Books vs. Movies
In this podcast we set out to answer the age old question: is the book really always better than the movie?
Books vs. Movies
Ep. 39 The Underground Railroad vs. The Underground Railroad (2021)
Join me for a riveting journey through Colson Whitehead’s poignant narrative of “The Underground Railroad.” As we peel back the layers of this complex story, listeners will discover the stark contrasts between the original novel and its breathtaking miniseries adaptation. Reflecting on the harrowing experience of Cora, a slave escaping from a Georgia plantation, we unpack how Whitehead transforms the metaphor of freedom into a literal Underground Railroad. The transformative journey sheds light on resilience, hope, and the unyielding spirit of those who fought for liberty.
In this episode, I guides you through an in-depth examination of the themes that resonate throughout the story. With keen observations on character development, I dive into the backstories of Cora, Ridgeway, and Mabel, illuminating their motivations and struggles. The miniseries—a visual spectacle crafted by the talented Barry Jenkins—expands the narrative, and I discuss how these adaptations enrich our understanding of their journeys while enhancing the emotional weight of the themes.
The discussions raise critical questions about the representation of trauma in storytelling, and how both adaptations serve as powerful reminders of past injustices. With engaging comparisons and personal reflections, listeners are invited to reflect on which medium they prefer and why.
This episode is more than just a discussion on two works of art; it’s a conversation about history, identity, and the ongoing fight for justice. Tune in for a thoughtful exploration that promises to enlighten and stir your understanding of the human experience. As always, I encourage my audience to engage, share their perspectives, and reflect on the lessons that resonate in today's context. Don't forget to subscribe and leave me a review to join this ongoing conversation!
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Welcome to Books vs Movies, the podcast where I set out to answer the age-old question is the book really always better than the movie? I'm Yuvia, an actress and book lover based out of New York City, and today I will be discussing the Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead and its 2021 miniseries adaptation. The Underground Railroad Hi everyone, I am so sorry. I did not mean to leave you without an episode for this long, but it kind of just happened. I watched so many things in like December and early January and everything I watched just piled up and I could not read the books fast enough and I got backed up. So I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to leave you without content for so long, but I apologize. It was never my intent to leave you without an episode this long, but I'm excited to finally bring you back a new episode and, as I said, I'm going to be talking about the Underground Railroad. Now I do want to say I know I kind of touched up on content warnings and things like that in my top 10 least favorite films of 2024, but I do want to say that I mean you can probably tell by the name, but this does take place during the 1800s, so we're going to be talking about people that were enslaved and I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I am going to touch up a little bit on some of the details in the book and the miniseries. Like I said, I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I have to give some stuff away. So completely understand if it's a little too distressing to listen to and, other than that, you know, spoiler alert a lot of these things that I talk about. I have to spoil things in order to fully comment on what it is that I'm trying to pinpoint for each aspect of the book or the miniseries. So just, I'm getting it out right off the bat. I always forget to give spoiler, like I started forgetting to give spoiler alerts like midway through my episodes last year. So let's get into it. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead was first published in 2016.
Speaker 1:It follows Cora, who is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. She is an outcast, even amongst her fellow enslaved people, so she has an even more difficult time being an enslaved person than most, and when she meets Caesar, he tells her about the Underground Railroad and they decide to take a risk and escape. Unfortunately, things do not go as planned. Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her, and, though they do manage to make it to the Underground Railroad to head north, they are hunted from that moment on. The Underground Railroad is a 2021 miniseries that you can find on Amazon Prime, and it follows a young woman named Cora, who makes the discovery of the Underground Railroad during her attempt to break free from slavery in Georgia.
