Watching the opening scene of HBO’s Lovecraft Country, viewers may find themselves in a state of déjà vu—particularly if they also watched the splendid Watchmen series that aired on HBO last year. Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors), runs through a WWII trench stabbing the human enemy before the alien enemy makes itself known. Several UFOs, an obligatory Cthulhu, and a rogue gladiator make their presence known. A red alien woman descends from the heavens. Her silk press waves in the breeze. When she lands, she embraces the soldier; a comfort in the chaotic new world. The narrator promises the story of “[a]n American boy, and a dream that is truly American.” When Jackie Robinson appears a moment later, the sequence reveals itself to be a dream. Freeman wakes up on a segregated bus, on his way home to Chicago. What a way to snap back to reality.
The somber reminders of Jim Crow surround Atticus. A sign directing Black citizens to the back of the bus hangs in the aisle. Atticus and a fellow traveler choose to walk several miles back to town rather than travel with the white riders on a small truck transporting them the same distance after the bus breaks down. Here, executive producers Misha Green and Jordan Peele set the tone for the series. Taking a cue from the grandfather of this text, early 20th-century horror legend H.P. Lovecraft, the show swings wildly from dark science fiction to familial melodrama, with a sprinkle of romance lightly dusting the entire production, creating a feeling of never quite landing at the point. Is this an allegory for the Black American horror reality, or a Black retelling of Lovecraft with 100% less racism? It seems to be neither, which makes the show that much more interesting, because—like Watchmen—the audience has no idea where it’s leading them.
Reading Lovecraft’s work resembles takeoff in a broken rocket. His deft ability to mold words into descriptions of the eerie and macabre instantly takes the reader to another world of occult monsters, and human fragility. But then, with a casual stroke of his pen, Lovecraft inserts prickling and divisive racism. Every Black human is a mongrel, while he depicts Indigenous peoples as dumb and filthy. These facts make enjoying the most popular Lovecraft narratives nearly impossible. But Atticus and his Uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) identify as Lovecraft fanatics. Atticus even believes, like many Lovecraft devotees, that the stories are not fiction, but a roadmap to the occult happenings throughout the East Coast and part of the American south. He uses Lovecraft’s roadmap to begin the hunt for his missing alcoholic father.
Lovecraft Country touches on the central aspects of Blackness. Playing modern music over a period piece is nothing new, but there was a moment when I questioned what era the show was taking place. As kids played in the open spray of a busted fire hydrant and the army recruited young men outside a busy shop corner, decades blurred into a single never-ending moment. Some aspects of culture never die. They merely adapt to fit their surroundings.
Other times, the show seems to shy away from the difficult conversations. When Letitia (Jurnee Smollett) crashes her sister’s concert, the crowd demands Leti; the thin, light-skinned, straight-haired sister joins her dark-skinned, plus-sized sister (Wunmi Mosaku) on stage. They battle for the single microphone until someone brings another out for the additional performer. It seems a colorism conversation hovers around the disgruntled sisters who don’t understand one another, but the conversation doesn’t manifest by the end of the premiere, “Sundown.” There’s plenty of time to explore that dynamic. But, since most of the dark-skinned women exist on screen as secondary characters, I hope the conversation arrives sooner rather than later.
In addition to modern music, the show also inserts a quote from James Baldwin, the vibrato and heavy rattle of Baldwin’s voice reverberating over images of life on the road. Gas stations, diners, and street signs illuminate the inequality suffered by Black Americans as Leti, George, and Atticus begin their search for Atticus’ father. Baldwin’s quote—found below in its entirety because reading Baldwin can save your soul—expresses how exclusion from the American Dream seeps into the bones of both the abuser and the abused; how racism changes how a person carries themselves, how they see themselves, and how they behave.
