Parents' Guide to Five Days at Memorial

Parents need to know that Five Days at Memorial is very realistic and thus scarier than fiction. In terms of visuals, the showrunners combine real news footage with digitized images of New Orleans during the worst of the hurricane, and then flooding as the rivers overspilled their levees. Expect scenes of environmental devastation (uprooted trees, floating cars, people lost and crying while they wade through the water) as well as medical drama, as we see people who are mortally ill and the grieving loved ones who are with them. Dead bodies are seen at length, usually wrapped in sheets. Guns play a part in the drama, and we see gory injuries, such as the copiously bleeding wounds of a woman who was stabbed. One episode deals with the euthanization of pets that must be left behind after evacuations; we see bodies of dogs and cats and a scene in which a dog is put down (the footage is out of focus but still very sad). Language includes "f--k," "s--t," and "hell." In a brief scene a character smokes a cigarette. There are some Black characters, yet the majority of main characters are White; women, including older women, have strong and central roles. Medical professionals make highly questionable choices that have to do with life, death, a caregiver's responsibility, and ethics.