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Ohn August 26, 1980, a large metal box was delivered to Harvey’s Wagon Wheel casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevadadisguised as an IBM printer. An X-ray confirmed that the complex explosives inside contained 1,000lb (450kg) of dynamite. A linked ransom demanded $3m (£1.3m) within the next 24 hours. FBI Scientist Kirk Yeager said the fear was that this “mysterious metal box” had the potential to twist a part of the city. “I’ve never seen anything worse in my life,” says Mike Rowe, the district attorney at the time. “It was very scary.”
Spanning three episodes, This Is A Bomb chooses a disturbing and extortionate story. It’s not a whodunnit, but a howdunnit – a harrowing investigation of how a father convinced his two young sons to carry out a plot that had the potential to kill and injure thousands of people.
It engages in the short conventions that dominate US crime fiction on the left today (cf Millions or Fyre: The Biggest Party That Never Happened, the latter of which was directed by Chris Smith, executive producer of this series). Indeed, husband-and-wife directors Bryan Storkel and Amy Bandlien Storkel previously collaborated on The Pez Outlaw, a sideshow about a candy smuggler. Here, there is a dead interview with a local historian; larger-than-life actors (including an FBI bomb agent who wears a big straw hat); and many vintage and 80s rebuilds.
However – perhaps due to the looseness of the story – it struggles to produce a semi-comedy tone. His subject – the late John Birges Sr, or Big John – was a one-time millionaire crippled by his gambling debts to Harvey’s, who decided to take over the casino with a homemade bomb. Also, he enlisted his two sons – whom he allegedly beat and abused – to force them to join him when they were young (they were 19 and 20 at the time of the charges against them by the authorities). The home life of Jim, the surviving son, and his brother John Jr is described in hellish terms; in the second episode, Jim remembers his father throwing his wife’s ashes into a barrel.
The “howdunnit” thing – no surprises, full of horror – can feel thin. There is also the added complication of John Jr’s suicide. An AI voice reads words taken from his 2010 book, Bombing Harvey, and there are also pictures of him, but it sounds silly. Jim, at least, is there to tell his side of the story – about a father who abused his children, and his strange past in Hungary may include being forced into the Luftwaffe during World War II, as well as being in a Russian prison. “We were taught to say yes, so we agreed,” says Jim, recalling how his father tied the boys up to retrieve a stolen hammer one night at 1 in the morning. Some parts of the series feel like an extra layer of support for him, 45 years on. Now in his 60s, he is just starting to come to terms with things. His wife, Holly, said: “I can see him loving himself now.”
This Is a Bomb is about the bomb, but it’s mostly a testament to brutality and how Birges uses threats of violence at home and on a larger scale to control and harm people. Despite having a lot of evidence against him in the casino case, he denied his innocence, saying that Harvey recruited him to do insurance work. This would have been a big and unexpected twist to justify all the flaws of the series, but, alas, it was not true. It was a “wacko TV universe” that Birges dreamed up, says Ed Kane, a former assistant US attorney. It is true that two things can be true at the same time. Although the bomb was not part of the conspiracy between Mr. Birges and Harvey, the threat of the attack has been profitable for the casino, thanks to the huge insurance payouts it has made since it was announced.
Amidst all the darkness, there’s a funny joke that the plot to take down Harvey made it bigger and better. It is perhaps the only thing, in fact, to smile about in such a sad story.