Speaker 1:So I will say there are a lot of similarities and there are some major, major differences, as always, and we are going to get into them. So, yes, so Cora and Caesar escape, and I want to say that the Underground Railroad in this universe is a literal Underground Railroad in this universe is a literal underground railroad. So, instead of being like the network of houses and families and people that work together to help enslaved people escape from slavery in the South by helping them head North, this is a literal railroad. So you go there's still like you still have to go to certain houses and there are certain people that are involved, and but once you go underground, underneath these houses, you're going to find an actual railroad track with a train that takes you to different parts up north, and I do want to say that it does take you north, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're out of the south completely, necessarily mean you're out of the South completely. So along the way, cora travels to South Carolina, north Carolina. We know that these areas were still had enslaved people in reality, but in this version they well, we'll get into it, but yeah, so it's just know that when I'm, when we're talking about the underground railroad, I am referring to a literal Underground Railroad in this universe.
Speaker 1:So in the TV show, when Cora and Caesar escape and they make it to the first safe house with the entrance to the Underground Railroad, it's that safe house they arrive, it's that safe house, they go underground and they get the Underground Railroad and they go to wherever it's going. One important thing I should mention also is that this Underground Railroad is kind of flawed in that you have no way of choosing where to go. So like you show up to the safe house and you there's also no like set schedule, which kind of makes sense. But so you show up and you, like the people that the allies that are in charge of these safe houses will kind of say, hey, there's a train scheduled for a month from now If you want to catch it, like make sure you're, you're at my place at this by this day and this time. So if you do not catch that train, you might be SOL because the next train may not be available until the next month.
Speaker 1:But each train takes you somewhere like you have no way of knowing. So they just know when the train's going to arrive, but they have no way of knowing where the train's going to drop you off. So they say, if you want to catch this train, you need to be at my house this day, this time you get on that train and it'll drop you off, for example, south Carolina, however you could. If you miss that train and they're nice enough to let you stay in that safe house for however long, until the next train and you get on the new train, that train might be going to Virginia. So you have no way of knowing. So it's a literal underground railroad and you don't really know when it's going to get there. The train conductors, which is the name of the people leading these safe houses, will say, like I said, meet at this day and this time be here, but they can't tell you where you're going to go. So if there's a place you really, really want to go to. You kind of just have to hope that you're being taken there or just take your chances and go wherever the train takes you. But wherever the train takes you is theoretically taken to a place where you will be safe, either forever hopefully, of course, as you can probably guess, most of the locations are not safe forever or you're going to be safe for at least until the next train arrives. So yeah, anyway.
Speaker 1:So in the TV series they get to the safe house. The Underground Railroad entrance is there. That's it. They made it. They get on. The episode ends. We move on to episode two In the book. They actually get to the safe house and then from there they have to travel to a second location, and the second location is actually where the entrance to the underground railroad nearest underground railroad is to them. So that adds a little bit of tension because, great, they made it to the first location. Now they have to try to make it to the second location, and there's like one of the locations is there's not as much cover, like they're able to be in the cover of the woods for a while and then, once they get near the location, it's like an open field, so they kind of just have to run and hope they make it without anyone seeing them, and yeah, so that ups that tension there.
Speaker 1:The most important characters in the well in both really is Cora, who is our who's the lead she's the one that escapes the plantation and Ridgway Ridgway is the is the slave catcher. Who is who has a personal vendetta against Cora. Cora's mother escaped 10 years prior to the events of the book and the TV series and she escaped. Ridgeway catches every single enslaved person that he is hired to catch. Mabel, who is Cora's mom, is the only one that has ever gotten away from him. So he has a personal vendetta against Cora, since her mother was never captured by him. So he's trying to prove that it's not going to happen a second time. So we get a little bit of Ridgeway's backstory in the book.
Speaker 1:However, the miniseries has an entire episode dedicated to Ridgeway and we get his entire backstory. So it goes much more in depth in the miniseries than it does in the book, and one of the things we learn in the miniseries is that his father is against slavery. He hires free black men and gives them jobs at his smithy. He's a blacksmith Is that what they call it Smithy? His smithy? He's a blacksmith. Is that what they call it, smithy? Whatever it's called, he's a blacksmith. So he hires them to work with him and Ridgway grows up feeling as though these Black men are favored by his father more than he is, and so he grows to resent Black people. For this reason, and as a way to get revenge on his father and the Black people that his father hires, he becomes a slave catcher. So we get his backstory. It's much, much, much more in-depth in the miniseries than it is in the book and it's just a really good episode. It's obviously really dark because we're getting the backstory of this awful, awful man, but it's a good episode and I really liked that they went much more in-depth because when I got to his chapter in the book I was kind of disappointed that we didn't get as much backstory into Ridgeway.
