History Series / TheDropout

You got your results!''\\

** Anytime Elizabeth or Sunny get a question and they can’t answer it, they respond with "That’s propriety information."

** At the event celebrating Walgreens as partnership with Theranos, Roland serenade Elizabeth to a ditty set to the tune of "What I Like About You":

It only takes one drop!''

* CringeComedy: The meeting between Theranos and Walgreens is rife with this, due to Elizabeth and Sunny's obvious attempts at stalling Kevin from seeing the labs.

* NoGoodDeed: In "Old White Men", Ian, the Head of Chemistry, tries to make Channing Robertson aware that Elizabeth wants to put the machines in stores even though the technology is not ready. Channing calls Elizabeth, who fires him unceremoniously. He does get re-hired, but gets ReassignedToAntarctica.

* CassandraTruth: Walgreens sends four people to check out Theranos. They want to see the labs before committing but Sunny and Elizabeth keep stalling, distracting them from that, and giving evasive answers to direct questions. Kevin points out all the red flags. Wade appears to believe at first, but eventually Walgreens does pair with Theranos.

* CreepyMonotone: Elizabeth's general speaking style, especially when trying to adopt her deeper voice. It makes her come across more like a malfunctioning robot than a person. In-universe, she terrifies a young female worker at the Apple store by telling the girl, in unblinking monotone, that the girl's life was meaningless and unimportant so much that the girl accidentally erases everything on Elizabeth's phone.

* MeanBoss: At the company's holiday party, Elizabeth gets drunk and her assistant Miriam calls Sunny (Elizabeth's boyfriend) to pick her up. Elizabeth rewards Miriam by firing her just before Sunny takes her home.
* NoGoodDeed: In "Old White Men" Ian, the Head of Chemistry, tries to make Channing Robertson aware that Elizabeth wants to put the machines in stores even though the technology is not ready. Channing calls Elizabeth, who fires him unceremoniously. He does get re-hired, but gets ReassignedToAntarctica.

* ResignInProtest: Designer Ana Arriola goes to work at Elizabeth Holmes's company. Excited to work for a female CEO, she starts catching on to Elizabeth’s ways. The trial on cancer patients even though the machine doesn't work is the last straw. Elizabeth dismisses Ana's concerns by saying it was just a trial. In disgust, Ana quits on the spot, taking her whole design team with her.
** Head of chemistry Ian Gibbons is fired for discussing his concerns about Elizabeth with a Board members. The next day, engineer Brendan and all employees under him threaten to quit in protest. Ian is rehired but he is ReassignedToAntarctica.

** She bluntly tells a young woman fixing her phone at the Apple Genius Bar that nothing that the woman will never be important and nothing she does will ever matter.

* UnkemptBeauty: At least before her SignificantWardrobeShift, Elizabeth wears untucked shirts that need ironing and messy ponytails.

* ArcWords: After the trial on cancer patients in a Nashville clinic. "This is an inspiring step forward." It's the phrase that Elizabeth says out loud over and over again to practice her ContraltoOfDanger. She uses it to justify the trials on cancer patients to both Edmond and Don Lucas. Also doubles as MadnessMantra.

** Elizabeth [[MoralEventHorizon crosses the line]] from [[WideEyedIdealist stubbornly believing]] in her flawed, unworkable idea into outright fraud when she blatantly fakes a successful test result during a demonstration after the prototype suddenly stops working in Switzerland.

* AmbitionIsEvil: Elizabeth's ambition to make her mark leads her to make promises she is unable to deliver. She even conducts a trial of her blood testing machine on actual cancer patients, despite the fact that the machine ''does not work''.

* BlatantLies: Elizabeth lies to everyone about the machine working, when she does not even have a working prototype.

* BrutalHonesty: Sunny drops by Theranos and checks out what is going on in the lab... without asking or even telling Elizabeth first. She is enraged that he did that, but he lays a couple of truths. Her employees don't respect her, and she is years away from delivering on what she has promised her board: "Elizabeth, you are in over your head. You are going to lose everything."

