The crime drama “Dope Thief” opens with a headfake. Two DEA agents, Ray (Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny (Wagner Moura), plan and execute a bust on a Philadelphia row house. The sequence, directed by executive producer Ridley Scott, is a proper nail-biter; Ray and Manny nearly shoot a suspect they hear walking around upstairs, realizing just in time that he’s a child. Only after they’ve returned to their van do we realize the two friends aren’t federal agents at all, but petty thieves pretending to be so they can stick up minor dealers for cash.
Adapted from Dennis Tafoya’s novel of the same name, “Dope Thief” is most engaging in such sequences, which maintain the tension even after Scott passes the baton to other directors. (Marcela Said of “Narcos: Mexico” and Jonathan van Tulleken of “Shōgun” each helm multiple hours apiece.) After Ray and Manny choose the wrong target and inadvertently bite off more than they can chew, these scenes are where the eight-episode limited series can convert its characters’ — and viewers’ — nerve-shredding anxiety into cathartic action. With shootouts, chases, raids and a guy in Insane Clown Posse makeup tossing Molotov cocktails into a quarry, “Dope Thief” maintains an impressive production value afforded by Apple TV+’s deep pockets.
The payoff is necessary, because between these mini-climaxes, “Dope Thief” is a chronicle of Ray’s nonstop stress. From the moment a botched raid on a rural meth lab puts the partners in the crosshairs of biker gangs, Mexican cartels, the Vietnamese mob and the actual DEA, Ray and Manny can’t enjoy a moment’s rest. Their spectacular misjudgment endangers both Manny’s hard-won sobriety and Ray’s beloved stepmother Theresa (Kate Mulgrew, back in salty white ethnic mode after seven seasons on “Orange Is the New Black”), forcing them into hiding. They’re caught between two pursuers: the anonymous backer of the meth lab they blew up after failing to rob, known to them only as a menacing, Boston-accented voice on the other end of a salvaged walkie-talkie, and the feds, two of whom happened to be working the lab undercover.
“Dope Thief” marks Henry’s first time as an executive producer, and the project was evidently selected as a showcase of his strengths. (After breaking out on “Atlanta” as an ascendant rapper with an ambivalent outlook on fame, the Academy Award nominee’s most recent stint as a TV lead was on the chilly, cerebral FBI drama “Class of ‘09.”) Ray’s hustle only works — at least until it doesn’t — because he, like Henry, can project the sort of confidence that convinces people to do what he says without asking questions. Once things fall apart, his logorrheic bravado starts getting pushback. Both Moura and Mulgrew prove worthy sparring partners over many, many shouting matches, while a more down-tempo Ving Rhames is Ray’s equal and opposite as his incarcerated father, Bart.
The most peripheral parts of “Dope Thief” are also its most expendable. Black-and-white flashbacks to Ray’s formative traumas feel like filler, meant to stretch an idea that almost certainly would have been a feature 15 years ago — almost redundant to note about a prestige miniseries in 2025, but it ought to be said — to series length. As soon as Bart’s lawyer Michelle (Nesta Cooper), who Theresa keeps nagging him to meet even as his life falls apart, turns out to be a young woman, you already know they’re going to get involved, whether or not they have chemistry or a convincing reason to do so.
These choices are all the more frustrating for Henry being more than capable of holding the show down on his own. The actor makes the most of the material served to him on a silver platter, like berating Bart for his history of domestic violence or hallucinating his way through an infected gunshot wound. He also blends seamlessly into a local patchwork as conceived by Tafoya, who’s stayed on as a consulting producer. Pennsylvania Dutch speakers, Eagles merch and on-location shots of iconic Philly landmarks abound. The regional specificity makes “Dope Thief” a kind of urban answer to “Mare of Easttown,” an impression only compounded by the presence of Mina (a fantastic Marin Ireland), another quietly furious female cop imprisoned by her own grief. The series also adds to a more recent spate of Philly-area crime shows, from the farcical “Deli Boys” to the Amanda Seyfried-led mystery “Long Bright River.”
Tafoya’s novel was published in 2009, but in his adaptation, series creator Peter Craig (“The Town”), who writes every episode, turns the story into a different form of recent period piece. Surgical masks, plastic dividers and talk of disrupted supply chains, in the narcotics trade as in everywhere else, mark the setting as a particular post-vaccine stretch of the COVID era. The unspoken context adds to the atmosphere of permanent unease.
“Dope Thief” occasionally offers some comic relief from the onslaught, most often via Mulgrew. (Unsure what’s behind Ray’s erratic behavior, she tries to stage a one-woman intervention; when he tries to spin himself as a Robin Hood type, she immediately retorts, “YOU DIDN’T GIVE TO THE POOR!”) But it’s still unrelenting, and by the end, you’ll be more eager for relief than interested in Ray’s fate. That’s not for a lack of effort or ability on Henry’s part, however. Some shows are too successful at inducing stress for their own good.
The first two episodes of “Dope Thief” are now streaming on Apple TV+, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Fridays.
