John Adams is going to be an amazing seven part HBO miniseries. I just finished Part 1: “Join or Die.”  It has a huge cast, including Paul Giamatti as John Adams and Laura Linney as Abigail Adams. I’m going to review each Part as I watch it, this is to as much as anything, slow my watching of it. I tend to be quite the marathon couch potato. To view all reviews of the miniseries, click this tag: John Adams HBO Miniseries.

“Join or Die” is the story of how John Adams becomes involved with the Sons of Liberty. This segment does a good job of portraying Adams’ reluctance to side with Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and the common rabble that use violence to elicit change. Adams is a man of Law and principal. He struggles with the idea of an ordered society of laws, laws that uphold the King’s justice.

I tend to read more about what takes place after the Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770. I did not know that Adams defended Captain Preston and the British troops who opened fire on the crowd, killing 5. It was even more surprising to learn that Adams won the case, or rather was able to bring about an acquittal. I guess that shows how much I know about the birth of my county. Like most boys, when I was in school I focused on the gore of the revolution, the tar and featherings, the Tea Party, all the exciting stuff that young boys like.

I really like the casting choice of Paul Giamatti as John Adams and Laura Linney as Abigail Adams. They have a strange distant but loving chemistry that I feel fits the chaste time period. I know that it is cliché, but behind every good and honest man, there is a woman to keep him good and honest. One scene in particular reminded me of my own marriage. Abigail Adams has just finished reading John’s closing remarks for the Boston Massacre and is providing feedback and criticism. John, not unlike the way I take feedback from my wife about my writing, does not what to edit out all the little things that make him feel brilliant and smart, but overcomplicate and way down his argument. It was a brilliant and loving moment.

A lot more history happens in “Join or Die,” before the ending scene where Adams rejects the comfort of the gilded carriage for his simple horse. Adams and the other Massachusetts’ delegates ride out of town under the protection of the Sons of Liberty to part of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. 

The Soulless Machine