Wow!! So sad I won't get more of Underground this coming Wednesday. 2017 can't come soon enough!!
At the Macon plantation, Ernestine is seemingly trying to cope with the fact that Tom hung her son Sam. Tom begs for her forgiveness, calling himself a coward who doesn't even have his own last name, taking responsibility for the death of Sam (well duh!), and offering to take Ernestine with him to Washington (including shopping and dinners in private clubs along the way). Ernestine says she blames herself, because she feels its punishment for having killed Pearly Mae to protect Rosalee. She says all she feels is pain, to which Tom says he can make her feel something else as he puts his hand up her dress (really??). I was less than pleased when she went for it, though the show redeems itself later on this front. And later she finds Tom talking to James as he is teaching him how to be a carpenter. James says Sam was going to teach him and asks if Tom thinks Sam will be coming back soon. Tom asks him where he thought Sam was, and James says his mother told him Sam was in the city making furniture for rich White people. Tom says he thinks Sam is probably really busy, and James asks if Tom thinks one day he'll be able to go to the city to make furniture too. Tom says he doesn't see why he couldn't. Ernestine is listening this whole time, and I can only imagine she is thinking the two things I'm thinking. One, yet another empty promise from Tom to one of her sons (he promised Sam he could buy his freedom) and also that it really symbolizes Tom saying what really happened to Sam could happen to James too!!!
Back at the Hawkes' home, John returns with news that everyone knows the remaining members of the Macon 7 have crossed the river and it's a free for all trying to capture them, with all roads blocked. So they come up with a plan to get Rosalee, Boo, and Noah to Ripley (an abolitionist area). While John and Rosalee are out digging by the side of a house at night, Noah and Elizabeth discuss Noah not knowing if he could and would do what Elizabeth is doing to help runaways and Elizabeth questioning if she would do it again if she knew what she knew now (that they will either end up captured or dead). While Elizabeth tells Noah he's run 600 miles so he can do anything, including what she's doing, he tells her he knows she would do it all over again based on how she looks at Boo. Then they both agree it is all worth it if Boo gets to freedom!
Rosalee and John have a conversation of their own after they finish digging. After Rosalee says Sam probably decided not to run with them because he was scared and thought Tom would let him buy his freedom, adding she hoped he would someday, John revealed to her that Sam was dead. As she cried in the bathtub after returning to the house, Noah brought her a change of clothes and prepared to leave until she asked him to stay. He came in and without speaking, washed her back, held her, and kissed her on her forehead. They looked into each others eyes for a moment, and they kissed and he lifted her up and took her to their bedroom. Later, they discuss the fact that the others didn't make it and pondered why they deserved to have freedom. At one point Noah even said Cato may have been right about him picking everyone just to use them to help him make it to freedom. But they concluded it's not about deserving freedom. It was bigger than that. For one, they all had a right to freedom, which is beyond some deserving it and others not. And finally, they concluded none of them are truly free until they are all free!!
Meanwhile, when August meets back up with Jeremiah and a few of his men (they just dragged in a number of their men who died), August shares the news that Ben didn't die but has to have surgery. Given it became clear that August now had the idea to kill Rosalee after what she did to his son, and given Patty will be pretty upset about Jeremiah losing so many men, Jeremiah tells August they need to renegotiate their deal (aka...we are going to kill you now, and then capture Rosalee alive to keep the reward for ourselves). And there's Augustine in the middle of Jeremiah and 3 other guys. The camera takes us outside the building. It's quiet for a moment, and then Jeremiah comes out the building bloody. But then he falls down, clearly having been on the losing side of the fight. Then out comes August, also bloodied but standing strong and with a gun in his hand. Then he shoots Jeremiah.
Later, Noah, Rosalee, John, and Elizabeth come up with a plan to cause a distraction with all the locked up runaways so they can get to Ripley. Elizabeth walks into the marshal's office requesting to speak with Kyle. They tell her Kyle has been missing for days but offer to speak with her instead. She says she'd rather speak with Kyle and that it is information he may find useful about some runaway activity. Then she requests to leave a note on his desk. Then Noah comes in and holds a gun to Elizabeth's head, telling all of the marshals to drop their weapons. He also delivers a speech about how slaves built this country and that it is the blood of slaves that keeps the country's heart pumping, making slaves more American than any of them!! When one of them shoots him, Noah shoots him down. Then he puts all of them and Elizabeth into the cell, and let the runaways out. He gives them the guns he collected from the marshals, tells them to shoot if they have to because they won't hesitate to shoot them, and tells them if they get caught to ask for a lawyer and one particular man who can help them (we don't hear who he names since they are walking out of the marshal's office).
Meanwhile, August approaches John outside of his house, saying Tom told him to reach out to his brother if he needs anything and is in the area. He says he needs to get a wire to Tom for more money for his son's surgery. So John invites him into the house. Rosalee and Boo are in the hideaway with Kyle (who is still tied up). While John goes to get something, Kyle begins banging his head against the block he's tied to, and August hears him. But Rosalee knocks Kyle out with a rock when he won't be quiet. When John returns, August comments on the draft from the fireplace. When John says it's an old home, August comments that the room had clearly been remodeled. To which John says it was remodeled when they were expecting a child. August then asks him if he knows that one of the Macon 7 is kin to him, and then tells him Rosalee is Tom's daughter. Then he adds that Rosalee is the one that stabbed his son, who will never be able to walk again. Elizabeth runs into the house proclaiming, "It worked!" But then she sees August, and John tells her August is the slave catcher Tom hired to catch the runaways. So Elizabeth asks August what he's doing at their house when one of the Macon 7 just held up the marshal's office. August leaves, and Elizabeth and John tell Rosalee they have to leave with Boo now, because August may be on to them. So they can't wait on Noah. But then August comes into the hideaway from the outside, with a gun aimed at Rosalee. John is able to make part of the top of the hideaway come crashing down on them, as he yells for Rosalee to run! John and August are both knocked out, as Rosalee, Elizabeth, and Boo get away.
