I love this series!
It reminds me of A&E's Biography from eons ago, or Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack (on NBC, CBS, Lifetime, everywhere).
A bit macabre, but really satisfying.
I don't know about you, but I'm often left feeling unsatisfied with autopsy results following the deaths of, say, Michael Jackson, or Prince, or whomever.
Wonder no more!
Autopsy dives right in, and like the doctors say, "Though an autopsy often precisely reveals why someone died, it frequently reveals even more about how someone lived."
Having now watched the episodes autopsying Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Robin Williams, Liberace, George Best, Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michael Hutchence, and Heath Ledger, I have indeed learned a ton about how these folks lived.
Bottom line? Beware drug and drink.
9 out of 10 times, the person is self-medicating, combining substances, and sleepless.
It is the constant access to legal and illegal drugs, catering to the celebrity by a willing entourage or coterie of doctors who don't know about one another, money pressures, and sometimes ego fragility, unwanted media attention leading to self-isolation, and outright disassociation from the real world's rhythms that plunge a person down the rabbit hole.
And in the case of Amy Winehouse, we learn something that no one knew, including her doctors and herself: That she likely battled Borderline Personality Disorder, and it was the root cause behind perhaps every self-destructive choice she made. Sadly, time and again her doctors, business associates, family and friends recommended she seek psychiatric help and she refused. She liked her life chaotic and believed it was the fuel that fired her artistry.
Eventually, obviously, that fuel consumed her and she burned her life to the ground.
And Robin Williams' final nail was Lewy Body Dementia, not Parkinson's Disease. He was literally not of his right mind, and that, somehow, leaves me feeling less angry and much more sympathetic.
Like I said, really good TV. You'll learn a lot, I think, and be fascinated by the journey. Not just in a watching the train wreck and I couldn't turn away sorta way, but also about human frailty and fine line between therapeutic and fatal.
