The Good Lord Bird
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Did John Brown fail?
Daveed Diggs-as-Frederick Douglass asks in voiceover at the beginning ofThe Good Lord Birds spectacular season and series finale.
He certainly did fail to get out of Harpers Ferry, Douglass goes on.
Did he lose his life in vain?
To this I answer 10,000 times no.
Why didnt I take the bridge?
That was so stupid.
For that I should hang.)
How close does Last Words hew to the truth?
More than any other episode, this finale takes some liberties in the name of narrative development.
Stuart, but Brown and his men didnt charge through the door at them, they were ferreted out.
But really, who cares about perfect fidelity?
For most ofThe Good Lord BirdJohn Brown wavers from fanaticism to downright zealous insanity.
In Last Words that God-driven commitment finally trickles down to the men around him.
His son John Jr. insists, through a shaky voice, on leading the charge out the front door.
Onions case is different.
Hes a child, dragged along by forces way larger than him.
Stuart, Onion has to put back on the mantle of a slave ironically, its safer for him.
What Onion realizes in that barbershop is that Brown is a legend even before his death.
And Onion gets it exactly right.
He had friends who could write.
Walt Whitman took up the cause, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I didnt know who any of those turkeys were, but we were no longer alone.
In his failure, he absolutely succeeded.
Onion well, Henry again and Browns final meeting is soft and egalitarian.
Brown finally passes on the leading of prayers, and he matches his surrogate childs gentle, steady tone.
If you detected a hint of cheesiness in the air, well, screw you.
This show is ending exactly how and when it should, but damn I wish there were more.
