SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for the finale of Apple TV+’s limited series “Dope Thief,” titled “Innocent People.”
On Friday’s finale of Peter Craig’s Apple TV+ drug conspiracy drama limited series “Dope Thief,” Ray (Brian Tyree Henry) gets close to a happy ending. He finds the man who has been hunting him and his now-deceased best friend Manny (Wagner Moura) all season after they got mixed up in a real drug cartel during their fake DEA agent scheme.
But by that point, Manny has died of a heroin overdose, and Ray’s life is irreparably damaged from the choices he’s made and the ones that were made for him long ago — he’s just struggling to survive and keep those he loves alive. But the fight is over, and he can rest, thanks to his unlikely team up with DEA agent Mina (Marin Ireland). It turns out the man who has been out to get Ray and Manny was a high up lieutenant in the DEA himself, hiding behind his badge to run his enterprise.
Read Variety‘s interview with star and executive producer Henry dissecting Ray’s choices in the “Dope Thief” finale, in which he also discussed his current favorite TV show, Meghan Markle‘s “With Love, Meghan.”
As the season has gone on, it’s become harder to tell if Ray is hallucinating the person after him, or if it’s all real and the people around him aren’t believing him. Was that by design?
There’s a certain form of mania that’s happened with Ray. You watched him make a lot of decisions that have impacted him and his psyche at the same time. Like, regardless of him being imprisoned, I don’t think he’s like seen this many dead bodies. To be fair, Ray has had his fair share of loss, right? You have a flashback of seeing him, as a baby, seeing his mom OD-ing, and not really knowing how to process that as a young mind that’s new to the world. But then seeing his girlfriend killed in a car accident sitting next to him, that he’s taking all the blame for, and then to go to Oxville, and it just becomes a fucking shit show, and it seems to be body after body after body. And I think that’s just what’s happening for Ray, is that mania is taking over, on top of the fact that you’re dealing with an addict as well, who is trying to hold on to some form of escapism at the same time.
So he’s losing sleep, he doesn’t sleep that much, the days are blending, because he’s spending all this time trying to take care of this person and move this here, and then he’s out in Amish country, then he’s at a warehouse, and then he’s taking care of Shermie. And we want you to feel confused about which day it is; how long has it been since the robbery? How long has it been since Ray has slept? We intentionally made it that way so that you were also in a place of your own mania, so to speak.
What was it like for you filming the final episode of this show about two best friends struggling to get out of this mess together following the death of Ray’s best friend, Manny, in the previous episode? How did you approach Ray alone?
Losing Manny was the hardest thing to do, just because I love Wagner so much, and to even think about doing the rest of the show — granted, there’s only one episode — knowing that him and his character just won’t be there was really tough. It’s so funny, because I made it a point to be on set for his actual scene where he ODs, and I would literally sit outside the prison cell just on the floor with my hands wrapped around my knees, just like I know it’s coming. So in order to make it feel less painful, I threw him a party, because that was also his final scene. So I got all this Brazilian food and all these cakes, and I have, like, balloons — and he’s still in all his scars, like mangled. You can see the wounds on his arm. But this guy was the happiest person you’ve ever seen in your life. We still wanted to make it joyous, because we just knew what the loss of that was going to mean, and how forever changed Ray was going to be.
I just knew that there was no going back for Ray after that — and for me — emotionally and physically, because, that’s my guy, that’s my best friend. And I remember kind of being like, “Peter, do we have to? Like, I don’t know if this is the way for it to go…” But I think in order to propel Ray into this absolute place of desperation and loss, Manny had to be the final piece. It was tough, and people are mad at me. People are mad at me, but I understand, because I was mad myself: I didn’t want to lose Manny. But there’s only one way for this story to wrap. They’re really on the run for their lives, and unfortunately, there are casualties along the way.
