Truth unshackled in grim slavery drama
American Civil War drama Underground was the most watched and most talked about cable TV show on social media when it first aired in the US.
The hit series deals with slavery and corruption in the Deep South and doesn’t shy away from political issues.
It opens with a group of slaves planning to run away from Tom Macon’s (Reed Diamond) plantation as he looks to his abolitionist lawyer brother to manage his campaign to become Georgia’s next US senator.
Escaped slave Noah is captured by bounty hunters and uses his own blood to copy on to his shirtsleeve what a dying runaway tells him is a map to freedom, before being returned to Macon.
SAVED
Meanwhile, his partner Annie is saved when passer-by August Pullman offers to hide her in his wagon and face down the bounty hunters.
Back at the Georgia plantation, head house slave Ernestine and her daughter Rosalee help prepare a birthday party for their master’s daughter.
Noah is spared being branded after convincing his master that he wasn’t trying to escape but he gets five lashes and a warning from black slave driver Cato (Alano Miller) for his trouble.
Undeterred he recruits a preacher called Moses to help him spread the word and recruit others set on embarking on a path to freedom.
As the country teeters on the brink of civil war, abolitionist lawyer John Hawkes is approached on the steps of the Washington Supreme Court. He is asked by freed slave William Still about using his house in the Underground railroad to ferry escaped slaves to freedom. His beloved wife Elizabeth balks when he agrees to hear the proposal but agrees she has no intention of raising a child in a world with slavery.
Despite gaining widespread critical acclaim and numerous Emmy award nominations, Underground was axed after two seasons by WGN because its new owners wanted to take the network in a new direction.
However, its executive producers Misha Green and John Legend have vowed to find a new home for the drama and it has since been considered by HBO and Sony.
Jurnee Smollett-bell, who plays Rosalee, said that it was “some of the hardest stuff ” she’s ever had to do and the “bar was set high”.
You can make up your own mind when Underground airs on RTE Two today at 10.30pm.