Speaker 1:So the first stop that Cora and Caesar end up at, they escape the plantation in Georgia. They board the underground train and they make it to South Carolina and they stick around for a while. The train conductor of South Carolina lets them know hey, there's a train coming. You might want to think about getting on it, but at this point Cora and Caesar are very enamored with the life that they're leading in South Carolina. Everything is not as it seems, that's all I'm going to say about that, but yeah. So they decide that they're going to stick around in South Carolina.
Speaker 1:However, in the book, gossip starts spreading in this little South Carolina town that they're in that Ridgeway is in town and he's looking for them. Cora hears this gossip and immediately she wants to look for Caesar. But she heard rumors that Ridgeway was close to the factory. Caesar works at the factory. She wants to get word out to Caesar, but she also wants to keep herself safe Completely understandable. So she goes to location of the Underground Railroad and she tells the he's a bartender, but he's also the train conductor. So she goes to the train conductor's bar and she says hey, ridgeway is in town, he's looking for me and Caesar. Can you please warn Caesar? And the bartender's like, of course you go to the Underground Railroad immediately, wait for me, wait for us down there, and I, like I will go to the factory and warn Caesar that he's being the slave catcher's looking for him. So Cora does that and she waits. Caesar never appears and she's waiting for a really long time. Eventually she hears someone enter the safe house and a lot of ruckus and things being thrown about, and she realizes that people have discovered that this is the safe house and they're looking for the entrance to the railroad. So she knows that she can't go back out. So she is stuck in this underground railroad. She and Caesar had just missed the train, so she has no way of knowing when the next train is going to arrive and so she's kind of stuck. She can't go back out because they've completely ransacked the place, but she also can't stay here because she has no way of knowing when the train is going to arrive and she also has no food and she has no water. So that's the struggle there.
Speaker 1:In the miniseries, ridgeway and Homer who is I don't know how to refer to Homer Homer is a little boy. He is a little black boy that Ridgway bought and set free, and Homer just decided to stay with Ridgway so he's not enslaved, he is a free child. But he is extremely loyal to Ridgway and assists Ridgway in finding the enslaved people that he's looking for. So in the miniseries Ridgway and Homer show up in South Carolina and catch Cora and Caesar by surprise. So Homer and Ridgway separate.
Speaker 1:Homer actually goes to the museum where Cora works and sees her working and chases her, and it's one of those really gross parts of the book and the miniseries because this happens in both. But she works at a museum and she's essentially a live exhibit. So they have this museum that for white people and they have actual Black people hired to work and be part of this live exhibit and they show the life of an enslaved person in this museum. They're like live people working out what it's like to work on a plantation while the white people come and gawk at them and it's one of those things that's like, but it's for education. But it's also like well, this is also really. Yeah, you can imagine how it is to like see this happening.
Speaker 1:So Cora is acting out what it's like being on that plantation. When she sees Homer, she ends up running away. And it's really cool in the miniseries how, you know, she sees Homer, she leaves the exhibit and she starts running away. And the really cool detail is that, like the live announcer who's like and this is how the enslaved people pick cotton on the plantation Like he's trying to play it off, as like this is all part of the show and he's like, oh she's. I don't remember exactly how he tries to play it off as, but it's a really cool detail, but it's just like really gross to think that like this is happening.
