skygiants

Thanks to sovay, I've been zooming through a reread of the Benjamin January books, but I got held up on waiting for one at the library, so instead I've spent the last three days zooming through Underground, which is now on Hulu.

Underground is a show about an escape from slavery that is about 95% amazing.

The 1% that is not good at all involves one fairly nonsense scene where Native Americans act as stage dressing for a white guy, and the 4% that is only moderately good involves Riley from Buffy and his wife as nice white people who decide to help the Underground Railroad and learn that it is difficult, which is mostly fine, except when they're doing distraction can-cans on top of a piano or Riley from Buffy is wandering around in boxer shorts, why, costumer, what were you thinking. I mean, the distraction can-can was effective! I was distracted! But maybe not ... in the way the show meant me to be distracted ...

However I was ONE HUNDRED PERCENT invested in:

- Noah, mastermind behind the escape plan, aka Aldis Hodge finally getting to run his own con like we all wanted him to do on Leverage except now with the HIGHEST STAKES IMAGINABLE
- Rosalee, the heroine, a house slave who spends the whole season going through an incredibly satisfying arc of discovering her own strength, determination, and cleverness
- Sam and James, Rosalee's brothers -- one older, who still hopes he can buy his way to freedom; one younger, who hasn't yet been taught the ways in which he's different from the kid up in the big house, who happens to be his half-brother
- extremely morally ambiguous Cato, who's in line to be plantation overseer, but instead blackmails his way into the escape plan
- Moses, a slave preacher that Noah is convinced is going to be their ticket out because he can read, and Pearly Mae, his wife, who actually can
- ERNESTINE. Ernestine is the mother of Rosalee, Sam and James; she makes extremely calculated, occasionally terrible, but also occasionally very satisfying choices to safeguard her family; she is probably the most competent person in a show full of highly competent people (so much competence all around though! it's honestly one of the show's main selling points, it's very much a heist show in this way) and I am glued to Amirah Vann's face every single moment it is on screen.

Here, ( have some beautiful faces )

The show is, unsurprisingly, quite dark at times, and the body count is ... not low, so, you know, fair warning for all the things one would generally think to warn for, but it's not hopeless. It's also beautifully shot (occasional inexplicable costuming choices aside) and the use of music is STELLAR. I'm waiting for an OST. frayadjacent has a very good recruiter vid over here which I would recommend watching to get the feel of the show. But, I mean, generally I would also just recommend the show.