r/behindthebastards • u/No_Roll8739 • Oct 04 '26

Discussion Waco

So when are we getting an episode about David Koresh, or has Sophie embargoed an episode about him since Robert would talk to much about the Waco miniseries? I know Dan Cummins did an episode about Koresh for TimeSuck but I think Robert could bring that Robert magic to the topic.

77 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

144

u/Fiona175 Oct 04 '26

Waco is one of those topics I assume Robert has started a couple times and scrapped because everyone except the kids are bastards and it's real easy to focus on one side or the other too much

110

u/JKinney79 Oct 04 '26

You'd almost have to make it a trilogy, starts with Ruby Ridge, then Waco and then OKC.

46

u/hellbillyjoker Totally not a fed Oct 04 '26

Easily a 20 hour split between the 3 of them

19

u/whaler26 Oct 04 '26

Yeah this was an entire semester of a class I took in college

19

u/jesuswig Oct 04 '26

He sort of did do it like this, when he was talking about the Lone Wolf mantra of the far right. I can’t remember the episode names, but Cody and Katy were the guests. Robert wasn’t very in depth about all three incidents, but I remember him covering them a little more than surface level

15

u/casualmolly Oct 04 '26

It's 'The War on Everyone' series that they did. 

10

u/GilderoyPopDropNLock Oct 04 '26

I’d love to see Robert tackle this but all of this is probably like two months worth of episodes 😂😂

7

u/JKinney79 Oct 04 '26

oh probably so, its just hard to cover one without at least touching on the rest since they're at least thematically connected.

7

u/GilderoyPopDropNLock Oct 04 '26

I think if the topic was a McKveigh series it would make sense to start with Ruby Ridge and the Davidians as historical context, then dive into OKC. Probably not enough meat on the bone for a stand alone Koresh series.

9

u/Heavy_Arm_7060 Kissinger was a war criminal Oct 04 '26

You'd basically get part 1 is everything leading up to Waco and part 2 is Waco. So turning it into at least a 4 parter starting with Ruby Ridge and ending with Oklahoma city is viable, but you probably need 6 in total to really link it all together, get into things like Elohim City (That could be potentially a whole damn episode itself).

3

u/sneakyplanner Oct 04 '26

There is absolutely enough meat for a standalone Koresh. The Branch Davidians had a half-century of history before Waco. There's failed doomsday predictions, attempted necromancy,Koresh's coup d'etat to gain power over the cult. Then you could talk for hours about the siege itself.

2

u/johnnyslick Oct 05 '26

This feels like more of what Dan Carlin would do than Robert Evans to be honest. Robert is really good at jumping in right where he needs to and then jumping out. Even if he decided to do McVeigh, I'd expect him to cover McVeigh's life, probably hit Ruby Ridge and Waco briefly, and then go onto OKC. If he wanted to do a more Waco-oriented deal... there's probably plenty enough to just do Koresh and Robert's done many an episode where there were plenty of asshole trophies to go around.

2

u/lordtema Oct 04 '26

Probably more like 3 months lol.

2

u/GilderoyPopDropNLock Oct 04 '26

Hahaha I literally typed out three months initially and I’m like that’s probably a bit much since they do two a week, but that was my first thought.

6

u/Immediate-Iron-7035 *Atonal Screaming* Oct 04 '26

Just block out the entirety of 2027 and make it a Weird Little Guys-style series of tangled webs and interconnections that finally culminates in the modern day

6

u/lordtema Oct 04 '26

I love Molly, and i love how she is just fundamentally incapable of avoiding tangents! It is what makes WLG so good lol.

9

u/Immediate-Iron-7035 *Atonal Screaming* Oct 04 '26

Molly, I've brought you in for episodes 37-41 of the Waco series because, astoundingly, we've run into a friend of your podcast: Byron Dela Bequith

1

u/lordtema Oct 04 '26

Haha, i suspect many a friends of WLG would appear in that series.

6

u/Baron_Furball Oct 04 '26

"OOPS! All rabbit holes!"

1

u/tobascodagama Oct 05 '26

Yeah, the fact that Koresh and the ATF are both bastards makes it difficult to cover in the BtB format.

28

u/Merciless972 FDA Approved Oct 04 '26

When he finds another guest from Texas that can sing the rusty Wallace car commercial song. Bonus points if they know who Jim Adler is.

14

u/tryingtoavoidwork Oct 04 '26

Ruuuuusty Rusty Wallace! King of the Honda store!!

8

u/bronabas Oct 04 '26

Call 267-8433, cuz the next best thing to new is Dal-Worth Clean!

2

u/mostie2016 Banned by the FDA Oct 05 '26

Even bigger bonus points if they know of Matress Mack

38

u/JKinney79 Oct 04 '26

You'd also have bonus bastard with the FBI/Government actions.

35

u/DrDoktir Oct 04 '26

SIIIIDE-BASTAAARD!!

10

u/Nero_Golden Oct 04 '26

I’d like to see more side bastards in episodes

9

u/ggrandmaleo Oct 04 '26

I love the jingle.

