Underground - Citizen - Review: "Elizabeth Made Her Choice"

Elizabeth made a choice. When one of the men who tied her to that tree walked into the boardinghouse, she got off the fence. She set his barn on fire.

When she heard his son go in to find his father, she tried to save him, but in the aftermath she wasn’t as devastated by the near miss as Olivia wanted her to be, and Olivia asked her to leave the boardinghouse.

Cato is finally putting his plan into action. I’m still not sure Cato’s plan aligns with Patty Cannon’s. He’s spent several days in Olivia’s searching the place (when did he learn to read?) looking for some clue as to how they can catch Harriet Tubman.

He did identify Harriet but Patty dismissed the identification because she couldn’t fathom someone with Harriet’s reputation sweeping floors.

One of the most interesting scenes in the episode was the scene where Elizabeth and Cato connected over the discussion about why people commit suicide. I think this was what pushed her to burn down that barn. Watching these two people connect was the last thing I expected. Cato was the one to pushed Elizabeth off the fence.

It’s easy to see why Harriet’s faith is so strong; why she believes God travels with her. Traveling like this with narcolepsy is incredibly dangerous and to think she was never caught just lying in the middle of the road asleep is just amazing. If I was reading the scene correctly, she was asleep by that fallen tree with an envelope of money in her hand.

It took longer than I expected for Noah to ‘have words’ with Rosalee. James let her off the hook pretty easily. There wasn’t a lot of foot stomping obstinance from him. He did that kid thing where, when life changes on you, you roll with it.

Noah, kept a rein on his anger until they reached Olivia’s station. When his temper blew, it was about what I expected.

Though his declaration that, in not giving him a choice in the situation, she was treating him like a slave was unexpected, but it was not a complete surprise. Can these two make it?

Daniel’s Massa is selling off his slaves before the feared arrival of John Brown. It would seem that Daniel is permanently blind. I like his daughter. She seems like she’s got her father’s core strength.

Daniel has finally made his decision to run. He made his way into Olivia’s in a search for a way to get his family out of slavery before they were separated. He went into a cobbler’s shop to start his investigations and admitted to reading a newspaper article. Why would he mention that? Isn’t that a terrible risk?

Will he and his family survive the journey? Daniel’s young son is, essentially, being held hostage up at the big house. Curious to see how they work that out.

I enjoyed the episode. I was beginning to believe that Elizabeth was going to choose to fight rather than be a pacifist.

I find that I am not fond of the way they handle the time jumps. When they first did it, I thought I’d missed something and started rewinding the DVR. It’s not one of the more successful ways that I’ve seen this type of time jump handled. For me they’re unnecessarily confusing. I don’t think it’s the story telling, I think it’s the editing.

We have so few episodes left I’m curious to see how all of these threads get tied up. What did you guys think about the episode?