The Underground Railroad: 06 - Tennessee Proverbs
Amazon StudiosIf the fifth chapter of The Underground Railroad could be seen as building up to a tipping point, both thematic and narrative, this episode heralds some form of a resolution, which may be just beyond the horizon. However, any object which has successfully made its way to the top of a hill is only expected to roll down very slowly at first. Therefore, Cora’s odyssey progresses very little. Instead, the filmmakers use this brief breathing space to bring some much-needed clarity to the direction the story and the conversation about American historical culpability shall take henceforth.
To this end, this entire episode is best seen as a collection of conversations – or more appropriately, Ridgeway’s monologues punctuated with emotionally-charged interruptions – which recapitulate some events that happened previously in the series, dispel thematic ambiguity the viewer might still be shrouded in and imbue the narrative with enough momentum to propel the story to its impending conclusion.
Having traversed the scorched hellscapes of The Trail of Tears, Ridgeway and Cora find themselves in Ridgeway’s home town in Tennessee, as he is paying a visit to his dying father, perhaps in a last-ditch attempt at reconciliation. What matters however, is not necessarily how this encounter ends, but what the viewer can learn that will help them contextualize Ridgeway as a villain, crystallize a trajectory for Cora’s journey and lay out thematic detail, which has thus far been hidden away from scrutiny, in black and white.
To fully comprehend the gravity of what is being discussed in these brief encounters between Ridgeway, his father, Cora and Mack (IronE Singleton), whom Ridgeway had manipulated into jumping into a well and permanently damaging his leg when he was a child, it is best to see this chapter as an indirect continuation of the fourth episode. After all, what was insinuated and hinted there – at the time when Ridgeway was young and impressionable enough to be lured into a deplorable life of a slave bounty hunter – is now laid bare in direct conversation. In the first crucial conversation, he confesses to Cora that his entire life’s pursuit is rooted in proving his father wrong; that The Great Spirit – an ineffable deity connecting people to the natural world they occupy – either does not exist at all, or is severely inferior to The American Imperative, an imperialistic pursuit to conquer land, subjugate its peoples and exterminate any undesirables.
With his tongue loosened by alcohol, Ridgeway inadvertently admits that his sense of racial superiority is perhaps a projection masking his insecurity stemming from the fact he was never able to live up to his father’s values. Hence, he convinced himself that the reason he was not able to feel The Great Spirit within himself had nothing to do with being unworthy. However, he is eventually confronted with this deeply suppressed notion during an encounter with his father, whom he desperately asks to confirm The Great Spirit does not exist at all. He is denied reprieve in this regard. What is more, he learns that the animosity between him and Ridgeway Senior was one-directional; he was the only one carrying hatred in his soul. His father was haunted only by regret, as he blamed himself for the way his son turned out. This realization leaves Ridgeway in limbo and further serves to contextualize his character as an avatar for the racist facet of America as a whole: insecure and volatile. And – ironically enough – he is jolted back into existence by his sidekick Homer, a young black kid, before he regains focus to pursue his villainous mission.
On the other hand, Ridgeway’s encounters with Cora eventually set her on a path towards long sought-after liberation. Her character is put in motion once again during a pivotal moment where Ridgeway attempts to assert his own superiority over her and break her spirit completely. To achieve that he recounts in gruesome detail what happened to Caesar after he was captured in South Carolina. Up to this point, Cora was only vaguely aware he may have been caught and hearing how he was literally torn apart by an angry mob of people, who just a few minutes earlier were politely trying to ‘lift them up’ and offer them a place in their progressive society, sent her into a tailspin. However, her resolve surprisingly hardened as a result. She realized she would never be able to peacefully coexist with people who – despite appearing progressive – carried a memetic memory of racial superiority over people of her kind. To throw the yoke of oppression she will have to band together with other people like her, organize themselves and put up a fight that does not rely on kindness of white saviours with ulterior motives, or egos in need of satisfying.
Chapter 2 - South Carolina (Review)
Chapter 3 - North Carolina (Review)