Speaker 1:But anyway, so Cora's discovered by Homer. She starts running away and she runs away, homer ends up losing her and she actually ends up making it to the Underground Railroad. Meanwhile we see Ridgeway corner Caesar at the factory. Where or not the factory? It's like the dormitory where he's staying and they have, like, all the people in this dormitory lineup. So Ridgeway can essentially examine all of them. And then he sees Caesar and that's the final image we see is like Ridgeway cornering Caesar in this dormitory. And then we cut to the next episode. So Caesar does not make it to the Underground Railroad and we don't find out his fate until later in the book, in the miniseries.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so that's what happens in South Carolina. So Cora makes it to North Carolina now all by herself. So eventually she in in both the book and the miniseries. She starts walking along the railroad tracks and then a train approaches. It's not a passenger train she should not be getting on this train but because it's like a. It's just like a train that's passing by for maintenance and so she's not supposed to be on there. But she convinces the driver to let her get on as a stowaway, essentially Cause she's like I don't know when the next train is coming and I'm going to die if you don't take me. It doesn't matter where you take me, but you need to take me somewhere. And the driver's like okay, and so he does, and eventually she gets to North Carolina.
Speaker 1:Now this is a station that is not actually running anymore. It's officially shut down. So this is a town in which there are no, no black people allowed. Like, if you are a black person, the minute you step foot in this town, you're dead. You're not going to become enslaved, you're not like, you're dead, they're going to kill you on the spot. If you are harboring a black person, same thing You're killed on the spot. And so this station has been closed down ever since this town essentially outlawed Black people.
Speaker 1:But this is where the driver drops her off and she happens to be found by the train conductor of this particular station. His name is Martin and he's kind of like I guess I'll help, I also don't just want to leave you here to die, so, but like you cannot be seen, and he like really emphasizes that and so he takes her into town. He like puts her in the wagon and he covers her up and he takes her into town. So in the book, so Martin is like happens to be checking up on the underground railroad when cora shows up. He's not expecting anyone to ever be coming out of the station because, like I said, the station's been closed for a while. So it's just like complete coincidence. And so he leaves cora there because he has, like he walked there and then he's like you can't walk back with me, like that we're both gonna get killed. If so, you have to wait here for me. And Cora just kind of has to trust that he's going to come back for her. And he eventually does and he comes with the wagon.
Speaker 1:So in the book, his wife, ethel, is very much aware that Cora is on her way. Like when he left Cora to go to his house to get the wagon, he mentions to Ethel like hey, we're going to be harboring someone that could get us killed, essentially, and his wife's not happy with it, but she's a good wife, she goes along with it. In the miniseries she's caught completely unawares. He manages to get the wagon and bring Cora home and while his wife is out, he allows Cora a moment to take a bath. But he's telling her you need to hurry up, my wife will be home soon, you need to hurry up. And then his wife ends up coming home and catches Cora taking a bath. She's incredibly pissed off because he's putting their life in danger and they already have someone that they're hiding illegally in their attic. So she's beyond pissed that now that there's two more mouths to feed and two more ways of getting caught and losing their lives. So in the book she's aware she's not happy with it, but she's aware in the miniseries she's caught by surprise.
Speaker 1:But I was very surprised. I saw the miniseries first. So, as I said, in the miniseries Cora's up in the attic with a little girl that they call Grace and she's up there with Grace. And in the book I was surprised to find out that there is no one else being hidden here. Cora is by herself in that attic for seven months. There is no other child, no other person that they're hiding in this house. So that is a major, major difference and we will get into who the second character is a little bit further down. But in the so Cora ends up getting very, very sick and she becomes so sick that there's no way she can stay up in the attic. They have to bring her out and nurse her back to health. So Martin and Ethel have a servant named Fiona. So they say oh, martin's sick, you need to stay away for a week while he feels better. So they bring Cora down from the attic and they put her in the spare bedroom and they nurse her back to health.
