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

Epps compares cotton totals and orders Solomon and Abram whipped for falling short, while he merely tells Armsby to work harder.

Scene 181 of 211 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Epps
Treach
Armsby

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:56 into a 2:22 film

The story so farBefore scene 181

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 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
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 180
Armsby joins the cotton field, where the unskilled white laborer does little work.
Scene 181
This scene

181INT. MASTER EPPS'S PLANTATION/GIN HOUSE - EVENING

As Epps said, it is days of long since. The slaves are back to having their cotton weighed in the Gin House

EPPS

Wiley...?

TREACH

Two hundred sixty pounds.

EPPS

Bob?

TREACH

Three hundred forty pounds for

Bob.

EPPS

Patsey?

TREACH

Five hundred twenty pounds.

EPPS

Platt?

TREACH

One hundred sixty pounds.

Before Treach is even done announcing the weight, Epps has pulled Solomon aside to where Uncle Abram already awaits his fate.

EPPS

Armsby?

TREACH

Sixty four pounds.

Epps speaks to Armsby sternly, but nothing of the manner in which he would address the slaves.

EPPS

A good days labor would average

two hundred pounds.

ARMSBY

Yes, sir.

EPPS

I'm sure in time y'll develope as

a picker, but it takes effort,

boy. Put some damn effort into

it.

ARMSBY

Yes, sir.

To Treach, regarding Solomon and Abram:

EPPS

Take 'em out. Get to whippin'.

No force is needed. The slaves understand the situation. They follow Treach out of the Gin house.