Shannon Shaeffer

Shannon Shaeffer is a fresh college graduate recruited straight into Purdue Pharma's sales force, dazzled by the money, the mentorship, and the promise of a glamorous career. Ambitious and eager to please, she throws herself into selling OxyContin to doctors, believing she's landed the opportunity of a lifetime.

She's a composite character, which frees the show to use her as an audience surrogate charting the seduction of the sales machine step by step. West Duchovny plays her with bright, hungry sincerity, so her gradual immersion into the company's tactics feels less like villainy than an ordinary young person learning to rationalize.