Speaker 1:So in the miniseries what ends up happening is Ridgeway comes into town and he says I'm looking for a runaway slave. And the townspeople are like there's no runaway slaves here, like if there had been one, she would have been killed immediately. And Ridgeway's like no, no, like she's here, I just she's here. And he's like really insistent on searching the houses. And when he gets to Martin and Ethel's house, they're like Martin at this point is sitting outside on the porch to get some fresh air, to help him feel better. And Ridgeway's like I need to go into your house. And Martin's like well, I've been sick this whole week. It's I don't want you to get. Like it's very contagious. I don't want you to get sick so you can't go into my house. And so, like, ridgway and Martin start arguing. While they're arguing about whether or not they're going to let Ridgway into the house, ethel runs in and like, starts trying to get Cora back up in the attic. And as they're doing that, homer goes into the house and sees Ethel pushing Cora up the stairs trying to get her into the attic. And so immediately he alerts Ridgeway and then the whole town is like what You've been harboring, this illegal black person this whole time. And so Fiona, at this point is like I knew you all were liars and she sets the house on fire.
Speaker 1:In the book there's like patrolmen and they've visited the house before, but at this point Cora was healthy, so she was in the attic and they came really close to finding the. So it's like a cross space in the attic. So it's like attic proper. And then there's a little cross space where Cora lives for seven months. Can you imagine living in a little cross space in the attic? So it's like attic proper. And then there's a little cross space where Cora lives for seven months. Can you imagine living in a little cross space for seven months? And the only I don't know.
Speaker 1:This part was inspired by Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, which I've read Very difficult read, but that's where the author that's essentially what happened to the author of that book she had to and this is a true story, like this is her autobiography. So she had to live up in a crawl space like that for, I want to say, years, and Colson Whitehead was inspired by this book, and so this is what Cora had to do to survive. Except she was only up there for seven months. And yeah, so Cora's up there for seven months and the patrolmen are looking, they look everywhere, they look in the attic, they come really close to the entrance of the crawl space, but they don't discover the actual entrance. So Cora's safe, and then, however, fiona starts getting suspicious. There's been like rules of three.
Speaker 1:There's like one incident that happens and then there's a second incident and by the time she's sent away because Martin is sick, she's like no, something suspicious is going on. So she alerts the patrolman and so, while Cora is in the guest room, she hears the patrolman come in. She hides under the bed because by the time she finds out they're there, it's too late for her to make it to the attic without them seeing her. So she crawls into the bed and kind of just hopes for the best. And they discover her under there. And then Ridgeway is there with the patrolman, for whatever reason, and he's like I'll take her now. And the citizens of this town in North Carolina are like you can't do that, we have to kill her, it's part of our law. And he's like no, I'm taking her. And that's the only reason Cora is not killed along with Martin and Ethel.
Speaker 1:So, as I said, in this series Fiona ends up setting the house on fire and in doing so she ends up like the houses are all made out of wood and they're all really close together. So she inadvertently burns the entire town to the ground, is like it feels kind of good and fiona gets punished for that. So everyone gets their comeuppance. But in the book she doesn't set the town on fire. She is paid a sum by the patrolmen for tipping them off and letting them know that cora was there. But martin, and after ridgeway takes cora and she is saved from the noose, martin and Ethel are both hanged. In the series. Ethel is hanged, but Ridgway I don't remember exactly what he does, but he convinces the town to let him take Martin to show him where the entrance of the Underground Railroad is, and then Ridgway ends up killing Martin after Martin blows up the entrance to the Underground Railroad. So Ridgway now has no way of accessing this Underground Railroad.
Speaker 1:So in the miniseries, as Fiona burns the town down, we're led to believe that Grace is killed in the fire. But then we end up getting the shortest episode of the series. All the episodes are about an hour long. This is only a 30 minute episode and we find out what happens to Grace. She survives the fire. So, while everyone is obviously in a panic because the whole town is burning down and they're trying to put the fire out, she manages to go like, come down of the attic and escape through the back part of the house without anyone seeing her and since she's still a little girl, she makes it to the entrance of the Underground Railroad and even though Martin blew up the entrance, like there's a little hole big enough for a child to fit through. So she enters through there and she makes it down into the Underground Railroad and she ends up getting on a train and we end up finding out that her name isn't Grace. Her name is actually Fanny Briggs.
