Katrina: Come Hell and High Water

1 & 2 are very effective documentaries - presenting facts and telling stories of real people and their struggles during a natural tragedy. Spike Lee completely destroys this by turning to opinion, discussion and theory.

Why would he not look at the work of the other creators and produce something that is coherent with the rest of the series??

He is clearly a narcissist - I say this as the other documentaries leave it to the people who suffered this tragedy to recount their journeys of survival. This final documentary ha Spike regularly interjecting, trying to show that he is 'part of it' or some such. The guy is insufferable and I hope that he is never allowed near important and factual film making ever again.

If you're around my age, you'll remember watching the news back in 2025 and being shocked by what happened to New Orleans, an iconic place submerged in water.

This documentary explores the buildup to Hurricane Katrina, the devastating effect it had, and its legacy. Episodes one and two are incredibly good; they will shock you, appall you, and make you consider why the country turned its back on New Orleans. You'll wonder if things would have been different had it been another state.

Episode three has some fascinating content, but it's a bit of a mess and too long; it's a frantic conclusion poorly thrown together. You'll come away with the certain knowledge that there are some incredible and resilient people in New Orleans, but they are a people who were failed by their government.

Some of what I saw in the second episode made my blood boil; it felt as though I was listening to something from a hundred years ago.

I urge you to watch it; episodes one and two are essential viewing.

8/10.

Episodes 1 & 2 paint a vivid picture of the hurricane's prelude, impact and immediate catastrophic aftermath, largely through survivors' own eyes via camcorder footage.

Episode 3 feels like Spike Lee watched those episodes and decided he had to do it all himself. Thus, interviewees are reintroduced and events recapped like the previous two hours never happened.

Like, weren't they blunt enough for him? For me, they did an exemplary job of showing systemic racism permeated every aspect of this disaster without needing to put the words 'systemic racism' onscreen, as if anyone watching might've missed that point somewhere along the way.

Like others have said, episodes 1&2 are the actual documentary. Episode 3 feels like they handed it off to a new director, and he said "I'm just redoing this my way". We followed people's stories through episodes 1&2 only to never hear about them again. We never checked back in on the people at the hospital, for example.

I was really wanting some actual explanations on what happened, and we didn't get that. "Here's how the levees broke" or "here's how they weren't built right". Both of which were addressed by Hulu's

I don't disagree with the arguments made by the series, but it's evident what the angle of the show was from episode 1. For me, that lowers its value as an actual documentary. I like being presented with the evidence and what happened and being left to make my own decisions.

Watching the Hulu documentary right after Netflix's is jarring. It really makes it feel like Netflix left out the stories of many people, such as first responders. For example the Chief of Police. His story is extremely impactful to the events overall, and is never even mentioned on the Netflix show....

This is a mostly well made and paced documentary detailing the devastating and moving stories of what happened during Hurricane Katrina.

However after a solid first two episodes the third episode is muddled narratively (especially the first 20 mins ish) and the random addition of the PowerPoint style text on the screen which adds nothing and if anything cheapens the points they're trying to make.