“I find myself, not for the first time, in the position of a kind of Jeremiah. It would seem to me that the question before the house is a proposition horribly loaded, that one’s response to that question depends on where you find yourself in the world, what your sense of reality is. That is, it depends on assumptions we hold so deeply as to be scarcely aware of them…
The white South African or Mississippi sharecropper or Alabama sheriff has at bottom a system of reality which compels them really to believe when they face the Negro that this woman, this man, this child must be insane to attack the system to which he owes his entire identity. For such a person, the proposition which we are trying to discuss here does not exist. On the other hand..”
Baldwin spoke these words during a 1965 debate at the University of Cambridge on American racism with William Buckley Jr., once considered the father of modern conservatism. “The American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro,” Baldwin declared fervently to a hushed audience. Buckley differed from the white supremacist who foamed at the mouth for segregation or death. Articulate, calm, and educated, he believed segregation was a right of the South, and that he could defeat the gay expat in the debate. Instead, Baldwin gave one of his most quotable speeches. He highlighted how enslaved Black Americans suffered and built this country with their own hands and received nothing in return for their labors. “It comes as a great shock around the age of 5, or 6, or 7,” Baldwin stated, “to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance, along with everybody else, has not pledged allegiance to you.” Baldwin won the debate 540 to 160.
After many days of travel, the trio of Atticus, Leti, and Uncle George tries to decide if it’s worth risking their lives for a chance of a hot meal, or if they should stay in the car. The threat of racism is insistent. It resides in the firefighter’s dog that barks like mad as they drive by. It’s certainly in the all-white diner, made so because the diner once burned to the ground. When a local citizen militia runs them out of town after asking to be served in a diner, they engage in a high-speed chase complete with rifles as the fire department and a pick-up truck chase them down the backroads.
While watching the scene unfold, it’s impossible not to wonder why this isn’t already a trope in the American cinematic library. The chase thrills as Smollett zooms down on the country roads, tearing up the street seeking an escape. Salvation arrives in the form of a blond-haired blue-eyed mystery woman, who manages to total the pick-up truck, without getting a scratch on her silver Roll- Royce. If this were a blaxploitation film, this character would be “the white devil”—she’s very clearly not meant to be trusted. Luckily, the trio has the good sense to get the hell out of there and continue on their journey.
Of course, their next stop brings more heartache. After being rejected by her sister, Leti’s brother ejects her from his home as well. Her family can only see her free spirit as undisciplined. Missing her mother’s funeral seems to be the final blow everyone needed to distance themselves from her. Atticus moves to help her, but Uncle George comments “That’s family business”— a phrase many Black Americans know all too well. A ready and reliable way to keep family dirt hidden, the phrase often leaves the abused alone with their abuser. Atticus had just finished trying to explain to his uncle how similar circumstances allowed his alcoholic father, a victim of abuse himself, to harm Atticus when he was young. A cycle of violence left unchecked for appearance’s sake leaves all wounded.
Just as peace arrives between Leti and Atticus, a white police officer descends on the team after they lose their way in the woods. He informs them that this is a sundown county, and the crew better push on. Atticus, a veteran, opens his mouth and speaks the words that set the officer off: “It’s not sundown, yet.” It’s a challenge. A factual statement, but a challenge nonetheless. After degrading Atticus by forcing him to refer to himself as “a smart nigger,” the officer follows them out of town. The speed limit is 25 mph, and if Atticus drives over the limit the officer will force the car to stop. The sun is setting! There’s one minute left until the law will decide to execute them. Leti prepares to shoot the officer if they don’t cross the county line in time. She’s praying the entire time. By a hair, they cross the tracks out of town, only to run into the next county’s squad blocking their only way out.
Dragged into the middle of the woods, the cops force the trio to lay on the ground. They prepare to be executed. The cops question the trio about a robbery. The crime clearly means nothing to them. It’s Atticus’ intelligence that offends them more than anything.
It is here that a monster, like a wild hairless rabbit emerges from the ground and begins to tear the officers’ limbs off like licorice. Everyone scatters. Atticus and Letitia find coverage in a cabin, but the sheriff and another officer barricade themselves inside the cabin before Leti and Atticus secure the door. The threat is inside the house, and outside the house. Nowhere is safe for them. They get Uncle George in the cabin only because the officers are too wounded to stop them from opening the door.
