‘The Good Lord Bird’ Episode 4 Review: Onion gets tired of John Brown, show critiques his savior complex
Spoilers for ‘The Good Lord Bird’ Episode 4 ‘Smells Like Bear’
If historical accounts are to go by, John Brown, a fanatical abolitionist and religious zealot, was as good a man as they come. He was "built for times of trouble and fitted to grapple with the flintiest hardships," as per social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman Frederick Douglass. In fact, Douglass once said that Brown “though a White gentleman, is in sympathy, a Black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery.”
The Showtime limited series ‘The Good Lord Bird’ is a testament to Brown’s beliefs and zeal and passion for social justice and equality. But he was a flawed man, often carried away by his own zealotry. Fortunately, the show does not shy away from critiquing Brown, played by Ethan Hawke.
Episode 4, ‘Smells Like Bear’, uses Onion (Joshua Caleb Johnson) to voice these criticisms. In the episode, Brown and Onion continue their fundraising mission (for the war against slavers). And these oratory events take them to Canada. But, on foot. Onion has always been critical of the man, even if it’s mostly inside his head. For example, he narrates, “except for Frederick Douglass, everybody got to make a speech about the (n-word), except the (n-word),” pointing out the White saviorisms.
But it is the first time in this episode that Onion voices his problems with Brown to the man in question. Frustrated with Brown’s increasingly irrational behavior, Onion demands freedom from Brown’s army. He says that contrary to what Brown claims, he doesn’t feel free. And that at the end of the day, he was still taking orders from a White man.
The show’s portrayal of Brown here is beautiful. He may look crazy to most, and his abrasive oratory may only add to that, but Hawke’s version of Brown (accurate or not) is a man willing to unlearn and understand. He apologizes to Onion for not giving him a choice when he thrust freedom upon him. He apologizes for the harsh life they’ve lived since. And his apology is as sincere as it gets. He gives Onion the choice to move wherever he wants, no longer bound to his militia.
And Onion leaves for a bit. But at another oratory from Brown, Onion feels compelled to support him and his Herculean cause. And he is compelled even further when the legendary Harriet Tubman endorses Brown in a room full of potential new recruits. And Tubman’s faith in Brown is a matter of historical record. "Tubman thought Brown was the greatest white man who ever lived," says Kate Clifford Larson, author of ‘Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero’.
‘The Good Lord Bird’ succeeds as a show in many ways. But where it critiques even a great hero through a “freed” Black boy who everyone thinks is a girl, it shines the brightest.
'The Good Lord Bird' airs on Sundays on Showtime at 9 pm ET/PT.