‘The Dynasty’ is so much more than spicy details about the end of the Brady-Belichick era

The new Apple TV+ documentary will let Patriots fans relive the dynasty from start to finish.

Chances are, if you’re a Patriots fan, and you’ve seen a trailer for the new documentary on Apple TV+ for The Dynasty: New England Patriots, you don’t need me to write anything about it. You’ll still be on your couch the second it comes out to watch the first two episodes.

Be that as it may, I’m still going to write this review to give you an idea of what you’re in store for, and even give you a few tidbits about what you will see as you’re reliving the story of the greatest dynasty in the history of the NFL.

By now you’ve probably heard all of the salacious details about players saying how the show presents how difficult it was to play for Bill Belichick and how Tom Brady wasn’t going to come back no matter what. That is certainly part of this documentary, and I understand that people are looking for someone to blame as to why the Patriots dynasty ended.

However, what this documentary does, and what I hope people take out of it the most, is how and why the Patriots were able to do what they did. Not for five years, not for 10 years, not even for 15 years, but for almost 20 years.

“I’m not going to allow other people to take away from something so special,” said quarterback Tom Brady in the show. “It’s perfect, it doesn’t need to be more than that.”

What was so skillfully done by director Matthew Hamachek was the weaving of the past and the present together.

He goes back to when Robert Kraft first dreamed of owning the team, and how his relationship with Bill Parcells shaped the way he interacted with Bill Belichick. He goes back to Cleveland, where Scott Pioli discusses the Bernie Kosar situation, and how, even though they were confident that moving on from Kosar was the right call, not having a legitimate replacement is what ultimately led to their demise — how that shaped the Tom Brady vs. Drew Bledsoe decision, and how, if it hadn’t worked, it very well might have ended the same way in New England.

The documentary also dives deep into the three main scandals of the dynasty. Spygate, Deflategate, and the Aaron Hernandez situation.

One of the reasons I think they did such a good job of handling the first two is that Patriots fans, as well as Patriots haters, will probably dislike the way the documentary covers Spygate and Deflategate. What surprised me the most about the entire series was how candid Robert Kraft was about Hernandez.

The Patriots’ owner was quite forthcoming the entire series, but really went into great detail about what happened with Aaron Hernandez, and the fallout that came from it. I would say that the only person who was a bit guarded in the series is Belichick, which isn’t particularly surprising. There are times that he is candid, but other times that it sounds like a Belichick press conference.

This will lead some to view him as the “villain” of the story, although I don’t believe that to be the intention of the film makers.

That said, The Dynasty doesn’t pull punches and isn’t afraid to discuss the lowest of the lows. The episode about the 2007 season is going to make you feel just as terrible as you remember feeling all those years ago. It also goes into great detail about the great times, and has a ton of previously unseen footage from inside the locker room and meeting rooms.

As someone who has been a season ticket holder since 2000, and has been covering the team for this site and others since 2017, I learned quite a bit from this series as well.

The last thing I’ll leave you with is this. The Dynasty isn’t The Last Dance. That was a documentary about the Chicago Bulls, yes, but it was mostly about Michael Jordan. The Dynasty isn’t a documentary about Tom Brady, or about Bill Belichick, or about Robert Kraft. It’s about the New England Patriots, and they make it clear the whole time.

This is a must watch, and, whether or not you walk away upset about how it ended, I think it will give a clear picture of just how incredible the partnership between Brady, Belichick, and Kraft really was — and how lucky Patriots fans were to have them in their lives for 20 years.

You can watch our exclusive interview with director Matthew Hamachek here, and you can watch the series, which will release two episodes every week for five weeks starting tomorrow, February 16, on Apple TV+.