blatant attempts to create urgency left a gross feeling.
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What motivation would a dealer have to trust a camera crew? Reputation. Bragging rights. And even when that logic does not sit quite right with most civilians, realize these are not the top rung of drug dealers being filmed. Somewhere ego and greed come in to play for all decisions. Probably even the decision at Netflix to produce this season of Dope.