In the finale, we learn that the man that has been tormenting Ray and Manny from the start, the head of this massive drug cartel, is in fact one of the highest up leaders in the DEA who has been around Ray and Son throughout the episode in different interrogation scenes. What was your reaction to the twist?
It was amazing, because Peter directed the finale, and I went to look at the monitor, and I was like: “And you have him blurred out just enough. You are a sociopath, sir.” But it’s crazy, that kind of thing, when you have a show that is built on a mystery, we’re trying to solve who this guy is that has this power. We’re piecing together the the pieces of the puzzle to figure out who is in charge and who is pulling the strings — and you realize that they’ve been sitting there the whole time. I think that just adds to an extra element of suspense and the storytelling of Peter Craig, how he thinks about these things and how threats are forever looming and never really that far away, and what the stakes are. Who thought them robbing a trap house was going to bring down an entire cartel? But that also is just the story of Ray: He ends up in places that are incredibly circumstantial. And he meant for things to be one way, and then they turn out to be a completely different thing, and they have so many consequences that come with them.
The final line in the show is the exchange of “You’re clean” from Mina to Ray, as she wipes some food off his face in a parking lot, and his response is, “Hallelujah.” What was the greater significance of ending on that note?
That day, we had just blown up an RV. And Marin does distress like nobody I’ve seen; this vulnerability behind her eyes is just so captivating, but also so threatening at the same time. And we just innocently pull up to get breakfast sandwich, like, just go about a normal day. And it is bookmarked by me not being able to even get food in my mouth. There’s ketchup all over my beard, and here she is having to wipe it off. Or not having to, but making the choice to, help me and aid me and get this thing — and “You’re clean.” I think Ray really wanted not just to be clean of the crimes and being underneath the umbrella of being a criminal and the death and the loss, but also literally clean, because he’s sober now and it seems like a rebirth. And if there’s anything that celebrates the rebirth more, it is “hallelujah.” Throughout the show, you hear Ray say “hallelujah” in such an ironic way, of like, “Oh, thank God!” But this one, I really believe he’s thankful that he’s still there. And I think it’s amazing that is the very last word heard in the series; of it truly being a gratitude that Ray has survived, and that he made it, it’s done, and that there is something on the other side. But also, what does that mean at the same time?
It’s gotten out that you and your “Panic Carefully” co-star Elizabeth Olsen became very invested in watching Meghan Markle’s “With Love, Meghan” Netflix series while you were filming together in London. I’m told the Duchess of Sussex sent you a care package as a thank you when she heard?
She did! She sent me and Elizabeth Olsen wonderful, wonderful — as ever — boxes. The care that goes into what this woman does is not missed on me at all. I started my day off with a wonderful hibiscus tea that she sent. I believe a hand calligraphy note was on the box. And let me tell you something, those jams be jamming. Like, the preserves are where it’s at. And, of course, there’s flower sprinkles, which I don’t know why I’m being so cautious using! Because I want to use them right. Like, I don’t just want to put it on fries, you know what I mean? It has to be the right thing, I don’t know why. But I’m going to support this woman. She has found her niche, and it’s delightful. In a word, it’s delightful. It’s really, really kind for her to do that. And when I got back from London and saw this, I immediately called Elizabeth and was like, “Did you get your box?!” We’re both incredibly grateful, and it’s really cool.
With “Dope Thief” over, the next handful of your projects coming up are films. Do you plan on coming back to TV again after those? Maybe in a series regular role?
Of course I will come back to TV. There’s nothing that I love more than the knowing that I can be in several people’s living rooms at the same time — I love being intrusive. But it has to be the right thing, because I really have been shot at a lot on TV, and I really think that I want love. I’m at this place, now that I’ve done the work, where I can actually have people want to see me in love. I’m not saying that it has to be a cheesy, cornball kind of love — it could still be some trauma, I could be a serial killer looking for love. But I just think that I want the element of love to be in there somewhere. This is not an exodus from television. Television has a huge, huge place in my heart, but it’s just got to be the right thing.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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