Waco: The Aftermath

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I recommend seeing even just the 45 minute short film "Waco: Clive Doyle: In Defense Of" over this mess. Some annoying characters are in Waco: The Aftermath including a wacky judge who was basically nothing like the actual judge in the trial. As the trial goes on it starts to feel a little more realistic but it definitely takes a corny start. I should say something positive first, after all I am giving a few stars here. The actor who played Doyle was spot-on and I felt it was well done. Not so much for David Koresh. The good things kind of end there if I'm being honest. Giovanni Ribisi portraying Dan Cogdell was terrible and he was definitely the most annoying character, even just his voice is like nails on a chalkboard, although he did became more likeable once the trial was deeper. One of my biggest problems was the whole thing with the female informant and this idea that Michael Shannon knew what was coming and tried to stop it, when really they had no idea. Additionally it was proven that Timothy McVeigh acted alone and any sort of "help" was a conspiracy. Did he learn things from militia groups? Sure, but he acted alone and interpreted the Turner Diaries very literally. The likeness with the actor choice for Tim was there, but he looked a little too old and there were just too many inaccuracies for me to appreciate the portrayal. Additionally. Lois Roden was much older, much more of a grandmother and just simply felt wrong the way she was portrayed. Overall this series is messy much like Waco itself and there are better series out there that will save you time.

Overall I feel like the show missed a big opportunity to build on a lot of the conspiracy aspects of the Waco incident (think Waco: Rules of Engagement documentary meets The People v. O. J. Simpson,) and turned this into a incredible court room focused drama with some flashbacks. Ultimately this is 3 stories crammed into 5 episodes. The the trial of the Branch Davidians; Gary Noesner and his uncovering of para military groups; and David Koresh's origin story. Each story feels quite thin and vague, either not enough time to properly flesh out the characters and backstory or there just really isn't much material to explore. The Gary Noesner plotline especially feels like filler and a quick way to try and bring tension and action. Many one dimensional characters and stories throughout and the series is rapidly switching back and forth between them. Compared to season 1 which keeps us at Mount Carmel with our characters and only slight deviations, this is why I believe only focusing on the trial would have been more entertaining and engaging. There are some shining stand out moments though. Right off the bat I have to mention Giovanni Ribisi as the lawyer representing the Branch Davidians, in every scene he's such an interesting actor to watch but we don't spend enough time with him and to appreciate his relationship with the Branch Davidians and see it grow. The actor playing Branch Davidian Clive Doyle is totally believable and creates a sympathetic and human character, but again, it's a shame the series jumps about so much, we just never get to stay with them.

Short answer would be, it's a great story. The actors were good, i believe the story was fair, and I can't wait for more shows like this one. As someone who is neither American nor Christian, and I'm not even white! :p so i can honestly say I have no horse in this race, and yet i watched this series and the prequel twice! That's how good this is As for the story, it was really deep, and it made me ask myself lots of questions! Questions that I perhaps wouldn't have thought of, had it not been for this show. For example, even though koresh was a false prophet, was it really OK to judge,punish and/or kill his followers, for believing his false prophecies? His prophecies about the events at waco weren't even wrong! It's just that he was lying about being the messiah,I believe. Is it wrong to lie to people about god? Yes, but then again, there were hundreds of religions throughout our history, and many of those religions are proven to be false and/or wrong! Which means there were people who lied to their followers about talking to some god, long before koresh thought of the idea! Do we treat all those believers, some of them still living among us today, and believing in their ancestor's mythologies, as cultist or terrorists? No we don't. How many of today's religions and branches of religions or ideologies, are going to be remembered as BS in tomorrow's history books? Does that mean we should prosecute the people who bought them? I believe not. So with that piece of advice, I invite you to watch/rewatch this mini series,and judge for yourself, who was right? Guns or no guns, the ATF had no rights to invade and kill all those people in their home, without any provocations.

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