Spoilers for Season 2 of Dr. Death are ahead! If you haven’t streamed the true crime show on the 2023 TV schedule, you can watch all eight episodes now with a Peacock subscription.
Following the success of the Joshua Jackson-led Dr. Death Season 1, one of the best true crime series is back for another installment, this time telling the story of Dr. Paolo Macchiarini (Édgar Ramírez) and the lies surrounding him and his work on biosynthetic tracheas. The season stars Mandy Moore as Benita Alexander, the journalist who falls in love with him, along with Luke Kirby, Ashley Madekwe and Gustaf Hammarsten as the three doctors who exposed him. It takes all four to take down Dr. Death. However, they’re all only in the same room once. So, when I got the chance to chat with the cast and creatives, I had to ask about this one moment.
In the final episode of Dr. Death’s second season, Benita and the three doctors gather at a Swedish police station to hear the results of the investigation into Macchiarini. It’s a harrowing and climactic moment, and while the characters don’t directly interact, seeing them in the same room is quite powerful. And that’s exactly what showrunner Ashley Michel Hoban wanted, as she told CinemaBlend:
She also explained that the greater theme of the show was to demonstrate how powerful individual voices can be. This scene was a way to illustrate how it took all four of them to get Macchiarini’s wrongdoings brought to light. It was a moving moment to watch, and it turns out, it was an emotional point to shoot too.
Up until this point Kirby, Madekwe and Hammarsten hadn’t had a scene with Moore yet. During our interview, Hammarsten, who plays Dr. Svensson, explained the power of being together just once while they were shooting:
Ashley Michel Hoban was also on set that day, and she told me what it was like to watch these four actors perform together in this short, yet mighty, scene. She said:
When you have powerhouse actors like Mandy Moore from the This Is Us cast and Luke Kirby from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, you know you’re in for a treat when they all work together. And that’s what this scene was. After a whole season of waiting to see Macchiarini’s personal and professional wrongdoings addressed, this was a subtle, yet perfect way to do it.
To see the scene in question as well as the lead-up to it, you can stream Dr. Death on Peacock.