Today, we see the revealing effects of fire in a thrilling early episode of Underground
This is “All the Best Things,” a spotlight on the best TV episodes, movies, albums, etc.
This is a Year of Great TV Episodes, where every day this year, we’ll take a look at great TV episodes. Note that I’m not talking about “Very Special Episodes” or episodes built around gimmicks, but just “normal” episodes of TV shows that are notable only because of how good they are.
All this month, I’ll be spotlighting great Black-centric TV episodes.
Underground, created by Misha Green and Joe Pokaksi, was one of the shows that debuted in that brief period where WGN decided to get into the prestige TV game. They produced some great shows (and had plans for some other great shows, like a TV adaptation of the great comic book series, Scalped), but sadly, the network was sold to the Sinclair Broadcasting Group and, well, let’s just say that prestige TV is about a million miles away from what Sinclair is all about, so all of the shows were canceled (and future projects dropped).
Underground was probably the best of WGN’s series (Manhattan was also really good, though), as it told the interconnected stories of a number of people in Pre-Civil War America, centered around a group of slaves who escaped from the Macon Plantation.
Noah (Aldis Hodge) was the ringleader of the bunch, but in third episode of the series, it was actually Rosalee (Jurnee Smollett) instigates their departure ahead of schedule when she kills the plantation’s overseer after he tries to rape her. She and Noah go on the run, while the other members of their escape plan wonder what to do in the episode at end, 2016’s “Firefly,” the fourth episode of the series. Earlier in the series, the mysterious slave Cato (Alano Miller), who blackmailed Noah into letting him in on the plan, now seems to have changed his mind when the owner of the plantation, Tom Macon (Reed Diamond) names him the new overseer of the plantation’s slaves.
Meanwhile, Rosalee’s mother, Ernestine (Amirah Vann), the head house slave, tries her best to protect her daughter from behind the scenes (she is Macon’s longtime lover, and Mason is Rosalee’s father).
Christopher Meloni shows up as August Pullman, who is willing to hunt down Noah and Rosalee for Macon. Pullman travels with his son, who he is training to follow in his father’s trade.
Another plot involves John Hawkes (Marc Blucas) and his socialite bride, Elizabeth (Jessica De Gouw), who John is trying convince to become an abolitionist like him. They are held hostage by two other runaway slaves, one of which, Josey (Jussie Smollett), believes that his wife was sold into slavery by John, so he plans on torturing John to find out where his wife has been taken.
As you can tell, there are many different plots going on at once in this episode (which was written by the show’s creators, Misha Green and Joe Pokaksi, and directed by Anthony Hemingway), yet they are all balanced well.
Things kick into high gear when Cato rounds up the remaining members of Noah’s planned escape group, and holds them with two other Macon employees. Cato tells them a story of a runaway slave who was caught twice, and was branded with two Rs on his cheek. We then learn that it is Cato himself that he is talking about (Cato has scars on his face), and he explains that he burned himself so that he would never see those R’s again. He then kills the other two White workers with him, and sets the plantation’s crops on fire (Cato has been dousing the fields with gin throughout the day discretely in a scene that is well paid off when a slave points out that he has a hole in his canteen. That canteen, of course, was filled with gin and Cato was intentionally pouring the flammable liquid all over the place). Cato and the others then escape, with 5 of the 7 getting away (one woman sacrifices herself to get her daughter to safety).
Meanwhile, after Elizabeth is forced to whip John, Josey’s fellow slave knocks him out, as he trusts Elizabeth and John, and feels that Josey had gone too far. Of course, this was just in time for a local US Marshal to enter, and kills the slave who saved Elizabeth and John. John had “confessed” that he HAD arranged for Josey’s wife to be transferred to another household as part of some estate legal work. Afterwards, John explains to Elizabeth while he doesn’t remember Josey’s wife, he DID do that sort of work a lot. She remarks that he probably deserved the whipping, then. She is now convinced that they need to be abolitionists.
This was a strong opening to the “Macon 7” being on the run, and there were so many more strong interconnected plots to come.
Okay, if I’m going to have 318 more of these (and 10 more this month), I could use suggestions, so feel free to email me at brian@poprefs.com!
