Dope Thief shares important lessons about family

Many years ago, I read a book called All Our Kin, penned by Carol Stack and based on her research in The Flats, a working-class neighborhood in a major city in the Midwest. In the book, she reveals how she used participant observation to gain entrée into the community and get to know her new neighbors. Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed is similar, as it is based on her time living in several poor communities and working in nearby diners and hotels, so she could experience life and living as her neighbors did. Participant observation allows for researchers to gain a deep appreciation for residents’ hardships, triumphs, and everyday survival strategies. One of the big takeaways from both studies is how people in the communities rely on kinship networks, that is, support from people who are not related by blood but are considered family nonetheless. I mention all of this because the limited series, Dope Thief, stirred these themes in my head once again. 

Apple TV+’s limited series is about two best friends who front as federal agents to steal money and drugs from dope dealers in Philadelphia. Donning shell jackets with bright yellow DEA lettering and phony badges around their necks, the duo look legitimate as they invade dealers’ homes, intimidate the occupants, and help themselves to money and drugs. The scenario is reminiscent of the character Omar in the HBO series, The Wire. Omar (Michael Kenneth Williams), with the help of a shotgun hanging from his shoulder and tucked under his long coat, made his living robbing dope dealers—without the use of a DEA jacket! In one episode, Omar simply stood under the window of an apartment and the dealer just dropped the drugs down to him.

Brian Tyree Henry (Class of ’09, Atlanta) leads the cast of Dope Thief as Raymond Driscoll, an early 30-something who has never left home but tells his mother, Theresa Bowers (Kate Mulgrew), that he works all day as a painter. Theresa, who is not Ray’s biological mother, is not as gullible as Ray seems to believe, as she casually queries him about such things as his odd hours and how he is able to paint houses in the cold weather. Still, she surprises him with a birthday treat with a candle on top. “You thought I forgot. Happy Birthday you piece of sh**,” she says with a smile. He looks at her with much appreciation. Wagner Moura (Civil War, Shining Girl) is Ray’s best friend, Manny Carvalho, and the two are quite literally thick as thieves.

Ray’s and Manny’s business continues as usual until they learn that they can get a big haul in a rural area on the outskirts of Philly. On a rundown piece of property, according to their source, the owners manufacture and sell large quantities of dope. Excited about their potential take, the two rush their usual surveillance and planning. The heist goes awry, and the cartel-linked, biker-gang-affiliated property owners inform them through an anonymous, raspy voice on a walkie talkie that they know they are the perpetrators, adding “You think you’ll be tough to find in your Scooby Doo van?” The call puts Ray and Manny in fear for their own and their loved ones’ lives, forcing them to leave their homes to evade the cartel, the biker gang, and the real DEA that is now investigating the crime.

Ray has quite a contentious relationship with his dad Bart, played by Ving Rhames. We realize this when he confronts his dad for convincing Theresa to fund his release from prison on a medical discharge. “Ain’t one part of my life that you didn’t [mess] up,” says Ray. This is a chilling exchange. That Ray’s words spew with such clarity and vile in the moment, as if oblivious to his existing cartel/DEA problems, indicates he still carries raw emotional scars from his childhood experiences. From this scene, we get a strong sense of why Ray seems determined to rely only on himself to protect his mother and Manny.

The days are always overcast, cool, and seemingly wet in Dope Thief. Perhaps this is why Ray and Manny’s situation seems perpetually hopeless throughout much of the series, suggesting that the weather plays just as much a role in the show as the human characters. Theresa, however, brings levity to this intense story by acting independent of Ray’s demand to not pay for Bart’s lawyer, for instance, and challenging Ray in ways that come across as humorous, as she did with his claims about being a painter. She is undeterred and unflustered by Ray’s obvious untruths, self-imposed hardships, and even his efforts to dictate certain demands. When he is fiercely adamant, for instance, that he is not to be taken to the hospital for a serious injury, Theresa ignores his protests and implores the group to stop letting “this lunatic” run the show and get him to the hospital.

Unable to go to the police given the crime they were committing at the time, Ray and Manny have to duck and cover on their own and ultimately fend for themselves. Sometimes, however, help comes from the most unexpected places. We see this when Bart’s lawyer, Michelle Taylor (Nesta Cooper), meets a reluctant Ray in a bar outside of Bart’s prison. Ray, using verbal cues and body language, signals to her that the people after him are in the bar waiting to follow him outside. Suspecting all along that he was in some kind of trouble, she helps him out of the situation rather than leaving him at the mercy of his would-be killers. 

The old saying that blood is thicker than water means there is nothing like the bonds of blood relations, but Dope Thief challenges this. The series has an ethnically diverse cast, with characters similar in social class and not related by blood. Yet, they are all connected to one another in ways traditionally conceived as a family unit.

Manny and Ray have been best friends since high school, and while they butt heads like friends (and even biological brothers) do on occasion, each repeatedly risks his life for the other. Theresa, though not Ray’s biological mother, is loyal and strong-willed, both of which serve her well in protecting her son from himself and others. Michelle, albeit a lawyer and not a part of the social network, bonds with Ray and his family, despite the risks to her career and life in doing so. Hence, family is more than blood relations; it is a mutually supportive kinship. And as Stack and Ehrenreich showed in their studies, shared biology is not a prerequisite for gaining entrée to it.