Dr. Samuel Finnix

Dr. Samuel Finnix is the trusted doctor of a small Appalachian coal town, the kind of man who takes payment in blueberries and knows every patient by name. When a promising young rep for a new drug company assures him a bold new painkiller isn't addictive, he wants to believe her — and to actually help his patients.

Michael Keaton plays him with an unforced decency that makes the show's slow unraveling land harder than any speech could. There's no cynicism in Finnix, only care, and Keaton lets you watch a good man's good instincts get used against him without ever tipping into caricature or self-pity.