There are stories that entertain us, and then there are stories that remake us. TIME II: Unfinished Business belongs to that rare second category—the kind that reaches through the screen, grabs you by the collar of your conscience, and refuses to let go until you understand that your freedom and mine are inextricably linked.
This Juneteenth, as we mark another year since the last enslaved people learned of their emancipation, Fox and Rob Richardson are asking us to confront an uncomfortable truth: the work of freedom remains tragically unfinished. Their new documentary doesn’t just continue where the Oscar-nominated TIME left off—it shatters the illusion that liberation was ever complete.
I’ve spent a lifetime wondering about the split-second decisions that can change a person’s trajectory, and few stories have haunted me like the Richardson family’s ongoing battle. When we first met them in TIME, we witnessed the agonizing endurance of love—Fox fighting for 21 years to bring Rob home from Louisiana’s Angola prison. Their reunion should have been the end of their story. Instead, it was merely the end of chapter one.
TIME II plunges us into the brutal aftermath, where freedom proves to be not a destination but a daily choice to resist the forces that would re-cage the liberated. The Richardsons’ nephew Ontario remains trapped in the same Louisiana system that once held Rob captive. The promise Fox and Rob made to his mother—to bring her baby boy home—becomes the driving force of a sequel that transforms personal pain into revolutionary purpose.
What strikes me most about their journey is how one split-second decision—Rob’s choice decades ago that led to his incarceration—rippled through generations, ultimately becoming the catalyst for a movement that could free thousands. The Richardsons show us that our worst moments don’t have to define our entire trajectory. Sometimes, they become the foundation for our greatest purpose.
Under Fox’s directorial vision, TIME II becomes both mirror and megaphone, reflecting the cracks in our justice system while amplifying the voices of those still trapped within it. “If TIME was the cry, TIME II is the call,” Fox declares, and you can feel the weight of that evolution. This isn’t entertainment; it’s an emergency broadcast from the front lines of America’s ongoing struggle with its own promises of equality.
The timing couldn’t be more urgent. As we witness renewed debates around police militarization, potential expansions of the death penalty, and a political climate where criminal justice reform hangs in the balance, voices like Fox and Rob’s become essential navigation tools through our national moral crisis. They speak with the authority that comes only from having lived on both sides of the prison walls—as survivors and now as liberators.
But what moves me most about TIME II is how it reframes our understanding of freedom itself. “To Be Free is to Free Others” isn’t just their campaign slogan—it’s a radical reimagining of what liberation means, one that should resonate with anyone who has ever felt the weight of someone else’s struggle. This isn’t abstract philosophy—it’s the recognition that our individual freedom is meaningless while others remain caged by systems we choose to ignore.
Think about it: How many of us have walked past someone experiencing homelessness and felt a flicker of discomfort? How many times have we read about wrongful convictions and felt grateful it wasn’t us, then quickly moved on? The Richardsons’ mantra challenges that comfortable distance. It suggests that true freedom requires us to turn toward injustice, not away from it. That liberation is not a solo journey but a collective responsibility.
The #TimeIIWatch campaign they’ve launched represents something unprecedented: a million-person watch party that treats film viewing as a form of civic engagement. This isn’t about algorithms or streaming numbers—it’s about creating a collective moment of national reckoning. The advisory board alone tells you this isn’t ordinary activism: Tavis Smiley, Van Jones, Ben Crump, DL Hughley, Jesse Jackson Jr., Cornel West—voices that have shaped our national conversation around justice for decades.
The Richardsons understand what many of us would rather forget: Juneteenth didn’t end bondage in America—it merely shifted its forms. The 13th Amendment’s exception clause, which allows slavery “as punishment for crime,” birthed the prison-industrial complex that now cages 2.3 million Americans, disproportionately Black and brown bodies whose labor generates billions in profit.
This is why TIME II matters beyond its powerful storytelling. It forces us to confront the ways we’ve allowed symbols of freedom to obscure the persistence of oppression. It challenges comfortable narratives about progress and demands we grapple with systems that continue to separate families, destroy communities, and profit from human suffering.
Watching TIME II this Juneteenth isn’t passive consumption—it’s an act of witness, of solidarity, of commitment to the ongoing work of liberation. The Richardsons have proven that our individual liberation is incomplete until it becomes collective liberation. Their mantra should haunt us in the best possible way, following us into our daily choices, our voting decisions, our conversations with friends and family. It should make us ask: What cages am I ignoring? Whose freedom am I failing to fight for?
This June 19th, as we celebrate how far we’ve come, let’s also commit to acknowledging how far we have yet to go. Let’s watch TIME II not as entertainment, but as education. Not as observers, but as participants in the unfinished work of freedom.
Because until all of us are free, none of us truly are.
Register for the #TimeIIWatch national Juneteenth watch party at www.TimeTwoMovie.com.