George realizes the creatures are vampiric because they’re sensitive to his flashlight. The pilot’s final great exploration of being Black in America comes as one of the officers begins to transform into the vampiric rabbit. Face scrunched up like a gargoyle, fangs having dropped—yet his fellow officer still keeps his rifle aimed at the unarmed Black citizens in the house. He’s more afraid of their skin than the monster in blue.
Lovecraft Country seeks not to retell the stories of H.P. Lovecraft, nor is it an allegory, for nothing about American culture is hidden in this story. The racism, the erasure of that racism, and the impact of racism on Black citizens blatantly appear throughout “Sundown.” No, Lovecraft Country is fan fiction. Removing the detestable parts of the original text, inserting original characters into the narrative, and taking little jabs at the author for his ignorance makes Lovecraft Country a delight for readers fond of the author’s monsters, but not the man himself. Cackling, free, and mad, these are the horror stories Black Americans tell around a campfire, for we have always been fans of science fiction. But we’ve only been able to tell these stories on large platforms for the past 50 years. Lovecraft Country takes us back 80 years to open this era of horror to modern Black creatives.
Stray observations
- Okay, but seriously, who is that woman Harpo? Why is she following our beloved crew around? Is this man her brother? Why do they look like Hitler Youth? I got a bad feeling about this creepy mansion in the middle of nowhere.
- Uncle George’s niece writes him a comic called Orynthia Blue. Orinthia can either mean “fair-skinned” or “to excite.” Which may mean a colorism conversation is coming after all.
- I wonder who Atticus was talking to on the phone. Definitely a woman. She said Atticus shouldn’t have returned home… Could he be hiding his mother for some reason? Or is this an ex-lover? So many mystery women in this series!
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The producers had to hire a special tailor and develop a new type of fabric to make Jonathan Majors’ white tee that tight.
Damn. How’d I miss that?
His wardrobe in The Last Black Man in San Francisco definitely didn’t do him justice.
His clothes get tighter every project that he’s in. I expect his next movie or season 2 of Lovecraft Country he’ll just be wearing body paint.
I think we’d all be just fine with that.
Is anyone complaining? hee
for real?!?
I have more than a few vintage shirts from the 50s-70s and boy are they tight in the chest and long in the arms. Such a weird cut.
Jonathan Majors’ white tee that tightAnd God Bless whatever powers that be for it!
Om nom nom nom…
And while we’re talking about aesthetics Jurnee Smollet looked GORGEOUS in damn near every scene…
Omg yeah she did! I was like damn gurl! They should arrest you for being smokin hot!
Salvation arrives in the form of a blond-haired blue-eyed mystery woman, who manages to total the pick-up truck, without getting a scratch on her silver Roll- Royce.I read the book a short while before quarantine, and I have a pretty good idea who this character supposed to be, but the stuff that explains who she is doesn’t take place until much later in the book and I’m uncertain if her presence here fits with the timeline of events for the show at this junction. I’m certain the show probably changed a bit of that subplot.
It’s an interesting change from the original novel. This first episode was really good, and just enough has been changed that it keeps the narrative a little unpredictable for the readers.
I assumed it was a gender swap but I could be wrong.
They swapped Caleb’s gender for the show, it’s not who I think you’re implying you think it is.
Ok now it makes sense if that’s supposed to be Caleb’s show counterpart.
Did they? I thought I saw a casting for Caleb at some point.
That woman is Caleb’s counterpart for the show. And I must say, I can’t wait to see what they do with it. Caleb ticked every single box in the Privilege Checklist: white, male, straight, rich, and good looking. So turning the character into a woman in the 1950s changes the power dynamics in the bad guy camp, and that of her interactions with the heroes.
I don’t think there’s a Caleb gender swap. I think the blonde haired woman is supposed to be the redheaded woman from the book. I think Caleb is the man who answered the mansion door at the end of the episode.
No, I’m pretty sure it’s William who opened the door.
