There’s a K-8 Christian academy in Albuquerque that trains pupils what to do in the event that their school is attacked by an insane gunman with an automatic weapon. Certain older students are instructed to bombard, disarm, and pin down the hypothetical perpetrator. Some teachers carry guns—presumably they have the kids’ backs.
Smith hosts that episode’s second segment, a decidedly less absurd story about birth defects in Iraqi children presumably caused by radioactive scrap left behind from the war. Vice’s segments on subject matter like this are raw and more visually explicit than the nightly news could run, and a lot more concise than anything on a 24-hour network. Still, it feels like news for a generation with a steel belly and a short attention span. For the amount of effort and money that must go into reporting some of these stories—human trafficking in China, political rivalries in the Philippines—they tend to feel a little incomplete. Opinions have been formed in advance. It’s not quite like being spoon-fed—more like a bloody breakfast in bed.
Fri 11 PM, HBO