Speaker 1:Now I had no idea who Fanny like I was like. Is she based on a real person? No, this is part of the Colson Whitehead extended universe. Barry Jenkins wanted to throw a little Easter egg for Colson Whitehead fans, so Fanny Briggs is actually a character in one of his other books. I don't remember off the top of my head what the name of that book is, but she's a character in that book and so it's just a fun little easter egg of like where she was before she ended up in the events of that book. So yeah, that's who Grace ends up being. I didn't recognize that easter egg but I haven't read that book. But if you're a Colson Whitehead fan you might recognize that name.
Speaker 1:So after Cora is taken by Ridgeway from the town in North Carolina, she is being transported back to Georgia and it's Ridgeway Bozeman, who's another slave catcher and Homer, and they have an enslaved man with them named Jasper. So as they're traveling from North Carolina back down to Georgia, in the book Jasper is killed by the men for essentially being annoying. He is singing hymns. He sings hymns all day, every day, and finally finally they just decide that the sum that they're going to get paid for Jasper is not worth hearing him sing hymns all the time, and so they decide to just kill him. In the series he actually decides to starve himself to death and ultimately setting himself free from enslavement in that way.
Speaker 1:But in the miniseries, after Jasper starves to death and they're on their way to Georgia but they're actually on their way to Tennessee. Before going back down to Georgia, because Ridgway gets notice, ridgway finds out that his father's on his deathbed and so he goes to pay respects to his dad one last time. And it's actually here that Cora is rescued by Royal. And this is a group of like Black men that essentially go out to these parts and rescue enslaved people from slave catchers and take them back to Indiana, which is where they're based out of. So yeah, they go on these raids rescuing enslaved people. So in the miniseries they're in Tennessee visiting Ridgway's father as he's on his deathbed. In the book Cora is actually rescued in the woods. In the book they are on their way to Georgia. They're not making a pit stop in Tennessee. Ridgway's father is actually dead by the time the events of this book happen. So in the TV series they added that little.
Speaker 1:By this point we have gotten Ridgway's backstory. So we're seeing kind of that. I don't want to call it closure because it's definitely not closure for Ridgway, but I'm just going to call it that because I don't want to call it closure because it's definitely not closure for Ridgeway, but I'm just going to call it that because I don't know what else to call it. But we get Ridgeway is there to get that final moment with his father, pay his respects and say F you, I hate you. And it is while they're here in his father's house in Tennessee that Cora is rescued by them, by these Robin Hood-esque thieves. But instead of stealing riches they are freeing enslaved people. And in the book they're just in the woods on their way to Georgia when Cora is rescued.
Speaker 1:So Cora does live in Indiana for a little bit and she's happy there. She's kind of nervous about making a life there, which is completely understandable. She has no way of feeling safe. In the mini-series she actually begs the men rescuing her to kill Ridgeway because if they don't kill him she's never gonna be safe. But they end up not killing him and she goes to Indiana with them and this is the happiest she's been in a while. She starts having a romance with one of the men that rescued her and yeah, unfortunately there is an ambush and it is during this Ridgeway, of course has found his way to Cora again and happens to be a part of this ambush.
Speaker 1:So this is in Indiana, slavery has been outlawed, so they it's like this community of black people that live on this farm and they all contribute to. I guess it's kind of like a commune, but they all contribute to life on the farm and they're technically safe from slave catchers because slavery is illegal and slave catchers aren't allowed to come into this part of the country and bring an enslaved person back to the South, like that's not allowed. However, the white people in the surrounding, in the town adjacent to the farm, are starting to get frustrated with the success of the Black people on this farm, so they decide to essentially kill everyone out of jealousy and envy and all the negative things, because this is a prosperous Black community and they hate to see that. So they have an ambush. Ridgeway is a part of this ambush and a lot of people in, I think most of the community gets killed, but of course Cora is captured by Ridgeway because he's there a part of this ambush. There's nothing better to do at this time. And he says you're going to take me to the entrance of the Underground Railroad. And she's like fine, and in the book the entrance of the Underground Railroad is so like you get to the entrance and leading you down are stone steps. And she actually ends up pushing Ridgeway down the stairs. She tackles him essentially and since she tackles him, she's unable to let go. So she goes down the stairs with him and she's a little bit injured, but she's okay, she's able to get up and keep going.
