'Waco' Recap: 'The Strangers Across the Street'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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The debate over what precisely makes a television show, a book or a motion picture worth our while will likely never end. But I do believe that we can all agree on one thing, in that, the mark of a quality story from any of those particular mediums is that it has to move you on a fundamental level. You simply have to feel something when you immerse yourself in the story and when it comes to the Paramount Network’s brand-new miniseries, Waco, that all important milestone came to fruition during last night’s episode.
 
Because, ‘The Strangers Across the Street’ took us deep within the Branch Davidian compound, to give us an inside look into their daily lives and well, that kind of perspective ended up making me incredibly uncomfortable, due to the fact that everywhere we turned, something fanatical and disturbing played out on the screen, and what set this grand reveal in motion, was the fact that David and his followers, were quite curious as to who exactly moved in across the way, and that curiosity, kicked off a cat and mouse game wherein both sides tried to figure out one another and once David’s group caught wind of the fact that their new neighbors were Federal Agents, things went into that uncomfortable territory.
 
After all, life inside Mount Carmel is one dedicated to a recreation of God’s Law and some of David’s visions and revelations in relation to that, have pushed him to perform actions that are illegal to everyday folks, such as having multiple wives and underage ones at that, and while taking the time to explore the fact that such things happened within the compound is enough to make one uncomfortable, the show took it one step further, by outright examining the impact of David’s actions since we were privy to a short but powerful moment between Rachel Koresh and her little sister Michelle, David’s underage wife, where Michelle spoke to her concerns about her lack of a choice in marrying David, a conversation that underscored just how much control he has over his followers.
 
But the show wasn’t quite done yet with making us squirm in our seats because this story also took the time to fully explore just how manipulative David can be, something we only got a taste of in the first episode and wow…his ability to read people and bring them along to his way of thinking is downright chilling and all of this came about by way of his interaction with ATF Agent Robert Rodriguez, who went by the alias Jacob Vazquez in this tale. Because no matter how well Robert covered his tracks and deflected when it came to his mission and his identity, David saw right through it and to top it off, he recognized Robert’s pain and brought it to the surface and had it not been for a botched newspaper article pushing up the timetable on the ATF’s raid, one has to wonder if David would have converted him into a member of his congregation, because he was clearly breaking Robert down.
 
In the end however, I was thoroughly impressed with this episode. In part due to the fact that it made me want to turn away when seeing what life inside Mount Carmel was really like, but also because, for a transitional episode, this ended up being one compelling and intense story. I attribute a lot of that to Taylor Kitsch and John Leguizamo’s performances in this tale, because both of these actors were at the top of their game and the back and forth between them was breathtaking and tense and well, it looks like our learning experience is about to come to an end because the siege is about to begin and perhaps the final parting gift when it comes to this episode, is that it also filled me with dread, since I am fully aware of the fact that some seriously dark storytelling awaits us in the weeks to come. Until next time. 

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