The Good Lord Bird
Meet the Lord
TV Flash files “Meet the Lord” as a desk essential hour — The Good Lord Bird (2020) on Showtime, season 1, episode 1, aired 2020-10-04, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E01: listed hour 1 of 7 in the The Good Lord Bird guide, first listed hour of season 1. It aired 2020-10-04 (60 min). No earlier hour is listed in this guide. Next is “A Wicked Plot” (S01E02).
Essential hour: “Meet the Lord”. Meet the Lord as the Showtime contract: Ethan Hawke's wild-eyed John Brown through a boy's eyes, satire already riding shotgun with abolitionist fire.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Henry Shackleford, a young slave living in the Kansas territory in 1856, has a run-in with abolitionist John Brown, who mistakes him for a girl and promptly "frees" him. Believing Henry to be his good luck charm, Brown welcomes him into his ragtag army and nicknames him "Onion." Donning a dress for the first time while dodging bullets, Onion quickly awakens to the life or death stakes in the battle over human bondage and witnesses Brown's divinely inspired violent agenda: to free the land of slavery by any means necessary.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Meet the Lord sit in the The Good Lord Bird guide?
S01E01 is listed hour 1 of 7 — first listed hour of season 1, season 1 episode 1.
When did The Good Lord Bird S01E01 air?
Meet the Lord aired 2020-10-04 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Do I need the McBride novel first?
No. Showtime limited series from the book: a boy's eyes on Brown's crusade. Satire and moral fire are the screen method either way.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Ethan Hawke's wild-eyed John Brown through a boy's eyes, satire riding shotgun with the raid on Harpers Ferry. Showtime historical with moral fire and absurdist bite, not marble-statue prestige. Watch for Hawke's transformation and a limited series that treats abolitionist violence as both prophecy and bad comedy, on purpose.
So about the tone wars — satire riding shotgun with a raid is the whole group chat. The Good Lord Bird, 2020 on Showtime, from Ethan Hawke and Mark Richard and James McBride's novel, puts Hawke as wild-eyed John Brown and Joshua Caleb Johnson as Henry Shackleford, a young enslaved boy swept into the crusade toward Harpers Ferry, Wyatt Russell among the raid's orbit. Abolitionist violence as both prophecy and bad comedy, on purpose. Historical television that refuses marble-statue prestige. A boy's-eye raid, not a…
Filed against
- Ethan Hawke as John Brown
Ethan Hawke’s Lee Raybon shambled through The Lowdown as a Tulsa truthstorian with a bookseller’s dust — 2020s catalog noir, Sterlin Harjo keeping Indigenous storytelling in the center, then The Good Lord Bird stretching the wild eye into…
- Joshua Caleb Johnson as Henry Shackleford
Joshua Caleb Johnson’s Henry Shackleford rode The Good Lord Bird as a boy’s eyes on Ethan Hawke’s wild-eyed John Brown — satire shotgun with the raid on Harpers Ferry, Showtime historical with moral fire and absurdist bite, not…
- Wyatt Russell as Smoke
Wyatt Russell’s Smoke rides The Good Lord Bird as Showtime historical with moral fire and absurdist bite — Ethan Hawke’s wild-eyed John Brown through a boy’s eyes, satire shotgun with the raid on Harpers Ferry, not marble-statue prestige.…