Speaker 1:Ridgeway is mortally wounded and he gets like the brunt of the force of the fall and he's mortally wounded. And so when he reaches the bottom of the stairs, like it's the end, it's over for him and both his legs are broken. So there's, he can't, there's nothing he can do, he's going to die In the series. It's actually a rope ladder, so they're going down the rope ladder. Ridgway tells Cora to go down first. So she's going down the rope ladder. Ridgeway is following her and as they're coming down, cora actually grabs Ridgeway and with all her strength it just like pulls him down from the rope ladder. So he loses his grip obviously and starts falling. And as he's falling he grabs her, so she falls down the rope ladder but he falls, gets the brunt of it. She falls on top of him, so she's still injured, but she landed on top of a more cushiony surface than Ridgeway did. So she lands, she's slightly injured, but Ridgeway is still screwed. But after, to ensure that he's not coming back from that, she also ends up shooting him and we do end up finding out what happens to Mabel.
Speaker 1:So, as I said, mabel is Cora's mom and in the miniseries again we get a lot more of a backstory to Mabel than we do in the book. Again there was I did find that a little bit disappointing, but so she's kind of like the midwife of all the enslaved people and there is a woman who ends up giving birth to a stillborn child and she already has some sort of mental disability and so giving birth to a stillborn child just really really exacerbates that and she has like severe postpartum depression. So this woman is not doing well at all and Mabel is like she keeps telling that woman's partner and she keeps telling the owner of the plantation like this, this woman is not well, like she needs to rest, and of course they're like no, a different woman ends up giving birth to twins but she dies in childbirth and you know they're like perfect. So they're like perfect. We'll give the twins to the one who gave birth to the stillborn child because she still, she just lost her stillborn child. She, the one who gave birth to the stillborn child, because she still, she just lost her stillborn child, she still has breast milk. Blah, blah, blah. She can nurse the twins.
Speaker 1:All that and Mabel is like she's not mentally stable enough to handle that. This is very dangerous, not only for her, but it's also dangerous for the children. And everyone ignores Mabel's warnings. And Mabel at one point, like she sees this woman getting really attached to these children and Mabel's like those children aren't yours and they're just essentially using you to make these babies strong so that they can take them away from you. And the woman's like no, these are, these are my children. And later that day she ends up committing suicide and killing the babies. Again, she's just not mentally stable at that point with everything that life threw at her and postpartum depression. And yeah, so Mabel like the one who finds this woman is the woman's partner, but Mabel walks in after him and she's.
Speaker 1:They remove the bodies and Mabel's tasked with cleaning the mess. And she, she just can't like, she's cleaning this mess, she can't take it. And so she kind of just she can't take it anymore. And she, just, she leaves, she starts walking away, she leaves and she makes it to the swamp. And while she's at the swamp she comes to her senses and realizes she left Cora behind, and so she starts making her way back to Cora, but she's not able to make it back to her.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to say why, for that you will have to read the book or watch the miniseries. In the book it's kind of. It's kind of more of like after everything she's experienced as an enslaved woman, after everything she's seen on the plantation, she just decides one day she doesn't want to do it anymore and she runs away and she experiences freedom for a brief moment and she truly appreciates that moment of freedom. But then it's like but I can't leave my daughter behind, and she heads back to cora and again is not able to make it back to her. So so I did like what they added to the miniseries. I just thought it was because she ends up essentially running away for the same reason. But again, this is one of the more distressing aspects of the show that might make it difficult to watch. So just throwing that out there, but anyway.