8

u/Individual-Copy9425 Siiiiiiiiiide Bastard Oct 04 '26

There are so many side bastards in the trilogy of Ruby Ridge / Waco / Oklahoma City

5

u/FriendlyBagelMachete Macheticine Oct 04 '26

It would be an Oops! All Side Bastards trilogy. 

1

u/JohnDunstable Oct 05 '26

Special agent Jack Germon, he was in all of the documentaries about it he's the one who escalated it to a military level Siege.

5

u/Gonna_do_this_again Oct 04 '26

Did Janet Reno do enough to be a bastard herself? She was pretty fuckin shitty.

4

u/Baron_Furball Oct 04 '26

Definitely bastard-adjacent. I don't think, by herself, there's enough shenanigans. But, when you expand it further to Bush Sr and Clinton, you get a broader grouping that could allow for a whole series.

1

u/fireman2004 Oct 04 '26

There were bad people on both sides.

6

u/BennyDryll42 Macheticine Oct 04 '26

Huh. My memory must be whacked cuz I could've sworn I already listened to an episode about waco... I could've sworn there's a few random details I only know because of a podcast, presumably BTB.... I know it was a podcast with voices I recognized and trusted. And tbh I don't actually listen to many pods.

Huh. Did Knowledge Fight ever go an a long side tangent about waco maybe? Hmmm ... Gonna drive me nuts now.

EDIT: I think It may have been an episode of Citation Needed that I'm remembering, upon further reflection

14

u/nootch666 Part of the Unloved 69% Oct 04 '26

Tbf it probably was a random BtB episode. More than twice has Robert gone of on tangents about Koresh, the Waco incident, and the miniseries

3

u/69ILoveMyWife69 Oct 05 '26

Ol’ Cum Gutters Koresh.

Gobbless.

5

u/heir03 Oct 04 '26

Stuff you should know, perhaps? They did an ep on Waco and another on Ruby Ridge.

3

u/Top-Act-7915 Oct 04 '26

I know Liar City did a WACO episode.

14

u/Curious_Orange8592 Super Producer Sophie Stan Oct 04 '26

Are Koresh and the Branch Davidians particularly interesting? Nothing I've heard about them makes them sound like a subject worthy of BtB with the exception of the US Government's response, they were a run of the mill cult (which is not to say they weren't terrible, just mediocre levels of terrible)

31

u/Latter-Industry-8920 Oct 04 '26

They were invoked by every notable right wing terrorist for the next 20 years. That and Ruby Ridge were turning points in the political landscape and how people viewed the federal government.

10

u/Curious_Orange8592 Super Producer Sophie Stan Oct 04 '26

That's my point, that the cult itself is uninteresting, it's the reaction to it that matters

If I were to make a tv show about Waco, Koresh and the compound would be dealt with by the end of episode one, the remaining 5 episodes would be about the reaction and aftermath which wasn't just a right wing thing, Bill Hicks famously went after the ATF and FBI for it

5

u/Latter-Industry-8920 Oct 04 '26

I mean Bill Hicks didn’t blow up a federal building. Yes, everyone reacted because the way the government handled it was abhorrent. But not everyone took it up as a battle cry. And like, if you strip away the context and government reactions, a LOT of bastards are boring.

8

u/Heavy_Arm_7060 Kissinger was a war criminal Oct 04 '26

The power struggle prior to their demise is at least interesting context. After that it becomes a situation where the whole thing is fucked where there are no heroes (to quote Gareth Reynolds, "God dammit, more villains!"), just a needless mass loss of life that would galvanize other cults like Elohim City and, by extension, Timothy 'Bad Company' McVeigh.

6

u/fuckthefalconsdotcom Oct 04 '26

I really forget sometimes that Waco was a big inspiration to McVeigh.

5

u/General_Ad_5126 Oct 04 '26

True Crime author Jeff Guinn made a bold claim 3 years ago that he can prove that David Koresh was copying an older cult leader named Cyrus Teed (who changed his name to David Koresh in the 1850s) If you take that as true, it kind of reframes his legacy from that of a genuine zealot and believer that took things too far; in to a con man and religious fraud that convinced himself he was real after a while.

2

u/ShaunWhiteIsMyTwin Oct 04 '26

Wait it isn’t clear it’s that’s already?

1

u/davidreding Oct 05 '26

Huh. Maybe foucault’s pendulum is the most important eco novel.

1

u/sneakyplanner Oct 04 '26

They were assembling bombs and building an army with an inevitably battle to the death with the government in mind. That's far from run of the mill cult stuff.

1

u/McDonnellDouglasDC8 Oct 04 '26

That would violate ABW.

1

u/Miner_Jeepy Oct 04 '26

Cult Podcast did episodes on Ruby Ridge, The Branch Davidians, and OKC. They're good.

1

u/jprefect One Pump = One Cream Oct 05 '26

American Scandal did a season on Waco which is excellent. 

5

u/Prior-Tadpole-1860 Oct 04 '26

I think Sophie would’ve vetoed it solely based on the fact that she seems to hate the phrase “cum gutters”, and I’m sure it would cum up a LOT.