Chapter 1: Georgia

It's amazing how Jenkins, with the great help of his cinematographer James Laxton, manages to create scenes with images that linger in the mind. The whole episode is a beautiful painting about horrible things.

This first episode creeps across a plantation full of hiding in plain sight and disillusioned enslaved people as horror is a toy button randomly nudged against and poked at by slavers who couldn't care less if tonight is the worst night of a slave's life or if it's just a Thursday.

It's slow and haunting and it doesn't stop to let us know many of the faces we see, but it got under my skin and I'm ready to keep going.

I felt sick watching the horrors of the daily lives of the entrapped people and the way their captors treated them. I think that this is an accurate representation of a sad history for us all to live with today; we still have a long ways to go! Not pretty to watch, but an excellent start to the series. 10/10.

Not a great start.. Really wierd audio that sounds muted, then super loud excessive music. Then characters are brought in with no names and we never learn them and their role in the story is vague and uninteresting. Stuff jumps around from here and there and everywhere and no idea what's happening. Excessive brutality for the sake of brutality?? There's no real story going on and the only engaging characters barely have any dialogue or screen time. I hope it gets better.

If there's anyone who have shaped the frame of a generation with their work on the screen, it's Barry Jenkins. Not only has he mesmerized us through great tales on the big screen, but his latest effort is a limited series, based on the best-selling 2016 historical fiction novel by Colton Whitehead "The Underground Railroad." Many have already been quick to label this show as wrong since it deals with revisionist history, but in the hands of someone like Jenkins, I'm sure it'll be special. And the first episode doesn't only start the show off with a bang but provides us with a visual masterpiece.

Not only is this a Barry Jenkins project on paper, but it looks like a Barry Jenkins project. He has brought some of the most beautiful visuals to the big screen through his collaborations with James Laxton, and in their fifth overall collaboration, they bring the same magic to the small screen. The horrific era of history that this was, has never looked as beautiful than it does here, with real mastery put into every single frame. Jenkins knows exactly he needs to do to make this as pleasing for the eyes as possible. And when dealing with something this horrific in terms of story, the beauty and the scope of it all is there to keep the audience invested. It's not all nice imagery, though, as they are not afraid to show the visceral violence committed against the slaves. He's committed to this 100% of the way and makes it pop out on screen. The writing of this episode is also excellent, and despite its at times frustratingly slow pace, it keeps you engaged in the task at hand. These characters are caught in the inhumanity of the time, so Jenkins doesn't rely heavily on introduction to the characters as we will already be behind every move they make. It's obvious that Jenkins never meant for this to be an accurate portrayal of history, but through the fantastical elements of the story, he crafts something that's much more powerful in terms of storytelling. This show is visceral, and it really gets the job done.

"Chapter 1: Georgia" is a masterfully crafted episode on the technical side that makes the south of the 1800s come to life in all its shades. The storytelling is powerful and heavily reliant on the strong writing of Jenkins, plus the cast that all provide thrilling life to these characters and motivation to their mission.