When August comes to, he gets out and goes after Rosalee, Elizabeth, and Boo. Rosalee decides to get out of the wagon to get August to come after just her. As he runs after her, she stops and turns around. When he gets to her, she tells him Ben set her free and that it was his fault Ben was stabbed, because Ben shouldn't have been there and didn't want to be there. She said she's done running. And August walks up and puts the gun to her head, but then he hears a gun cock behind him. He turns around and there's Elizabeth aiming a gun at him. So he drops his gun. But then he throws his knife at her hand, making her drop the gun. But before he can pick up his gun, Rosalee picks it up and shoots him. He falls down, and Rosalee tells him, he hunts runaways like they are animals and now she's going to let him die in the woods like he's an animal. And they leave. Now when he comes to, he's in a jail cell with Patty Cannon standing over him. She tells him there's a lot of things you can do as a slave catcher, but killing White people, especially her men, isn't one of them.
That's not the only one Patty brought to the jail. In the cell next to August is Noah. While Noah was heading back to the Hawkes' house, he saw a White man trying to capture a young runaway. He began to fight the man, as he told the runaway to run away. Then he got knocked out with a blunt object that kind of looked like a big hair brush, by Patty Cannon. Patty told him she realized a runaway can't know where a marshal office is to hold it up without the help of a White person, and demands he tell her who helped him. She tells him she can help him and Rosalee, who she knows he loves. At first he says he can't, but then he gives her a name. MARSHAL KYLE RISDIN!! (Yes! I was hoping he would do that!).
Back in the hideaway at the Hawkes' house, John comes to and reveals to Kyle their plan after responding to Kyle's offer to help them if he let's him go by asking if Kyle meant to help him the way he helped Elizabeth (BOOM!). When John and Rosalee were digging by a house, they were digging a hideaway under Kyle's house. And when Elizabeth went to leave a note on Kyle's desk, she was leaving letters from William Still, among other things that will make it look like he was helping slaves run away. And the name Noah told the runaways he set free to ask for if they got caught, Kyle Risdin. Which means, every time one got caught, Kyle's name came up!! Kyle said he would clear up his name as soon as he gets out, because he knows John wouldn't kill him because of his respect of the law. To which John said the Fugitive Slave Act gives him not only the right, but the duty to kill Kyle!! And he suffocates Kyle, and then he and Elizabeth bury him.
Now back at the Macon Plantation, in the cellar, Tom and Ernestine are having a drink and discussing Tom's plan for when they leave for Washington. But Ernestine has plans of her own. After telling Tom she's realized why Rosalee ran, and that there's no such thing as safety, who seems to be the Reverend's slave, pulls rope over Tom's neck and hangs him from it! Then Ernestine winds a contraption that lifts Tom off the ground hanging him to death (similar to the contraption she was winding when the Reverend and his slave left the house earlier in the episode, I guess to raise and lower the chandelier), after telling him he won't be judged because they are both going to hell!!! She then throws a chair down under him to make it look like he hung himself!!
And later, when Ernestine is riding in a carriage with Suzanna, Suzanna decides to tell Ernestine what bothered her most about Ernestine. But she started with what didn't bother her. She said it didn't bother her that she was sleeping with Tom, because they all slept with her kind (even mentioning having slept with a stable boy when she was Mary's age). She said it didn't bother her that she had children with Tom, because they were just free labor! But what did bother her was that the one thing Tom promised her was hers, her children, looked to Ernestine like a mother (laughing with and crying out for Ernestine when they needed something)! Should have seen this coming, as it was Ernestine's interaction with Mary in the very first episode that revealed Suzanna's dislike of Ernestine! Suzanna said now that Tom is gone, it is her chance to pay Ernestine back for her relationship with her children. Then Suzanna opens the curtains of the carriage to reveal she is putting Ernestine on the block for sale!! She adds that she plans on bringing James into the house and raising him as her own, giving him a better life than Ernestine ever could (the one thing Ernestine prided herself on)!!!
As for Rosalee and Boo, they made it to freedom and are with William Still. William asks Rosalee about the Macon 7, and she tells him a little about each one. And then she reveals she has to go back and help others get to freedom!! O by the way, in a small scene, we see Cato is alive and why he was probably running late picking them up last episode! He's gone to where he hid the box of money from the carriage!! Not sure how he got away and survived, but that explains why the men told Jeremiah the dead men didn't even have any of the money on them! Cato, Cato, Cato!!!
O...as I'm sure you've heard by now, Rosalee is connected with Harriette Tubman! Harriette says she heard Rosalee wants to steal slaves. To which Rosalee says you can't steal what's not property!! And Harriette tells her she's going to teach her how to help other slaves reach freedom!!!!!!
Ugh...why must we wait until 2017??!!!!