I didn’t have high expectations when I sat down to review Five Days At Memorial. With a name like a soap opera, the only thing that convinced me to take the assignment was Vera Farmiga’s shining face in the trailer. After watching the first three episodes, I’m not sure whether to be mad or glad. 

 

The pilot opens with real footage of hurricane Katrina hurling through New Orleans, paired with audio clips of newscasts from all over the country. In the aftermath, a couple small boats cruise through the flooded streets, where we take in the first glimpses of the incredible production design. I have no idea how they recreated a flood torn city like that, but it’s impressive. 

 

They rock up to a ravaged hospital, grabbing their cameras and putting on hazmat suits. Inside they find a chapel and a waiting room full of dead bodies. Cut to Dr. Horace Baltz (Robert Pine) being questioned by two investigators, asking why there were forty-five dead bodies found at the hospital. Then we jump back to the very beginning. 

 

On August 29th, 2005, hours before hurricane Katrina is expected to hit, nursing director Susan Mulderick (Cherry Jones) is assigned as the emergency-incident commander at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. As concerns grow and the storm worsens, we get some wild VFX moments that will make your stomach drop. Mulderick and her staff have to plan fast when they discover that there’s no hurricane protocol put in place by the hospital’s parent company. Other nurses and doctors, including Dr. Anna Pou (Vera Farmiga) keep their patients calm and comfortable. Meanwhile, there is a long-stay private hospital center that has it's own staff on its own floor inside MMC. A hospital within a hospital. Their nursing director, a very pregnant Diane Robichaux (Julie Ann Emery), grapples with getting the shaft as LifeCare and MMC do not share parent companies. 

 

After finishing episode one, I texted CEO of Cinefied, Connor Petrey in a disheveled panic that I wouldn't be able to get through another episode. He said that would be fine. I waited a little bit, and considered not being a baby and try to get through the next one. (Plus, my fiancé has joined me halfway through and demanded we press on). After episode 2, I was really ready to dip because I was so heartbroken. I knew the tragic depictions of the first 36 hours were the least of these people's worries. We still have at least Three Days At Memorial.

 

Alas, I pressed on to episode three. I couldn't look away. The following day for our characters was grueling, and the nights just got worse. You're forced to think about what you would do in that situation. With all the incredible acting and horrific situations getting worse, I started to yell at the screen by then, growing angrier by the scene. And now I can't stop thinking about it when I go to bed. 

 

Short of reading Sheri Fink’s book that the series is based on, there is a ton of information I dove into, including Fink’s initial New York Times article "The Deadly Choices at Memorial" from 2009. I don’t personally remember hearing about Memorial in the news after Katrina, but then again, I was ten. So it’s good to see this important story still get attention after so many years. 

 

After persevering through, I'm really interested to see where this show goes and what it's yearning to say. It’s an impressive and engaging spectacle, but certainly doesn’t go so far as to glamorize the disaster. If you’re sensitive to depictions of real world tragedies like me, you might want to steer clear. I know it’s only going to get worse. But I want to update this review after the series concludes, so hold me to it. I couldn’t make it through HBO’s Chernobyl, but I’m challenging myself to see this one through. If that’s not enough from me to warrant a full bucket of popcorn on the bottom of this screen then I don’t know what is. 

 

Five Days at Memorial episodes 1, 2, and 3 are now streaming exclusively on Apple TV+.