'Five Days at Memorial' review: Post-Katrina hospital drama is a lyrical look at grief

Near the end of "Five Days at Memorial", a character offers sympathy, saying "I can imagine what you've been through". It's an effort to make a human connection, even when discussing the details of an unthinkable set of circumstances. The other person's response is simple: “Oh no, you can't imagine. You have no idea." That's an indicative exchange for this Apple TV+ series, not just because it highlights the emotions involved, 17 years later. It's that the show tries to embody the two sides of the conversation at once.

Over eight episodes, "Five Days at Memorial" does its utmost to faithfully recreate the conditions of a hospital in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, effectively isolated from a rescue effort also struggling to help neighbors. Yet in these moments of simply recreating the look and feel of Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans during those September 2005 days, the show strives for some sort of operatic pitch. that bridges the gap between the recognizable and the unthinkable. It's a combination that works most of the time, but sometimes gets as obscure as the actual saga it's trying to honor.

There's an uneasy relationship to the past here that runs through the series' opening episode, complete with a large amount of archival news footage from 2005 about the hurricane and CGI recreations of periods distinct from the storm itself. In another type of project, this context would be useful (although sometimes excessive). Considering what follows in the rest of the series, however, it seems at odds with the dramatic power of following what happens in a self-contained area in Memorial. It's as if the raw, tangible emotion that "Five Days at Memorial" captures from inside the hospital is somehow insufficient.

"Five Days at the Memorial"

Russ Martin

While these stylistic flourishes can range from being distracting to exaggerating, what series co-creators/writers/directors John Ridley and Carlton Cuse manage to explore over these eight episodes is to take on a tragedy and to focus on exactly how a disaster can spiral out of control, even if all of the individual stages seem manageable. Beyond the visceral terror of doctors and patients watching floodwaters rise outside their windows, “Five Days at Memorial” shines a light on doctors and caregivers — like Dr. Anna Pou (Vera Farmiga), Dr. Horace Baltz (Robert Pine), Dr. Bryant King (Cornelius Smith Jr.), and nurse Karen Wynn (Adepe...