‘The Dropout’ Humanizes Elizabeth Holmes in Gripping Limited Series

Hulu’s new limited series The Dropout attempts to piece together the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes with Amanda Seyfried delivering an awards-worthy performance.

There have been many projects on Elizabeth Holmes, the billionaire fraudster whose startup Theranos  misled investors for more than a decade. The first that comes to mind is HBO’s documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley from 2019, then most recently two podcasts: Bad Blood (from writer John Carreyrou who outed Holmes in a Wall Street Journal expose) and The Dropout, in which the new Hulu series is based on.

One thing that has eluded these projects is getting any sense of what was going on inside Holmes’s head, a mystery that might be the most fascinating part of the entire Theranos saga. Did she really think she could design a machine that could diagnose medical problems at the prick of a finger? Did that belief in doing something good—or being a billionnaire—outweigh the actual capabilities of the product? Hulu’s limited series The Dropout might be the closest we get to understanding Holmes’s motivations, as it builds a compelling character study led by a strong performance by Amanda Seyfried.

Elizabeth Holmes is such a character in her own right (the frayed blonde hair, the fake deep voice, the green juice!) that whoever slips on a black turtleneck to play her is going to face scrutiny (Jennifer Lawrence is attached to an Adam McKay Holmes project and even looks a bit like her). Seyfried is not someone who immediately comes to mind to play Holmes, simply because she’s about half her size in height, but the recent Academy Award nominee nails the Stanford dropout’s essence and mannerisms and creates a character that, while still mystifying, provides viewers with some sense of what drove Holmes to do what she did (or in fact, didn’t do). Seyfried is both dramatic and comedic, goofy and serious, really channeling that manic energy. In a scene where she comforts her father, Seyfried’s eyes grow wide with curiosity, as if his pain is something she wants to examine under a microscope. She has the same look of intrigue when she’s having sex in college.

Hulu has been on a roll with its limited series as of late. First, with last year’s Dopesick, then most recently Pam & Tommy. The Dropout might be one of its best yet, with an extensive, stellar supporting cast that includes Naveen Andrews as Holmes’s lover/business partner Sunny Balwani, Michaela Watkins as Theranos’s lawyer, Dylan Minnette as whistleblower Tyler Schultz, Stephen Fry as Ian Gibbons, Sam Waterston as George Schultz, Laurie Metcalf as no-nonsense Phyllis Gardner, and William H. Macy as Richard Fuisz, her former neighbor who sues her out of spite. All of the series directors—including Michael Showalter, Erica Watson, and Francesca Gregorini—know how to pull both the drama and humor from the actors and the scripts, like an Episode 7 monologue from LisaGay Hamilton who plays Wall Street Journal editor Judith Baker (“Bam!”). As dramatic as this series is, it’s also pretty hilarious at times.

One of the lingering questions the series fails to tackle is whether she actually has any kind of scientific know-how or not. In the first episode “I’m in a Hurry,” she talks her way into a graduate-level biotech group by knowing something no one else does, but then subsequently proves to have no scientific awareness in further episodes. Could someone that smart really let her biotech company run on a false premise? Or could she have been a fraud even back then?

We still may not know everything about Elizabeth Holmes, and we probably never will. And while there have been tech frauds in the past, what’s most devastating about Holmes’ story is the ramifications of this particular deceit. “What do you think happens to all of the other women who want to start companies?” says Phyllis Gardner (Metcalf) to Holmes. “Who do they go to? Who’s gonna trust them? Cause it’s not just you. It’s never just you.” Unlike other series about failed startups, like Fyre Fraud and the upcoming WeCrashed on Apple TV+, the stakes are much higher with Holmes’ story. The stench of failure only sticks to Billy McFarland and Adam Neumann, but Holmes did more bad than good for more than just the medical and tech communities. In the end, she finally earned something she could take credit for.