In “The Matrix” it wasn’t a pill. It was a program which looked like a pill and it freed the person taking it from a false reality.
Thus we say liberals get ‘red pilled’ when they start to become aware of the false reality of the left.
I missed the idea it was a program and not a drug. I still don’t like the idea that a character can take something, anything, and gain power, knowledge, super-anything. It gives kids the idea that something they can take will make them better.