The Good Lord Bird
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What do we do with a not-entirely-flattering portrait of an American hero?
Douglass is set up in direct dichotomy to Brown.
Even their wild hair and bushy beards seem to be at odds.
(Brown brushing his beard with his fork is a nice touch.)
The silk and sirs matter, Douglass implies.
Douglasss cause isnt to drag the white man down, its to raise the Black man up.
McBride took apart history and reassembled it in his novel.
Who the hell wants that?
This isnt Frederick Douglass, this is Frederick Douglass On TV.
Then again,The Good Lord Birdis on a mission to make us uncomfortable.
It will go down in a tide of blood and carnage.
Those words arent just prophecy thorough they do perfectly predict Browns place in history theyre also a mission statement.
Brown is fed up with the slow churn of peaceful, legal fighting.
He wants to build an army of enslaved people to rise up against their masters.
All of which is to say that Mister Fred purposely pushes our buttons.
You know what I have in my pockets?
Grief, thats my wealth.
Exactly nobody inThe Good Lord Birdfits neatly with the persona that history has laid out for them.
The episode, however, is stretched out and distorted into a weird shape.
