The Dope Thief Premiere is Cliché & Predictable, A Subpar Start to a Show Not Worth Watching
Spoilers for Episode 1 of Dope Thief
I’m not typically one to write-up anything about a show after only watching one episode, but the premier of Dope Thief, an 8-episode Apple TV+ crime drama, is so cliché and subpar that I feel like writing something about it.
Before I get into why I strongly disliked the first episode of this series, I’d like to clarify that I don’t think Dope Thief is poorly made TV. It’s well-shot. The acting is okay, I guess. If you enjoy Dope Thief as just a show that’s totally acceptable to watch to fill the time, I don’t blame you. For me personally though, I don’t have any tolerance for the sort of aggressively mediocre show that Dope Thief will certainly end up being.
The premise of Dope Thief is right there in the title. Our two antiheroes steal drugs and money from criminals. It’s your classic Robin Hood-type story except we’re in gritty Philadelphia not Nottingham, and instead of giving to the poor, the two men, named Ray and Manny, are keeping the loot for themselves. The show’s opening scene shows how Ray and Manny have their methods down to a science, disguising themselves as DEA agents to get the better of those they rob.
Both men are shown to be efficient and intelligent. Pretty quickly, however, they decide to team-up with an ex-con named Rick, something that’s completely contrary to the notion of them having any smarts. Rick is written as an awful character, and the decision of the show’s creators to portray him the way they do took me completely out of the episode.
Rick looks basically homeless, seems unintelligent, and is about as unprofessional as you could get. He’s the exact opposite of the sort of person that Ray and Manny would ever choose to work with given what we know about them.
Despite this, the two men decide to go along with Rick on a robbery job he presents to them. It’s made a little bit clear that Ray potentially needs more money for his adopted mother to have some sort of medical procedure (cliché alert), but the stakes never feel so high that Ray would be desperate enough and have the need for cash so urgently as to team up with bumbling buffoon like Rick. As viewers, we are 100% certain that this robbery will go horribly wrong.
When the three men show up to the isolated meth lab they plan to rob, Rick is bumbling with the gun and behaving in a way that anyone with even a sliver of smarts would abandon working with him immediately. He’s also wearing a DEA vest, but the idea that any criminal would believe him as an agent is downright laughable.
Of course, our protagonists decide to go forward with their plan and things go horribly wrong. Rick messes up, a few people are killed, and Ray and Manny escape with a load of cash and drugs. While making their escape, Ray drops his walkie-talkie and it’s found by someone very sinister who will, undoubtedly, try to track the pair down. “What have they gotten themselves into?” viewers are meant to exclaim.
Dope Thief is loaded with other clichés too. Like the fact that Ray has a lot of guilt due to his girlfriend dying after they were in car accident. (We’re shown these scenes of the past in black-and-white.) Also, one of the meth lab workers, who lives despite being shot, is revealed as an undercover DEA agent (another shocker). The plot just keeps thickening!
Dope Thief brings absolutely zero interesting or fresh ideas for a crime drama to the table. It’s not a good show, but the robbery with Rick that basically sets off what will be the core of the season’s focus is what’s by far the worst part of the episode. Maybe if Rick had been more well put-together and intelligent seeming but was also a hothead and that’s what bungled the robbery, then the story what be at least somewhat more plausible.
As it is though, the premier of Dope Thief is as cliché and predictable as TV episodes come. Your TV-viewing hours are best spent elsewhere.
Premier Grade: 3.5/10