Waco: American Apocalypse, directed by Tiller Russell, concentrates on the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound, the fierce firefight on the first day, the standoff, and eventually ended with fires that killed over 70 people, including Koresh. It generally sticks to the nuts and bolts of the siege itself, which should give viewers a chance to make up their own minds about the story.
WACO: AMERICAN APOCALYPSE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Text that talks about the 51-day standoff between David Koresh and his Branch Davidian cult and federal agents, that started with “the largest gunfight on American soil since the Civil War.”
The Gist: Russell tells the story via plentiful archival news footage, including from KWTX reporter John McLemore, who was on the scene at the Mt. Carmel Center, the official name for the compound that housed the Branch Davidians. There is also a lot of footage of Koresh shot inside the compound before the siege began, as well as recordings of calls between Koresh and federal negotiators. Interviews with ATF and FBI agents who participated in the shootout and siege are also included. Also interviewed are former Branch Davidians who survived the seige.
The first episode starts with the warrant that was issued to search the Mt. Carmel compound, due to the large number of automatic weapons and grenades that were reported to be there. ATF got reports from an undercover agent on the inside as well as reports from delivery people who spotted grenades in packages that had accidentally opened.
The ATF officials felt the raid would be relatively easy, but Koresh and his cult members were armed to the teeth and not afraid to use their stockpile of weapons. During the hours-long flurry of bullets, four ATF agents were killed and a number of others were injured; only after a cease fire was negotiated with Koresh was the ATF able to get in the compound and get their injured agents.
It was then that the FBI Hostage Rescue Team took over; the negotiator from the ATF managed to get some of the children in the compound released, and it seemed that the rest would go, but at the last minute Koresh changed his mind, setting the siege in motion.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? There have been a number of docuseries about Waco, including Waco: Madman or Messiah. This docuseries concentrates more or less on the siege itself. Taylor Kitsch also starred as Koresh in the 2018 Paramount Network dramatic series, Waco.
Our Take: The three parts of Waco: American Apocalypse are not surprisingly divided by the phases of the operation: The firefight, the siege and the gas attack that generated the fires that destroyed the compound. Because of its focus on the siege itself, it doesn’t wander too far afield, trying to examine who Koresh was and why the Branch Davidians were (and are) such devoted followers of his.
By giving the nuts and bolts of the siege, the docuseries also doesn’t get too much into the weeds of whether the action of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, under orders from new Attorney General Janet Reno (and new president Bill Clinton), to flush out the remaining Branch Davidians was too aggressive or even warranted.
What it does bring out is just how entrenched both sides of the siege are in their positions, even 30 years later. The Branch Davidians who are interviewed don’t sit there and wonder what they were thinking in following Koresh; they believed his ideas on how the government is evil and that they’re on the attack, and they were ready to rage all-out war with the agents that raided the compound on February 28, the day of the firefight.
For their part, the federal agents saw a group that was highly armed and dangerous, following a leader with delusions of godliness. Except for the fact that four of their own were killed, they talk about the firefight with the amazement of people who were in battle.
Even all these decades later, you can see each side is dug in, and by sticking to the siege itself, Tiller gives the viewer a lot of room to judge for themselves. Were the Branch Davidians peace-loving churchgoers? Nope. Did the feds take things too far? Probably. You may come to different conclusions, and that’s exactly what Tiller wants viewers to do.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: As we see a picture of the compound at night, a negotiator says on the phone, “Do you put your trust in the Lord?”, to which Koresh replies, “I am the Lord.”
Sleeper Star: This goes to Branch Davidian David Thibodeau, mainly for the story about how he met Koresh at a Guitar Center store.
Most Pilot-y Line: As McLemore talks about the ATF agents being hostile to his photographer after the cease fire, he described that “once they fell behind and got extra innings, they didn’t want the cameras there.” It’s a rather callous way to describe a battle that killed and injured so many people.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Waco: American Apocalypse sticks mostly to the nuts and bolts of the Waco siege, making for an effective narrative about an incident that was one of 1993’s top stories.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
