John Erick: Last News

Joe Pickett will not return for a third season. Paramount+ has canceled the series, starring Michael Dorman, after two seasons.

Joshua Alston Thirty years after the deadly standoff between federal law enforcement and the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas, even the most fundamental facts of the tragedy remain contested. Both sides insist the other initiated the initial volley of gunfire that killed four agents and six sectarians. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms insists David Koresh and his followers later set fire to their compound, killing another 48 adults and 28 children in an act of mass suicide. The surviving Branch Davidians maintain that the FBI was the aggressor, and the deadly fire resulted from the ATF’s decision to deploy stun grenades and tear gas. The decades since have created only tighter knots of recrimination. But you might not get that impression from watching “Waco,” the 2018 Paramount Network miniseries about the nearly eight-week standoff and that fatal inferno. In the hands of brothers John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle, who wrote and directed much of the series, the Branch Davidians are a misunderstood and largely peaceful sect led by Koresh (Taylor Kitsch), a complicated man, but one genuinely driven by conviction rather than megalomania. With Kitsch at the outer reaches of his charisma and the Dowdles’ flirting with hagiography, “Waco” is held back from greatness by its obsession with humanizing a narcissistic cult leader.

The Wyoming game warden will soon be back on patrol: Paramount+ announced the neo-western Joe Pickett will return with two episodes on Sunday, June 4 in the U.S. and Canada.

Following, the 2018, star-studded six-part scripted limited series depicting the 1993 standoff, co-creators and brothers Drew and John Erick Dowdle are back with a sequel, , which chronicles the aftermath and subsequent trials that followed. The new Showtime series, which premieres April 16, is led by Michael Shannon, who reprises his role as FBI hostage negotiator Gary Noesner, while John Leguizamo and Shea Whigham return as ATF agent Jacob Vasquez and FBI agent Mitch Decker, respectively.While Taylor Kitsch does not return as Koresh, who ultimately died of a gunshot wound during the siege, actor Keean Johnson portrays a young version of the cult leader.   For the Dowdles, the sequel offers them a chance to connect the dots with what happened in Waco to acts of violence and domestic terrorism, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, that have followed.

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Shannon starred as FBI negotiator Gary Noesner in Paramount Network’s 2018 series Waco and four years later he has boarded the follow up series as an executive producer.