John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle on ‘Waco: The Aftermath’

This April 19 marks the 30th anniversary of the violent end of the siege of the religious sect, the Branch Davidians lead by David Koresh. Eighty people died in the fire set in their compound outside of Waco by members of the cult after law enforcement had attempted to flush them out by introducing tear gas. The standoff had begun 51 days earlier when Koresh and members of this sect ambushed ATF agents who had arrived at the complex to executed federal warrants on charges of illegal manufacture and possession of machine guns and destructive devices. Four ATF agents were killed along with six members of the sect.

Showtime is looking back at the with a new limited series “Waco: The Aftermath.” The five-part sequel to the 2018 miniseries “Waco,”examines the trials of the surviving members of the Branch Davidians and concludes two years later with the Oklahoma City bombing. Several members of the cast of “Waco” return including Michael Shannon as FBI hostage negotiator Gary Noesner; John Leguizamo as undercover AFT agent Jacob Vasquez; Shea Whigham as FBI agent Mitch Decker; and Annika Marks as Branch Davidian survivor Kathy Schroeder.

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Recently, Washington Post criminal justice reporter Tom Jackman conducted a Zoom conversation with executive producers/writers/directors John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle, who were responsible for the original limited series, and actor Giovanni Ribisi, who portrays Dan Cogdell, a Branch Davidian trial attorney

John Erick Dowdle admitted for years he had “absorbed the kind of national narrative that had been given” after Waco. But that all changed around eight years ago when he and his brother had been researching another project.  Dowdle stumbled across survivor David Thibodeau’s memoir “A Place Called Waco.” He got 10 pages into the book and “I was like ‘Drew, we should do this. This is crazy.’ When you actually learn the names and faces of the people inside the compound, when you start to humanize those events, it brought it from a historical moment to a human emotional moment. I see all of it differently. I see the humanity- the FBI agents who were scared and didn’t know what to do and see the humanity of Koresh’s followers and a bunch of people trying  to belong to something and trying to do what they thought was right in the moment”.

Jackman pointed out, though, with “Waco” their no-bad guys approach caused criticism of their portrayal of Koresh, who had repeatedly molested children some as young as ten. And he feels they may be criticized with the sequel.

“Have you been too sympathetic to David Koresh?”  Jackman asked.

“One thing we did portray in both the original ‘Waco’ and ‘The Aftermath,” we did portray the predatory side of David Koresh,” said Drew Dowdle. “I don’t think it’s something we shied away from. But one decision we made early one was to say, okay, you know, if they wanted to arrest David Koresh that was absolutely a valid objective. But what about everyone else in there? Like what they had done wrong and what kind of justice did they deserve?”

The Dowdles believe Koresh was able to convince people to join him because they needed to feel like they belong. “I think the desire to belong to a community is really a powerful draw for people,” said John Erick Dowdle. “You see it from QAnon to something like Waco. You see the power of unity or belonging to something that not everyone belongs to. I think that’s a powerful thing to get caught up in. It’s really a difficult thing, I think, for people to pull away from.”

While on trial, noted Drew Dowdle, the Davidians were conflicted. “It’s  really interesting combination of looking back to kind of take a deeper look at the relationship with David Koresh and their belief in him and how it all ended up. I think that caused them to really have some second thoughts about committing their lives to him but then at the same time, they lost so much. I mean these people lost their family, their children, all of the people they know.  Such a grave loss for each of these individuals can’t be for nothing right? I think that’s an internal struggle each of the defendants was going through throughout the trial.”

“I think one of the things that was really embedded in the writing was it wasn’t necessarily taking on a specific point of view as much as it was just raising a topic of conversation or an argument to make people think,” noted Ribisi. “I think that at the end of the day whether you’re on one side or the other, I think it’s something that we need to talk about. Waco and Ruby Ridge were legitimate sparks for the American militia movement we see nowadays. I think that’s a sign of something. That’s a sign of unrest and a sign of sort of dissatisfaction. “

“I think as a nation, I think we are still reckoning with the fallout from Waco,” said Drew Dowdle. “It was the most incredible recruiting tool {for militia groups) for that movement.  I think we are still reckoning with the threat this movement has spawned. In the last handful of years, I think we’ve started to look in the mirror a little bit more and look internally at the threat that’s coming from within this country. It’s something that I think we’ve really wanted to ignore for a long time but are finally starting to pay attention to.”

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