That Chernobyl Guy on YouTube did great breakdowns.
The rest of them are shown as afraid, questioning until they feel like they cant, then understanding what is happening but being helpless.
Most of the major events depicted in the show are things I recall having been reported previously.
I thought many of the workers in the plant, the first responders, etc were portrayed as heroes and most at least quite sympathetically.
* The soviets designed a nuclear reactor and engineering plan/blueprint to making power plants
* That engineering plan required certain safety tests to be preformed before actually operating the plant
* Chernyobl did not pass those safety tests before plant operation
* Chernyobl then tried to run those safety tests after the plant was in operation (for some time).
* Chernyobl then catastrophically failed the safety tests due at least to the test setup being incorrect (you aren't supposed to be operating the plant before hand).
* The design of the reactors made them unsafe in a scenario where you needed to quickly insert the control rods. Doing so should reduce power output, but due to their graphite tips, it led to a sudden surge of power output.
* Leadership repeatedly didn't listen to or believe what they were hearing from boots on the ground.
* Leadership took a "it can't be that bad, let's wait and see" approach instead of a cautious approach.
* Add to this that boots on the ground were afraid to stand up to leadership.
* This repeatedly led to delayed reactions to the problems, and an increase in the severity of the outcomes.
* All of this combined with cooling failures, led to disaster.
(Heat and pressure accumulated, the reactor didn't have enough water, and then when control rods were finally reinserted, they sped up the reaction instead of slowing it down... boom.)
