Review ‘The Good Lord Bird’: Showtime Series Ingenious and Funny

John Brown must surely have been one of the fiercest men who ever lived, a single-minded avenger who was, depending on your point of view, either God’s merciless right arm of retribution or America’s first celebrity serial killer. What seems obvious about the man is that he took his mission to personally strike down slavery with as much seriousness as anyone has ever approached anything.

So what if we approached the tale of John Brown as . . . a comedy?

About the Author

Kyle Smith

Kyle Smith is the film critic for the Wall Street Journal.

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John Brown must surely have been one of the fiercest men who ever lived, a single-minded avenger who was, depending on your point of view, either God’s merciless right arm of retribution or America’s first celebrity serial killer. What seems obvious about the man is that he took his mission to personally strike down slavery with as much seriousness as anyone has ever approached anything.

So what if we approached the tale of John Brown as . . . a comedy?