Summary
Dope season 3 is frighteningly insightful and indicative of the illegal drug trade globally, as the Netflix series manages to grab remarkable footage.
Dope season 3 is the first time I’ve watched this Netflix series, but the concept is standardised across each season, so the need for continuity is not required. Earlier this year I went to Liverpool to enjoy Rugby League at the Magic Weekend (and also drank way too much alcohol). I arrived at our Airbnb apartment, dropped off my bags, went down the building stairs, and my dad pointed at a man crouched against a car across the road. He was injecting himself in the neck, and as a person who has an intense phobia of injections in some regions of the body, it hit home to see it in broad daylight as I was casually about to embark on a weekend drink session. My dad posed the question; imagine how far gone you’d have to be to do that in the light of day?
And then while watching Dope season 3’s opening episode, which is specifically about heroin mixed with fentanyl, I was reminded about Ricky Gervais’ After Life and the darkness that consumes people. While there is a substantial argument for legalising marijuana globally, the more potent drugs are exploitative to people’s mental and physical health. The opening episode details how the cartels produce and distribute their drugs, and then on the flipside, shows police and health services saving people from overdosing on the streets. It’s a tragic and upsetting cycle that is indicative of the failures of our governments.
Dope season 3 shows its strength in documenting the realness of the situation. The camera crew and directors have managed to get themselves into the thick of the cycle; meeting drug cooks, kingpins and the average dealer to highlight the systematic processes that lie between flooding the streets with different strains of drugs. Episode 2 demonstrates how cocaine is transported from rural Colombia to the vibrant Madrid; a journey I would never feel was possible, but the Netflix series is wholly insightful.
If you can abide the deep-voiced narrator that drives each episode of Netflix series Dope, you will be presented with a series of information that is not only entertaining but acutely frightening. When we tell our children that monsters come out at night, we are not joking. Dope season 3 is worth a binge.
