The series showcases what happened in 1993 in Waco, Texas when cult leader David Koresh faced off against the federal government in a siege of 51 days. In the first episode, gunfire erupts when federal agents arrive at the Branch Davidian compound with a search warrant. Hostage negotiators later attempt to get the children out of the compound. David Koresh was a member and later a leader of the Branch Davidians, a religious sect and offshoot of the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, a movement based at the Mount Carmel Center outside Waco, Texas. His apocalyptic Biblical teachings attracted various followers. He became subject to allegations about polygamy and child sexual abuse by former Branch Davidian associates, although investigation by authorities found no conclusive evidence. Further allegations related to the Branch Davidians' stockpiling of weapons led the FBI to launch a raid on the group's Mount Carmel compound in February 1993.
Curiosity over the man calling himself a messiah makes Waco the center of a media circus. FBI negotiation and rescue teams clash over the use of force. The negotiating team established contact with Koresh inside the compound. Communication over the next 51 days included telephone exchanges with various FBI negotiators. Koresh himself had been seriously injured by a gunshot. As the standoff continued, he and his closest male associates negotiated delays, so that he could possibly write religious documents, which he said he needed to complete before his surrender. Koresh's conversations with the negotiators were dense and they also included biblical imagery. The FBI negotiators treated the situation as a hostage crisis.
The world waits as Koresh makes new promise of surrender but the FBI's controversial tactics turn the compound into an apocalyptic scene. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno approved recommendations of FBI officials to proceed with a final advance in which the Branch Davidians would be removed from the Mount Carmel Center by force. In an attempt to flush Koresh out of the stronghold, the FBI resorted to pumping CS gas into the compound with the aid of an M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle, which was equipped with a battering ram. In the course of the advance, the Mount Carmel Center caught fire under circumstances that remain disputed. Barricaded inside the building, 79 Branch Davidians perished in the ensuing blaze; 21 of these victims were children under the age of 16. Koresh, then 33, died of a gunshot wound to the head during the course of the fire. It is unknown whether he committed suicide or if he was killed.
In the third episode of the series, his experience upon joining Real Madrid for the 2003/2004 season is depicted. The episode begins with Beckham receiving a surprising invitation to join Real Madrid, and it narrates his emotions and concerns as he embarks on his career at the club, particularly under a coach who didn't initially want him on his former team. Beckham describes the intense pressure and expectations he faced upon joining Real Madrid, a club with passionate fans who consider the team as a religion. As the season progresses, Beckham grapples with adapting to his new team, facing challenges such as competition for his position and constant media and fan pressure. However, as he gradually acclimates, he begins to earn the respect and affection of his teammates and showcases his prowess on the field. The episode highlights a pivotal moment in his home debut when Beckham scores a celebrated goal, solidifying his place at Real Madrid. Additionally, it delves into the relationship between Beckham and his wife Victoria during this life transition and how his family provided support during this challenging period.
The last episode explores Mescaline, the psychoactive molecule in San Pedro and peyote cacti, a sacred medicine that Native Americans have had to fight for the right to use. At the Indigenous practices there's always an elder, someone who knows the territory very well, who's presiding. There's usually a group, a community is involved, There's always an intention, a purpose to what you're doing, and you're treating it as sacred, in order to achieve altered states of consciousness, which contribute to worship in various ways, or celebration or healing. But maybe all this is not so new to Western culture after all. In the old Greek histories of Eleusis, people who were initiated there got the drink, the kykeon, and then they had the illumination. The precise recipe is a mystery, but we know that the kykeon was a psychoactive brew that was used at the Eleusinian mysteries, a sacred annual ritual of enlightenment practiced by some of the world's greatest minds including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. So why did this ritual come to an end more than 1,000 years ago? Was the possibility of illumination or achieving a higher consciousness considered threatening to the powers that be? Have the drug wars been merely an extension of that fear? Psychedelics has a major part in how we can heal as a community, how we can heal as a city, and how we can heal as a country. The current renaissance of psychedelics could not come at a better time as the world confronts a crisis in mental health. But psychedelics have much to offer. The psychedelic experience changes the mind in ways that will help scientists better understand how it works. All these altered states allow us to probe what is the greatest mystery in all of nature. The emergence from mere matter of something as miraculous as consciousness. But an even bigger question is whether psychedelics might help us address the environmental crisis of how we think about our place in nature. One of the greatest gifts of psychedelics is how they reanimate the natural world, allowing us to perceive the subject, the spirit of all species, not just our own. And to feel a deeper sense of interconnectedness with nature.
In this revealing documentary, Giancarlo Granda, former pool attendant at the Fontainebleau Hotel, shares the intimate details of his 7-year relationship with a charming older woman, Becki Falwell, and her husband, the Evangelical Trump stalwart Jerry Falwell Jr. Directed by Billy Corben, the film outlines Granda's entanglement with the Falwell's seemingly perfect lives and the overarching influence this affair had on a presidential election. The life of Jerry Falwell — the late Moral Majority televangelist who for decades helped catalyze the rightward shift of American evangelicals before his death in 2007 — is a quintessentially American story. But it’s in the next generation that the Falwell narrative becomes at once soap opera and morality tale. The film covers the graceless fall of Jerry Falwell Jr., who after the death of his father was placed in the presidency of the family’s conservative organ Liberty University. There, he seemed to remain painfully in thrall to his appetites. We hear testimony about his alleged tendency to drink on the job and discomfiting, slurry interviews between him and sympathetic media — but most crucially, we receive the testimony of Giancarlo Granda. Granda was a pool attendant at a Miami hotel when he met Falwell and his wife, Becki, in 2012. Today, he alleges that he was persuaded to have sex with Becki while Falwell watched, and that the pair engaged in an ongoing campaign of communication with him that could be described as coercive. His energies were consumed with managing their tempers and occasionally threatening behavior, and he blames the swirl of scandal around them for derailing his professional future. Plainspoken and only occasionally visibly emotional, Granda is his own best advocate as he describes a couple who, he says, craved his body and were willing to discard the rest of him.
David Koresh was a member and later a leader of the Branch Davidians, a religious sect and offshoot of the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, a movement based at the Mount Carmel Center outside Waco, Texas. His apocalyptic Biblical teachings attracted various followers. He became subject to allegations about polygamy and child sexual abuse by former Branch Davidian associates, although investigation by authorities found no conclusive evidence. Further allegations related to the Branch Davidians' stockpiling of weapons led the FBI to launch a raid on the group's Mount Carmel compound in February 1993.