* CreepyMonotone: Elizabeth's general speaking style, especially when trying to adopt her deeper voice. It makes her come across more like a malfunctioning robot than a person.

* UnequalPairing: Never mind the [[AgeGapRomance gap in ages of almost 20 years]]. When they start out, Elizabeth is a freshman student and Sunny is a multi-millionaire after selling his company. As time goes on, he acts controlling both in private (the incident where she refuses to drink the expensive juice he bought for her) and in her business (when he shows up uninvited to observe what the heck is going on at Theranos).

* WrongSideOfTheTracks: To save costs, Elizabeth opens the office for Theranos in a questionable neighborhood. Sure enough, when parking her car, a stray bullet shatters her window and misses her head by inches. She is so spooked that she calls Sunny despite having broken up with him.
%%%% Trivia Entries
%%* AllStarCast: In addition to Creator/AmandaSeyfried and Creator/NaveenAndrews, there is Creator/WilliamHMacy, Creator/LaurieMetcalf, Creator/MichaelIronside, Creator/SamWaterston, and Creator/StephenFry.

* UnequalPairing: Never mind the AgeGap of almost 20 years. When they start out, Elizabeth is a freshman student and Sunny is a multi-millionaire after selling his company. As time goes on, he acts controlling both in private (the incident where she refuses to drink the expensive juice he bought for her) and in her business (when he shows up uninvited to observe what the heck is going on at Theranos).

* ArcWords: After the trial on cancer patients in a Nashville clinic. "This is an inspiring step forward." It's the phrase that Elizabeth says out loud over and over again to practice her ContraltoOfDanger. She uses it to justify the trials on cancer patients to both Edmund and Don Lucas. Also doubles as MadnessMantra.

* CrowdChant: When they get a complete reading on a test for sepsis, Rakesh, Edmund and Ian burst into Elizabeth's office (where she sleeps) to let her know. They start jumping up and down in celebration: "We have sepsis! We have sepsis!"

* NoSocialSkills: Elizabeth sees an Easy-Bake Oven in Edmund's work area that belongs to his daughter and wonders why the kid does not just play with the real oven instead. He has to tell her that real ovens are not safe for children. She also has serious difficulty socializing with others, to the point that she is seen practicing stock responses to banter at a party.

* TheSociopath: A drunk Elizabeth tells Sunny about faking a working prototype for Novartis's demonstration. "I don’t feel things the way other people feel things." She also dismisses Edmund's concerns about trying out the machine with actual patients by saying it's just a trial. Her lack of concern for others leads Ana and the design team to quit.

* NoSocialSkills: Elizabeth sees an Easy-Bake Oven in Edmund's work area that belongs to his daughter and wonders why the kid does not just play with the real oven instead. He has to tell her that real ovens are not safe for children.

* ThereIsNoTry: Invoked literally by Elizabeth. She has a Yoda sticker in her idea notebook. As a sophomore in Stanford, she tries to convince Dr. Phyllis Gardner to work with her by quoting the famous line "Do or do not. There is no try". Phyllis advises her to never use lines from Yoda again when she is trying to convince others.

* AtomicFBomb: Elizabeth yells "Fuuuuuuuuck!" inside her car after being rejected by several venture capitalists .

* BrutallyHonest: Sunny drops by Theranos and checks out what is going on in the lab... without asking or even telling Elizabeth first. She is enraged that he did that, but he lays a couple of truths. Her employees don't respect her, and she is years away from delivering on what she has promised her board: "Elizabeth, you are in over your head. You are going to lose everything."

* ForegoneConclusion: We already know that Theranos went bankrupt and that Elizabeth fooled her investors about her machine (and that as of February 2022, she was found guilty of four crimes).

* ConsistentClothingStyle: In the beginning, her work wardrobe consists of a lot of untucked button-down shirts, even when going out for presentations to venture capitalists.

** Just before Elizabeth is to present the machine to Novartis in Switzerland, the prototype does not work. She and her team work through the night trying everything to fix it, with everybody contributing blood samples. Finally,

* TheSociopath: A drunk Elizabeth tells Sunny about faking a working prototype for Novartis's demonstration. "I don’t feel things the way other people feel things."