12 Years a Slave · written by John Ridley and Steve McQueen · 2013

After the cotton crop recovers, Epps welcomes his leased slaves back and taunts Solomon about becoming a driver; Solomon sees how badly Patsey has been scarred.

Scene 179 of 211 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Epps

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:55 into a 2:22 film

The story so farBefore scene 179

After being kidnapped from New York and sold into slavery, Solomon Northup uses his skills and carefully placed trust to survive and seek a way back to his family.

Scenes 1–29
Solomon lives freely in Saratoga as a husband, father, worker, and musician.
Scenes 30–65
Kidnapped and held under the imposed name Platt, Solomon must preserve his life and identity.
Scenes 66–123
He enters plantation life under Ford, passes through Tibeats’s violence and the near-lynching, and is transferred to Epps.
Scene 124
Solomon is transferred to Epps’s plantation and placed among Patsey and the enslaved workers, opening the harsher final plantation phase.
Just before
Scene 176
Solomon boils the maple bark in a tin cup over a fire.
Scene 177
By the cabin’s dying coals, Solomon tests the maple-bark liquid as ink and writes his letter to an old acquaintance.
Scene 178
Solomon tells Celeste the letter is ready but has no safe way to mail it; she gives up her isolated refuge and returns to her master, leaving Solomon behind.
Scene 179
This scene

179EXT. EPPS'S PLANTATION - DAY

We come up now outside of Master Epps's plantation. Epps stands in the drive. He's in surprisingly good spirits as Solomon - AGED SEVERAL YEARS NOW - Wiley and Bob trudge their way toward Epps and his other slaves who are gathered.

The cotton field is in full bloom, the crop fully returned.

EPPS

A joyous day. A joyous day. Dark

times is behind us. Clean livin'

'n prayer done lifted the plague.

Indicating to the cotton:

EPPS (CONT'D)

As thick 'n white as New England

snow. 'N now my niggers is

returned to me.

(to Solomon)

Heard Judge Turner made you a

driver. A driver? Oh, did you

beguile him, Platt, with your

slick nigger ways? Well, yah

won't stand idle with a lash in

hand. Not on my land. Much work

to do. Days of old long since,

eh? Joyous indeed.

Throughout Epps's welcome, Solomon's focus is on Patsey who is lined up with the other slaves. SHE IS NOW MORE HAGGARD THAN WHEN WE LAST SAW HER. Her face and arms display many new scars. It's clear that in the intervening years she has quite literally been a whipping boy for Epps and the Mistress.