“What Underground Boldly Says About the Consequences of Individual Flight”

If you aren’t watching WGN America’s excellent new show, Underground, I suggest that you remedy that by, uh, watching WGN America’s excellent new show, Underground. This applies even if you are sick to death of slave narratives or if you just don’t have the stomach for another 12 Years a Slave. Underground is kind of like that Steve McQueen masterpiece; it is appropriately harsh when it needs to be and at times you will feel compelled to watch it through laced fingers. It is also, for lack of a better word, awesome, the sort of rousing entertainment you can only get from spilling a jar of Django Unchained into a pot of Roots. 

Over at Paste Magazine, I decided it’d be best to write some words about the series’ narrative about group efforts. The series splits itself between the efforts of abolitionists in the North supporting the Underground Railroad (hence the show’s title), and slaves in the South trying to escape a Georgia plantation. Leading the latter group is Noah (Aldis Hodge of Straight Outta Compton fame), who is committed to getting as many people the hell out of Georgia even if the cost to be paid by those left behind will be heavy.

It’s a gripping dynamic and one that the show very explicitly writes out through text and through action. But you know the drill. Check out the link.

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