"John Adams" Peacefield (TV Episode 2008) Poster

(TV Mini Series)

(2008)

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10/10
A long life
jotix10021 July 2009
Warning: Spoilers
As we meet John Adams in this final installment of the series of the same name, he has retired from public life. He is now a farmer having given his best years to the service of the country he helped to create. He is living with Abigail, his daughter Nabby, and son Thomas. He has seen the election of his son John Quincy Adams to the presidency of the new nation.

John Adams, with the help of Abigail, Nabby, Thomas and his granddaughter Sally Adams Smith, begins to collect his papers to work on his autobiography. It should have been a happy time for the Adams family, but tragedy intervenes when Nabby is diagnosed with breast cancer. She must be operated in what turns out to be a horrible procedure because of the primitive type of medicine of those years. She eventually succumbs to the disease as it spreads throughout her body.

Abigail and John are left at the farm to mourn her passing. A few years later, his wife of almost a century dies peacefully at home, devastating the great John Adams. His long feud with Thomas Jefferson comes to an end when Adams reaches out to him to tell the other man about the tragedies in his life. Just as the new nation is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary, death comes claiming John's life.

The closing part of this magnificent series leaves us saddened because of what this man achieved in his lifetime. His vision of a nation with its own magna carta about the rights of man, plus a Constitution that serves as a model for other nations, was a monumental accomplishment, indeed.

The director Tom Hooper did a marvelous job in bringing the David McCullough's novel to life in such vivid detail. The adaptation by Kirk Ellis worked well throughout the seven installments. Tak Fujimoto, the cinematographer enhanced the production and made it accessible for the average viewer to appreciate the beauty of the places where the action took place.

The success of the series owes a lot to both Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney. They were wonderful as John and Abigail. The actors show great chemistry imagining what the Adams were like. The sublime Sarah Polley is seen as Nabby, the suffering daughter. Evan Moss Bachrach plays John Quincy Adams. Mamie Gummer is Sally Smith Adams and Stephen Dillane comes again as Thomas Jefferson.

A must see series about the birth of America and the people that made it what it is.
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10/10
meditative, calming
CubsandCulture10 April 2021
This is more of extended epilogue than anything else. The central aspects-reconciliation with Jefferson, mortality-are largely just things that happened and not a plot moving forward. It the most leisurely of the episodes but gives you the proper time to think. It has been a great series.
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10/10
Peacefield.
kylehaines9631 December 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Our final part of John Adams Focuses On John played by Paul Giamatti who in his final years has been writing back and forth to Thomas Jefferson. Sadly in 1818 Abigail played by Laura Linney dies of natural causes. Finally at the very end of the Mini-Series John Dies on July 4th 1826 the 50th anniversary of the signing of The Declaration Of Independence. This is an excellent mini-series and I recommend this mini-series and in fact this is the only Mini-series I will sit down and watch all the way through. Definitely check this out.

Not Rated.

1hr 2min/62min.

****/****
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10/10
Saved the series as a whole
petrow-3130816 November 2022
After the awful 6th episode I had not held my hopes particularly high for the series finale - and boy was I wrong. "Peacefield" was a poignant, respectful, measured and yet, both heart-warming and heart-wrenching 62 minutes. All the praise goes for Giamatti and Linney for their portrayal of the aging couple, and most of the supporting cast who deliver their A-game. Everything that was amiss with "Unnecessary war" was spot on in "Peacefield": the pacing, the focus, the personal drama and the portrayal of those larger-than-life figures of the United States' history, both brought closer to us and magnified their virtues. Overall, an excellent closure of this remarkable series.
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3/10
Should have been six episodes
tswysch20 December 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Everybody dies and people are sad. Could have done without this episode, the worst installment in what was otherwise a terrific series. I'm sure many will like it but much to depressing for my taste.
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