Brace yourself, Patriots fans: The Deflategate episode of "The Dynasty" is coming

BOSTON -- With six episodes having been released through Apple TV+, "The Dynasty" has not exactly been a celebration of the glory days in Patriots history. The 10-part docuseries sped through two championship seasons, with the creative team behind the project opting to dedicate an episode to Spygate, another episode to Aaron Hernandez's arrest and death, and an entire episode on the 2008 Tom Brady injury/Matt Cassel season.

Well, this week, get ready. Because it's Deflategate time.

Suffice it to say, it's a doozy.

For as frustrating as the Spygate saga was, for as tragic as the entire Hernandez situation was, and for as disappointing as the 2008 season may have been, there's nothing -- nothing -- like the frustration and rage brought about by the years-long soap opera known as Deflategate. (Even using that name, which continues the improper addition of "gate" to any "scandal" because of some burglary at The Watergate Hotel, is enough to make one's blood boil.)

And, as expected, an avalanche of bad memories is sure to hit any New England viewers of the seventh episode, titled "Under Pressure." One particular montage features the "scandal" being discussed on CNBC, by Sean Hannity on Fox News, by Lester Holt on NBC Nightly News, by Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show," and by panels on CNN and PBS and Fox News. A clip from "The Simpsons" lampooning the Patriots appears. A clip of Matt Lauer transitioning from an update on Deflategate, the top story of the night, to an update on Japanese hostages being held by ISIS.

The absurdity of it all is captured by Al Michaels, who's shown in the episode during his time as a guest on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"

"Well let's see, the government of Yemen has collapsed, you have terror cells in France, and all three network news broadcasts tonight were led with Deflategate," Michaels deadpanned. 

Present-day Michaels then put the matter in perspective: "This is a story that should have been a speck. But it's the Patriots! It's the biggest story in town. I mean it was insane. But you look at the ratings -- it's so big that it just builds on itself over and over and over."

To anyone who didn't follow every development on the purportedly deflated footballs from January 2015 through, say, February 2017, there may be some new information presented in this episode. Yet to those who had to live through every obnoxious, headache-inducing moment, it really only covers the matter at a surface level.

With years now having passed between the moment and now, and with commissioner Roger Goodell sitting down for an episode, the episode could have explored why the NFL went to such great lengths to try to label the greatest player in the history of the sport as a cheater, all over a PSI number that never concerned a single soul before or after this sage took place. It could have examined the level to which people were ascribing Brady's success to the inflation levels of footballs, only for Brady to win four Super Bowls (while setting passing records in a Super Bowl loss, too) after the allegations first surfaced. The episode could have actually pushed Brady to open up on the matter. If it were really ambitious, the show could have dug into what really happened to John Jastremski and Jim McNally, the two men at the center of the controversy who must have signed NDAs to end all NDAs before disappearing from the public entirely. (The episode also could have explored how the NFL's case against Brady completely veered away from PSI or footballs, once the league learned that science wasn't on its side. Cell phone destruction and misrepresentation of Brady's testimony in front of a panel of Second Circuit judges became the NFL's tools, rather than PSI measurements, as you may recall.)

Instead, it's really a basic play-by-play of the preposterous period when this story somehow dominated the national consciousness.

There are some highlights coming for Patriots fans this week, though. The Deflategate episode includes the Patriots' dramatic Super Bowl win over the Seahawks, giving Brady and the Patriots their first championship in a decade and reigniting the dynasty. Julian Edelman makes his first appearance. Malcolm Butler relives that historic defensive drive. And in the eighth episode -- titled "Score To Settle," and also debuting this week on the streaming platform -- fans get to relive the famous 28-3 comeback over Atlanta in Super Bowl LI.

Yet ... as is the case with much of "The Dynasty," there's not as much focus on the actual dynasty as you might expect. The Super Bowl XLIX win over the Seahawks gets all of six minutes of screen time in the 40-minute episode. The comeback against the Falcons gets a lot more attention -- roughly 16 minutes -- but it's also presented in the cloud of the growing Bill Belichick-Tom Brady feud, beginning with the selection of Jimmy Garoppolo in the 2014 draft.

As we all know, the situation between Brady and Belichick eventually became untenable. Belichick did harbor doubts about Brady's ability to play through his 40s. Brady did eventually decide it was time to move on. Planting the seeds for the basis of that exit surely would make sense in the eighth episode. Yet to angle the entire episode on that friction when the confetti is falling after the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history is to slightly miss the mark in the capturing of what was actually happening in this moment in sports history.

That dark cloud hovers over every moment of the Super Bowl LI episode. And that episode follows a 40-minute retelling of Deflategate.

As was the case when last week's episodes debuted, it's once again safe to say that the enjoyment of Patriots fans was not nearly the intended goal by the filmmakers when putting this project together. And with just two installments remaining after this week -- episodes that capture the actual end of the dynasty -- that figures to be the lasting memory of this series for football fans in New England.

How much it registers with fans of other teams around the country and the world is difficult to calculate. But for Patriots fans, the series continues to invoke as much -- if not more -- pain as it does pleasure.