Netflix
Dope hired some big guns that were familiar with the material for season 2 of the Netflix series, but this batch was a dud.
Drugs are the subject of plenty of documentaries and for good reason. The taboo of drugs and curiosity of people wanting to know more without taking the risk will always have an audience. Those looking for a trip to the deep end need to look further than the Netflix docu-series Dope.
Usually, on the second hit off the pipe, the effects lessen. In the second season of Dope, the episodes do seem a bit weaker. The surface level dynamics of the drug trade have been covered ad-nauseum. This season of Dope does little but show the same stereotypes we’ve all seen before. The characters played to their cliche.
To open we get more background on El Chapo, which is like getting a stepped-on bag of bad grass. Nothing new and no real kick. In Puerto Rico, the devastating effects of the recent hurricane are overlooked to show how drug runners are merely paid in extra cocaine. No new cash is being brought to the island to stay, and that is a problem that only makes the usage rates worse.
The hurricane’s devastation and cocaine opportunists are two issues blended into the background of one episode. Puerto Rico is also dealing with the same cartel fights that plagued northern Mexico a decade ago before mergers of cartels saw more focused enforcement of territories.
Season 2 of Dope has more drug dealer exaggeration than it does cash transactions. El Animal goes straight from basic drug economics to guns and death. Lots of drugs are moving more efficiently. Everything in the world of commerce is moving more efficiently. However, that boat that delivered the cocaine to the dock was not deep seaworthy.
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Instead of limiting the scope to individual operations, this season of Dope exposes the problems on both sides of the game, and the implied consequences are there begging for a deeper look. In this macro look at several aspects of the drug trade and the enforcement efforts to stop it, there is more to the story in Dope that is not told then they actually cover.
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The first episode brings us the drug testers and the woman pimp, who are all in the wake of El Animal’s tide of drug distribution. Between the first episodes boat chases and the third episodes jet ski crossing at the Canadian border, perhaps we need more coast guard documentaries? The second episode seemed to be grasping at straws and missing the point.
In episode two, the preacher does not want to cope with life. He does not understand the difference between dope and dopamine. Dope season 2 barely scratches the surface, as it seems it did not want to confront the real issues lying right past their line of reporting.
The Preacher seems to want to wish the problem away, while Dope seems to ignore major issues, even on the individual level. As it was when the cops raid a hotel room, Dope seems to take on no actual investigating beyond sitting outside a hotel and breaking up a party hoping to find drugs.
The cops are tracking down drugs like addicts hooked to the high, and they are in many police departments. Going after drugs one small bag at a time will never actually take any substantial amount of drugs off the street.
Netflix
Netflix has been pushing crime docu-series like surplus drugs lately, probably because they get good ratings. Yet it seems they’ve failed to truly point out the obvious. These cops are chasing their tails in every episode. The dealers are using the same old lines. Dope season 2 seems like the residue of a bag already exhausted.
In the third episode, we see how the white and black drug games differ, but that is totally not the focus of the episode. Anyone who has ever gone from the projects to the penthouse or had a wide variety of friends in high school has known someone selling just to fund their own party.
There has always been a version of the raves and the allure of the long White people money. Why do criminal justice undergrads dabble in drugs? They think they are smarter than most and see an opportunity.
Getting too greedy invites competition. Cutting drugs to make more profit can lead to ruining the product and the dealer had nothing. Plan B is taking this junk to a different market, and hope that market is ignorant of the old tricks. The reason is the hustle and the hustle is the reason.
Plenty of shows are out there explaining how drugs are pushed to the black community. Snowfall is portraying how it gets out and the difference is customers and price point. The blend of different drugs cultures comes in the mix just like the baking powder cuts the cocaine.
Once the product becomes too cut, and the markup on price ridiculous, entrepreneur white kids getting business and criminal justice degrees started selling. The testing kits at Bonnaroo or Voodoo Fest or any other outdoor festivals are not only saving lives, they are keeping prices stable. As a side project, these future FBI agents are basically running a supply and demand logistics chain. It is a surprise more mentions of bitcoin did not feature in Dope.
On one side, it’s ‘how do I make some quick money and with what?’ The other side is ‘how are cops trying to stop it?’ In the former, it is anything and everything depending on what you need, and in all kinds of new ways using old tricks. In the latter, the cops are still operating under the Reagan Era playbook but have at least wizened up to capturing text messages.
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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.