What follows her trip to the Ghost Tunnel is, essentially, a dream version of the same excursion. In Cora’s dream, she descends the Tunnel’s long rope ladder and winds up in a truly palatial Underground Railroad station packed with Black travelers of all kinds. But the ticket agent says she can’t move Cora along until her testimony checks out, a potential problem since she hasn’t offered testimony in Indiana. “Did you really tell your truth?” the agent asks; Cora has nothing to say in response.
The tension mounts courtesy of some incredible sound design, which makes this mysterious mega-station—whether it is above or below ground “depends on where you’re coming from,” says a conductor—sound like it’s constantly inhaling and exhaling, with a crying baby thrown in for good measure. Cora exits and finds herself in the run-down house in the forest where the hatch is from; she reenters and everyone is staring at her as she walks her way to a reunion with her lost friend Caesar. They dance together, quoting their own romantic banter from several episodes earlier. They cry. This is not the surreal logic of a Mad Men or Sopranos fever dream; it’s a straightforward longing for something that can no longer be had.
I reviewed the eighth episode of The Underground Railroad for Decider.
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