Review: The Boondocks “Freedom Ride or Die”

There was a time, where Robert Freeman wasn’t old, but still couldn’t get out of his own way. Check out Robert in black and white in this episode of The Boondocks!

The latest episode of what is turning out to be the Robert Freeman Show is a trip back in time, through a documentary chronicling the Freedom Riders and the real events that transpired on that day. The documentary has stated that Robert Freeman was there against his will. However, this goes against all that Robert has said in this entire series, where he was a civil rights legend. Unfortunately, the documentary proves everything he did was against his will. We start the flashback with Robert waiting in a bus station, where we get the discrepancy between the colored bathroom, and the white man’s. He tries to go in, but he can’t stand the smell. He goes to the counter but gets every racial slur thrown at him.

So, he revenge shits in the white man’s bathroom. He gets caught by the man and runs right into the bus being used by the Freedom Riders. Diane Nash tells a story of how frail he was. It was just the first lie in what will be many more. Sturdy Harris hears this and tries to recruit him, but he realizes that he’s on the bus going to Birmingham. So, Sturdy tries harder. After a repeating bus chorus, Sturdy and Diane tell him their strategy,  and things are going well until they say he could get set on fire. Freeman doesn’t find Jim Crow worth it, and he wants to get off as soon as possible.

Ruckus and Bull Connor (a political figure, and the biggest racist in Birmingham) were at the Birmingham station, and Connor made an arrangement with the KKK to get 15 minutes to do whatever they wanted to the Freedom Riders. Ruckus riles the KKK up to make it even worse. The bus makes it in, and everyone was afraid until Sturdy inspires them to get off. After a final plea from Sturdy, Freeman insists to stay on the bus. That was the smart thing to do, because everyone that got off got intimately acquainted with a molotov cocktail, and shit everywhere started burning.

As the smoke billows, Robert gets off the bus. Diane almost gets her head bashed in, but Robert puts his hero underoos on and saves her and most everyone. Using his belt and a lot of fists, he kicks a fuck ton of ass! Sturdy gets a bat to the chest and doesn’t even flinch. Everyone gets back on the bus, while Ruckus goes to sabotage the metal casket. Diane sees Robert getting his ass kicked, and Sturdy shows up just in time to help with non-violence. Everyone is on the bus, and Robert takes a stand against Sturdy because everyone got their asses kicked. Then someone is in front of the bus, with a note. Turns out to be Ruckus, threatening the bus with a bomb. The bus driver bails, leaving the bus with no driver. Robert tries to leave, but Sturdy grabs him by the ankle and pulls him back in.

Kennedy, in a moment of embarrassment, sent a staffer to try to stop the Riders because of Birmingham. Sturdy allows the wounded to get off, but keeps Diane and Robert, much to the chagrin of Granddad. In Mississippi, the state police and Ruckus line the main road into Mississippi. The bus arrives, and is shot to shit by the police, but crosses the border. Just as the three were about to be filled with holes, the Kennedy staffer stops the police from shooting, but not from arresting them. So, Diane, Sturdy, and Robert all sat in a cell, with that annoying ass song being sung.

The Robert Freeman Show continues, and in this episode, we get a flashback to the times of Martin Luther King and different bathrooms for blacks and whites. While this started out being a smear campaign on Robert, it shows how much of a badass he was back in the day, even though he never wanted to be.

Ruckus’s role in this episode is just priceless. How in the hell did neither Robert or Ruckus know the other was in Birmingham? The fact that Ruckus uses a bomb that won’t detonate unless they speed over 15 miles an hour was a rather nice gesture. The fact that he was a black man, who hates black men, made him hilarious. And the fact that this was going on during the Civil Rights movement slew me. All in all, this episode was great. Unfortunately, there are a couple of things that irked me a little.

I am all about racial slurs to stereotype who says it, but this episode took that and went entirely over the top. The racial slurs that the counter clerk spewed in the beginning of the episode was out of control. In a minute, we got 10 different ways to degrade the black man. I get that it was 1961 in the episode, but it’s 2014 in real life. This was one thing I was afraid of in the wake of MacGruder’s exit. Luckily, this was the first over the top moment this season has endured.

The other thing is that I swore there were more characters in The Boondocks besides Robert Freeman. I also thought that Huey and Riley were the main characters as well. I love watching Robert fuck up as much as the next, but how many different ways can there be? We got one episode of Tom and his family, then Robert, Robert, Robert, and Robert. And holy shit, it seems that it won’t stop next week either.