History Series / TheDropout

** Linda Tanner [[spoiler: gives one to Elizabeth in the finale, calling her out for her actions and condemning her for hurting people. This is all while Elizabeth is literally running away from her.]]

* AllForNothing: [[spoiler: In the end, all the lying, all the sacrifices, all the intimidation, was essentially pointless. The Edison machine didn't work. The Edison machine could ''never'' work. Billions of dollars were wasted on a project that didn't progress the cause of science in any significant way.]]

* OneHundredPercentAdorationRating: Ian is so beloved by his colleagues that after he gets fired, his entire department threatens to resign unless he gets his job back.

''The Dropout'' is a Creator/{{Hulu}} series about the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos, based on the Creator/{{ABC}} News podcast of the same name. The first three episodes dropped on March 3, 2022, with all remaining episodes being released on a weekly fashion.

** Elizabeth deserves whatever punishment is headed her way, but she did start out as a WideEyedIdealist wanting to do good and trying to advance medical science. Her ambition and ego grow out of control and she fully completes a [[ProtagonistJourneyToVillain journey to becoming a villain]]. On top of that, whether through SelectiveObliviousness or LackOfEmpathy, she does not accept ''any'' responsibility, chalking it all up to "failure to deliver'', and mentally distances herself from her wrongdoings. To top it off, before Elizabeth was found guilty of several charges, she'd met a new partner and had a child. Depending on her sentence, that child will be separated from his mother for years on end.

* ContraltoOfDanger: Elizabeth makes a deliberate switch from her regular voice to one that's deeper. She tests out her new voice when Don Lucas calls her to tell her that Avie resigned. He asks her if she has a cold.

* 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 her, in unblinking monotone, that the girl's life was meaningless and unimportant, scaring her so much so that the girl accidentally erases everything on Elizabeth's phone.

* PrecisionFStrike: When Carreyrou is interviewing a doctor who says that her patient's pregnancy was jeopardized by Theranos's faulty results:

* AmbiguousDisorder: Elizabeth seems to have difficulty understanding basic human emotions. She doesn't understand why you wouldn't let children play with a real stove rather than an Easy-Bake Oven, doesn't realize her employees have lives outside of work, reacts to troubling information by acting like a child, and outright states that she doesn't feel emotions the same way others do. It gets to the point where, during Episode 6, she is tasked to perform an advertisement for her company and [[BadBadActing she continually botches it with her robotic demeanor]], and can't understand the simple direction of "Talk to the camera as if you are talking to a friend."

* BrilliantButLazy: {{Deconstructed}} with Elizabeth. She is shown to legitimately be a very intelligent person who is able to do well in class, and believes that her talent can make her a billionaire through medical science. Best exemplified in her conversation with Phyllis Gardner, who points out that science is all about trying and effort, not just "doing it" as Elizabeth thinks. Unfortunately for all involved, Elizabeth's intelligence cannot overcome the fact that her idea is scientifically impossible to make work, which she might have discovered if she had kept putting in the effort at Stanford.

* TheNewTens: The second half of the show takes place in the early-to-mid [=2010s=], from the Walgreens deal to Theranos' downfall. The fourth episode, which takes place in 2011, mentions Music/KatyPerry's song "Firework", ''VideoGame/AngryBirds'', and Uber back when it was still known as [=UberCab=] and just starting out.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Before the meeting with Theranos lawyers in episode 7, John Carreyrou and his editor Judith Baker don't have enough to publish the article due to the efforts of Theranos to intimidate the witnesses into silence. During the tense meeting—where both sides agree to record the events for protection—a member of Theranos admits that they were using Siemens machines in their trials, which gives John and Judith the confirmation they needed to publish the article that would seal Theranos' doom.

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Both Creator/AmandaSeyfried and Creator/NaveenAndrews are much easier on the eyes than the real Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani, ''especially''in the [[https://images.foxtv.com/static.fox7austin.com/www.fox7austin.com/content/uploads/2022/03/932/524/balwani-side-by-side.jpg?ve=1&tl=1 latter's case]].

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Both Creator/AmandaSeyfried and Creator/NaveenAndrews are much easier on the eyes than the real Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani, _especially_ in the [[https://images.foxtv.com/static.fox7austin.com/www.fox7austin.com/content/uploads/2022/03/932/524/balwani-side-by-side.jpg?ve=1&tl=1 latter's case]].

-->'''Daniel:''' We are going to need you all to ''stay in the labs'', unless you are specifically told you can leave.
-->'''Brendan:''' What if we have to pee-pee? Or poo-poo?
-->'''Daniel:''' Just for a few hours, okay? Oh, and tacos for dinner tonight.
-->'''Ian:''' Tacos? Oh, tacos make ''everything'' better!

