Thanks for a great post @anaerwu! It mirrored many of the same thoughts that went through my head after I finished watching Chernobyl.

While I think that it will probably do the perception of civilian nuclear power no favours, I think anyone paying close attention to what is actually going on on the screen will find that it is a drama about the bizarre monolith built on lies that was the Soviet system anno 1986 rather than an anti-nuclear piece. It is an interesting conundrum as to why a story where the outcome is given in advance can work dramaturgically, but I think it works exactly because the narrative is spun around a nuclear disaster and nuclear power, which already holds a certain mystique and sense of danger to most people, so while the outcome is given in advance, the story contains a lot of unknowns for the average viewer

Indeed, like you touched upon in your post too, the way Legasov speaks about nuclear power and the inner workings of the RMBK reactor in the last episode certainly has a poetic beauty to it :)