Speaker 1:Going back to Cora, so after she shoots Ridgeway in the miniseries she goes back up the rope ladder and discovers Molly. Molly is another little girl and her parents were killed, so she has no one. So Cora takes her on and they escape using the railroad. There's no train. At this point they use one of I don't know what they're called, but it's like one of those, that like of those crank thingies. So you crank it up and down and it moves down the railroad tracks one of those thingies and they use that to go down the railroad. And then when they come out on the other side, they come out of the railroad, exit on the other side and as they exit a black man appears driving a covered wagon and he says that he's going to California and they decide to go with him. They get a covered wagon and he says that he's going to California and they decide to go with him. They get in the wagon and the miniseries ends In the book, cora's by herself.
Speaker 1:I don't know what happened to Molly. After Cora realizes Ridgway is dead and his legs are broken, there's no way he's coming after me. She gets on the prank track thingy and leaves by herself, but when she comes out, on the other side there's actually there's like a white couple that passes by her and then another white couple that passes by her, and then, after those two white couples pass, then the black man appears and he says I'm going this way, and Cora's like do you want it, can I go with you? And he's like sure, and she joins him by herself. There's no Molly in the book. So that is it for that. So a little bit more about the book. The book actually won the 2016 Goodreads Awards for Favorite Historical Fiction.
Speaker 1:It is very good, and the miniseries first episode, as I was watching it, there's just mind you, I know that there's no way to tell the story of enslaved people without showing violence, and graphic violence at that, because that's literally what they experienced. But it's also one of those things that like there's one really, really, really distressing image. So I would say the most, even the episode with Mabel. It is distressing because you know what happened, but you don't actually see the events. You see the aftermath and you see glimpses of the bodies, which can be distressing in its own way, but you don't actually see the act happening. In the first episode there is an enslaved man who ran away, who's captured and brought back to the plantation and he is punished for everyone to see and the way in which he is is punished, like I was watching it and I was like this is really hard for me to watch. I can only imagine how much more difficult it would be for a black person to watch. So it is.
Speaker 1:I do just want to put that out there. If you decide to watch the mini series, the rest of the episodes are fine. I don't think any of the. Obviously it's going to be distressing because of the subject matter, but in terms of violence, that is the most graphic episode, so everything else is a little bit easier to watch. In that sense, I will say it is also very graphically discussed in the book and there's also one more detail in the book that is not included in the miniseries, so just throwing that out there. So I will say that was very distressing and again, if it was distressing for me to watch, just be aware of that.
Speaker 1:But other than that, like the miniseries had a lot of gorgeous shots. I mean, it's it's Barry Jenkins, he's an Oscar winner, so it is. It does have some really, really beautiful shots and I mean, it's it's Barry Jenkins, he's an Oscar winner, so it is. It does have some really, really beautiful shots and I really really liked how they expanded Ridgeway and Mabel's storylines and really really added so much detail. So I did really, really like that. That being said, I did find both to be slow in moments and like there were parts in the book in which I would zone out a little bit and be like no, you need to focus. So I did like both, but yeah, I don't know, let's get it, let's get into it.
Speaker 1:I rated the miniseries three and a half stars and I rated the book three and a half, maybe pushing it to a 3.75 stars. So even though I rated it just the tiniest bit higher, the book is the winner. So let's see who the winner is. The winner is the book the Underground Railroad. However, I do think the miniseries is still worth checking out for the expanded storylines of Ridgeway and Mabel and also the performances and just the cinematography and everything.
Speaker 1:Just gorgeous when people are not being hunted or experiencing the things that an enslaved person experiences, so not too many. But when that's not happening. Gorgeous, beautiful shots, beautiful to look at, but, yes, I would lean towards the book, but that is it for this episode. I would lean towards the book, but that is it for this episode. I'm still catching up. I'm still catching up on the books of everything that I saw in December and early January. So I do apologize, I don't know when my next episode will be released, but if you liked this episode, please leave it a rating and a review, and please be sure to follow us, or be sure to follow me, so you know when the next episode comes out. You can listen to it, and I'm really excited because we also have a special episode led by Orlando coming your way, and it is a horror episode that I'm not brave enough to watch or read, so, but I think you'll really enjoy it. So, again, please leave a rating, a review, and I will see you next time. Bye.