Faced with the success of the Painkiller series on Netflix, one can wonder if a season 2 is already relevant.
It’s a box full for Netflix. No one could have predicted the success of Painkiller, a 6-part series that looks back at the origin of the opioid crisis in the United States. Since the 1990s, pharmaceutical lobbies have greatly encouraged general practitioners to prescribe painkillers based on opiate derivatives to their patients who have become addicted… Without any big promotion and thanks to effective word-of-mouth, it has took first place in the top fairly quickly (before being dethroned by this documentary).
Painkiller was presented from the beginning by Netflix as a mini-series, meaning that their intention was never to make a season 2 of it. And the story of the protagonists goes in this direction:
The character played by Uzo Aduba has finished testifying before the legal team responsible for bringing down Purdue Pharma. The one camped by Taylor Kitsch becomes aware of his addiction and knows that he must get help. As for the big bad wolf, played by Matthew Broderick, the end card explains what has become of him. The circle is closed, in a way (even if some legal decisions are pending).
What is interesting with Painkiller is that the subject is much broader than that. The arrival of Oxycontin on the market, and other addictive painkillers, marked the country forever and the devastation is still being felt today: “Every day, more than 40 people die from an opioid overdose in the United States.” reveals the end of the series to us. So there are still things to say on the subject, even if it will not directly concern the protagonists of season 1.
Let’s also keep in mind that the mini-series format has not prevented Netflix from renewing a program in the past. This was particularly the case of The Watcher by Ryan Murphy, which was offered a season 2 when it had to stop at the first. At the moment, the platform has not spoken about Painkiller so everything is still possible.