THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Blood On The Tracks
UK/US Prime, streaming now Showrunner Barry Jenkins
Cast Thuso Mbedu, Aaron Pierre,
Joel Edgerton, Chase Dillon
A 2016 novel by Colston Whitehead is the subject of this adaptation by Moonlight director Barry Jenkins. The SF elements are minimal – more a glossing of magical realism, really – but don’t let that put you off one of the TV events of the year.
Cora (Thuso Mbedu) and Caesar (Aaron Pierre) are slaves on the brutal Randall plantation in Georgia. They make a desperate break for freedom, but when Cora kills one of their captors, the ruthless slave catcher Arnold Ridgeway (Joel Edgerton) is dispatched to hunt them down. Cora and Caesar have help in the form of the underground railroad – in our world, a network of safe houses and sympathetic people; here, a literal secret train line – to escape, but wherever they go they encounter lurking danger.
Jenkins takes an uncompromising approach. The first episode is particularly harrowing, as the brutal reality of life and death on a plantation is made clear. But this is not shock for shock’s sake – it’s a clear-eyed depiction of a still very relevant truth, and the camera lingers not on the violence, but on the people.
Later episodes are less grim, as Cora starts to build a new life in a (slightly) alternative USA, but the old prejudices are never far away.
For all the horror, it’s a beautiful looking show, with gorgeous cinematography from Jenkins’s regular collaborator James Laxton who lets shots run long, adding a drifting, dreamlike quality to the atmosphere. Really though, the series belongs to Cora and to Thuso Mbedu, whose performance is subtle, nuanced and quietly impactful as we see this woman start to rediscover herself and build a new life. She’s the beating heart of a show that may well break yours. Will Salmon
The real-life underground railroad helped an estimated 100,000 people escape from slavery between 1810 and 1850.