Of course, whitewashing the horrors of slavery won’t do, either, and director Barry Jenkins doesn’t try to skirt the wickedness.

When Cora flees to North Carolina, a highly religious state where slavery is illegal, she discovers that Black people are too. But wait, why are there no Black children anywhere? A ghoulish conspiracy unfurls. When they escape Georgia and emerge from the Underground Railroad in South Carolina, it’s a seemingly progressive place devoted to helping the freed with various educational and social programs. Cora and Caesar stumble into a fresh hell with each new “chapter” in the tale, many named for the states in which they’re set. The 10-episode drama follows enslaved teenager Cora (Thuso Mbedu) and young man Caesar (Aaron Pierre) as they flee a cruel Georgia plantation only to discover that “free” white America has found plenty of creative ways outside of slavery to demonize, oppress and imprison Black folks. The brutal reality of slavery, the fantastical storytelling of a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and the cinematic poetry of an Oscar-winning director meet in Amazon Prime Video’s “The Underground Railroad.” Based on Colson Whitehead’s novel of the same name, the limited series, which premieres Friday, imagines a subterranean locomotive system that travels through a labyrinth of tunnels under the Southern United States, connecting runaway slaves to a network of abolitionists and safe houses on the way to freedom.

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