The Underground Railroad
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I want her unfettered, Ridgeway tells Homer.
Mack tells Ridgeway that it means a lot that he came.
(I assume that it was Mack who alerted Ridgeway of his fathers health.)
Mack sees Cora and Homer standing behind Ridgeway and asks, Gonna introduce me to your family there?
Its a shocking descriptor, to think of these three as a family husband, wife, and child.
Mack walks with a slow shuffle after the well incident and Ridgeway is visibly ashamed.
Ridgeway then locks Cora in a barn, hiding her away from the judgment and narratives of the farm.
He removes some sticks and debris, but doesnt speak to her.
Being home and enacting the role of patriarch Macks assigned to him unsettles Ridgeways attitude toward Cora.
At the restaurant, a Mexican woman named Marisol (Yuly Mireles) waits on them.
She is more attentive to Cora than the white folk, at one point touching Cora, who recoils.
He is still just a little boy!
He orders himself a bottle (!)
of whiskey, and thus begins Ridgeways drinking.
But its an interesting exercise in the subjective quality of dialogue.
She goes to an outhouse behind the restaurant and Ridgeway follows, trying to jab back at her.
See, in the end it turns out they aint no different from their neighbors to the north.
Marisol comes out to check on them, calling to Cora in the outhouse, You okay, miss?
Shes interrupted the story, but its mostly too late.
While he was still breathing.
Cora muffles her sobs in the outhouse.
Cora and Ridgeway (though Homer isnt anywhere to be seen) return to the farmhouse.
He goes into his fathers room where Ridgeway Sr. is sleeping .
Just want you to admit one thing … the Great Spirit … aint no such thing.
You made it up, didnt you?
He asks him repeatedly to admit it.
This is too much for Ridgeway, who decides the evening is over.
He cuffs Cora to the bed and takes off some of his overclothes.
Cora resists and pleas, unsure of his intentions.
He keeps babbling as he lays down, eyes closed, trying to calm her down.
Yes, close your eyes.
Oh its not fair.
No he just made it all up.
They undo Coras chains, shackle Ridgeway to the bed, and help Cora escape the house.
But this here is a house of mourning.
And his Pa was a great man.
Samson, Red, and Royal take Cora to the Tennessee station of the Underground Railroad.
The Black (!)
station agent, Mr. Thomas, shows up and asks for Coras testimony, handing her the stations manifest.
She dips the pen in ink as the men have a conversation.
The train that arrives is much bigger and nicer than those weve seen before, too.
Back at the house the next morning, Mack brings a gun to where Ridgeway sleeps.
It seems that Ridgeway Sr. has left the house to Mack.
Old mans son … and his favorite n- - - -.
One chosen, one disgraced.
This might be true, but his feelings dont change all the damage hes done.
He has no intention to stop seizing what he believes is his to seize.
Mack goes downstairs to get Ridgeway a last glass of whiskey.
But Homer enters and shoots Mack.
Macks blood pools as Homer takes the whiskey glass to Ridgeway.
The two pass the glass of whiskey between them.
The Caboose
This episode was written by Nathan C. Parker and Barry Jenkins.
The song that plays in the closing credits is Kendrick Lamars Money Trees fromgood kid, m.A.A.d city.
(Ive always liked this song, especially because of the Beach House sample.)
I found the ending of this episode so frustrating and very on the nose!
The candle extinguishing; Mack struggling to light the match as he did that day on the well.
All the episodes set at the Ridgeway home are extremely literary in this way.
In thefourth episode, there was a group of Black men standing outside when young Ridgeway exits the shop.
Presumably this restaurant is the same bar-restaurant where Ridgeway went to to meet Chandler, the slave-catcher.
Okay, did Caesar have blue eyes though?
Id say Aaron Pierres eyes are green?
Is this just Ridgeway being reductive?
Ive brought our attention to the manifest before.
Here, the station manager asks Cora to give her testimony to the book.
Which is new language that the show uses regarding the sharing of ones story.
This shift feels intentional to me.
Cora: So Arnold Ridgeway is human after all.
And here I thought you were just some demon who murders folk in cold blood.
Ridgeway: Youre a murderer, too, Cora.
Yeah, or did you forget?
Little boy?Cora: He wasnt little.
I know what he means but its a bit difficult to track.
Todays entry in the Barry Jenkins ShotTM Hall of Fame takes place in the Tennessee station.
Mr. Thomas: Train should be arriving shortly.Royal: Heard that before!
Reading Railroad:HULLby Xandria Phillips
