The Good Lord Bird
Smells Like Bear
TV Flash files “Smells Like Bear” as a desk essential hour — The Good Lord Bird (2020) on Showtime, season 1, episode 4, aired 2020-10-25, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E04: listed hour 4 of 7 in the The Good Lord Bird guide, hour 4 of 7 in season 1. It aired 2020-10-25 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Mister Fred” (S01E03). Next is “Hiving the Bees” (S01E05).
Essential hour: “Smells Like Bear”. Smells Like Bear as the titled wilderness: absurdist bite in the woods, still Brown, still a Showtime history that wants the joke and the fire in one hour.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
John and Onion continue their fundraising mission, this time heading to Canada on foot. After seeing true freedom for the first time and frustrated with Brown's increasingly irrational behavior, Onion demands freedom from Brown's army. But, when the legendary Harriet Tubman endorses Brown in a room full of new recruits, Onion realizes that he may be more invested in the cause and the "old man" than he thought.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Smells Like Bear sit in the The Good Lord Bird guide?
S01E04 is listed hour 4 of 7 — hour 4 of 7 in season 1, season 1 episode 4.
When did The Good Lord Bird S01E04 air?
Smells Like Bear aired 2020-10-25 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.…