** Theranos has gotten used to pulling the wool over everyone's eyes with flashy presentations, or intimidating others into silence by the use of bullying tactics and coercion. But when they go up against the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), they find that they can't simply razzle dazzle them, or go over their heads; they have to comply. [[spoiler:This is ultimately what ends up destroying the company.]]

* ManChild: Elizabeth. She's clearly far more immature than she pretends to be, having an almost naïve and childlike attitude towards the world at time. She quotes Yoda, plays with finger puppets and a diorama like a dollhouse, and tries to seduce Sunny by awkwardly lip-syncing a rap song. As the series goes on and her deception becomes more serious and she shows her callous side, she goes into [[PsychopathicManchild the other side of this trope.]]

* WideEyedIdealist: Early on, Elizabeth seems to genuinely believe that her idea for a new form of blood-testing is possible. This fades as she dives headfirst into outright fraud, blatantly lying to her staff, investors, board members, and even ''cancer patients'', and even Sunny calls her out on the fact that she's a decade of work away from delivering on anything she promised the board was already happening.
** Tyler Shultz and Erika Cheung start out like this. It fades gradually for both: Tyler thinks just telling his grandfather about the fake tests will be enough, but George Shultz refuses to believe him. Erika is surprised when she is told to erase data from tests and later is told explicitly to not ask questions.

** Elizabeth deserves whatever punishment is headed her way, but she did start out as a WideEyedIdealist wanting to do good and trying to advance medical science. Her ambition and ego grow out of control and she fully completes a [[ProtagonistJourneyToVillain journey to becoming a villain]]. On top of that, whether through SelectiveObliviousness or LackOfEmpathy, she does not accept ''any'' responsibility, chalking it all up to "failure to deliver'', and mentally distances herself from her wrongdoings. To top it off, before Elizabeth was found guilty of several charges, she'd met a new partner and had a child. Depending on her sentence, that child will be separated from his or her mother for years on end.

%%* DownerEnding: Theranos is dissolved and Elizabeth and Sunny will rightly face serious legal consequences, but not before billions of dollars were lost and innocent Theranos employees were traumatized, not to mention the patients that received erroneous test results. Women entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley have a tougher time gaining the trust of investors due to Elizabeth's actions. Elizabeth deserves whatever punishment is coming her way, but she did start out wanting to do good before she was corrupted by her own ambition and ego. Worst still, she seems to have learned nothing from the experience and mentally distances herself from her failures, despite the threat of her newborn child being separated from her for years. The only good to come out of the whole farce is Erika Cheung starting an Ethics in Entrepreneurship nonprofit to prevent another Theranos.

* TooBrokenToBreak: After 12 years of Sunny's HairTriggerTemper, [[ControlFreak control freakery]], and [[DestructiveRomance verbal and near-physical abuse]], Elizabeth barely flinches when he reacts to her abrupt breakup by grabbing a box out of her arms and dumping its contents on the ground.

-->'''Elizabeth:''' You don't understand the business.
-->'''Ian:''' And ''you'' don't understand the science!

* NoSocialSkills: Elizabeth sees an Easy-Bake Oven in Edmond'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. Though her charisma improves as the series goes on, as evidenced by her winning over lots of investors, she remains friendless and alone; when her 30th birthday arrives, she invites mostly rich guests she knows through work, and struggles to find any actual friends to invite. During an interview, when asked to keep her tone and responses formal and casual, as if "speaking to a friend," she seriously struggles and doesn't seem to know what to do.

* NoSocialSkills: Elizabeth sees an Easy-Bake Oven in Edmond'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.

* IRejectYourReality: Elizabeth, to a truly staggering degree. She seems legitimately incapable of processing any information she doesn't want to hear, wheter about the investigations or investors or the fact that the Edison simply isn't going to work in the time she has boasted about. Even at the end, after she has lost everything and is facing the very real prospect of spending the next twenty years in prison, she still can't fully grasp her circumstances, speaking as though she is simply about to take an extended vacation from her work and as though Theranos was just a normal failed Silicon Valley venture like any other and the only reason for that was bad timing and a timid tech community rather than a company whose unethical and illegal practices did serious damage to real people. It's to the point that you wonder if she is genuinely delusional.

* CereberusSyndrome: While not without humor, the second half of the show is much more serious than the first half, showing just how scary and life-threatening it would be to attempt to expose a billion-dollar company willing to do anything to stop the truth from getting out and having the resources to do so.