He is a fascinating individual, being really passionate about the emancipation of the slaves. Next we have Ethan Hawke as John Brown, preacher and abolitionist. And I think Onion is a really fun protagonist, with Johnson giving a great performance. He has quite an interesting and highly enjoyable personal arc in this, while also serving as the audience in this story, being our look at Brown and his antics. Joshua Caleb Johnson plays Onion, the young slave who becomes part of Brown’s gang. The characters in this are colorful, flawed, surprisingly layered (like an onion, HA!), and really entertaining.

I found the story here to be utterly engrossing and entertaining, having me utterly engaged throughout the seven episodes. And while this sounds like it could be quite messy, it really isn’t. But it’s not just a tonally unique slavery drama, but it’s also largely a coming of age story, since we get to see how this young boy gets to evolve while following along with Brown’s crusade. While at its core it’s a serious drama about the liberation of shackled people, the writers use a surprising amount of comedy throughout, which adds quite a bit of nuance to proceedings. What I found fascinating about “The Good Lord Bird” is the interesting use of of tonal shifts to tell its story. And we follow Onion as he follows along on Brown’s crusade to free the slaves. The story follows Henry “Onion” Shackleford (Joshua Caleb Johnson), a young slave who gets freed by abolitionist John Brown (Ethan Hawke) and then joins his merry band of freedom fighters. Ladies and gentlemen… “The Good Lord Bird”.

We all agree that slavery was one of the worst things in human history, right? Alright, good.

The good lord bird book review