The actress is credited on IMDB as ‘Christina Braithwhite’.
I just looked up the HBO website, and this article about the casting news for the shows says…“Christina Braithwhite (Lee) is the only daughter of the leader of a secret order calling themselves the “Sons of Adam.” She’s gone to great lengths to earn her father’s respect, but to no avail. She’s going to pave her own path to power, and use Atticus and his family to do it.”She’s Caleb gender swapped alright.
I think it’s going to be a mix of gender swap, and her being that character you’re thinking of. They should meet her in the town that appears to have been streamlined out of the show, but who knows how that will be handled yet. I loved the pilot, have high hopes for the rest of the series.
there was a very quick line from the bar owner to atticus in the alley that he saw the dad go off with a “lawyer” judging by the car he was driving. I assume it’s the same car but a different guy.
I imagine that the red woman is Dejah Thoris seeing as he was reading about her.( I recognize Dejah anywhere.)
Not quite as beautiful as the Dejah in John Carter,but still quite lovely.
she was more fully clothed than I would expect tho…
That’s good. Unrealistically revealing attire would have undermined the horror and my sense of her as a character.
it was more surprise that this being HBO, they didn’t go for the frank frazetta look. I was surprised at their restraint.
just watched, that race against sundown was fucking tense. I really know very little about Lovecraft and his stories, so I’m happy I’m being introduced to them this way.
Amazingly gifted writer- horrible, horrible racists dick. As a black man I read his books mostly to spite him; he’d be rolling over in his grave at the thought of me sitting here among the second generation of my family to have graduate degrees and success in America.
love that, glad this show is undermining his racist behaviour completely then, have him fucking spinning like a kebab in his grave.
Awesome!
We have such sights to show you.
Just incredible that it’s framed as a classic monster movie device-racing against the setting sun-but the monsters are the evil redneck cops. The stakes aren’t any lower than a monster movie at all, they’ll most likely die if they don’t beat the sundown.
and they’re evil redneck cops in central Massachusetts too, just in case anyone thought the north was ever really not racist as fuck.
and they’re evil redneck cops in central Massachusetts too, just in case anyone thought the north was ever really not racist as fuck.Yup. My second-favorite part of this show.My one complaint is that the evil redneck cops (but I repeat myself!) did not have Massachusetts accents!
Give this documentary a watch, it might help feed your interest. Plus, there’s a pretty funny sound-alike to Metallica’s “The Call of Ktulu” if store-brand metal is your bag (the band has two other songs – “The Thing That Should Not Be” and “All Nightmare Long” – that reference his work, as well. It’s what got me into HP.)
What a riveting hour of TV. Letitia fuckin’ Lewis, indeed. And I would give anything to look as good in a white shirt as Jonathan Majors, goddamn. The Shoggoths looked cool as hell; excited to see where the show goes next.
Compelling premiere, but I hope the theme of this series goes beyond zombie monsters. I’m hoping for another Watchman, please.
I’m not sure where you got that the theme was zombie monsters from THIS episode, to be honest.
They did explicitly say vampires, although really more like vampiric quality having monsters.
Fan Fiction as (a force for) something good? 2020 truly is the Bizarro of years.
One of the good stand alone Supernatural episodes. I mean not this good in anyway, but for them.
And anyway, I love the idea of fan fiction (the concept, not the excellent so-titled SPN episode).With fan fiction, even the shit stuff is an homage. This was excellent. How excellent? It’s 1.59am as I type in a rural area and I’m about to immediately watch the next episode with the lights off, that’s how excellent.
2.25am. Bollocks. Did not realise just how new this was. Usually there’s a longer delay in US shows getting to Sky TV. This show so far is just that awesome.
I mean, our entire cultural concept of Hell is mostly based on a work of basically self-insert fanfiction. Dante’s Inferno had an incredible influence on our concept of Hell and not only features literally just him chasing the lady he had a crush on but him hanging out with his hero. A lot of the people mentioned were contemporary figures he’s choosing to punish (seriously, reading The Inferno with annotations is so interesting).There’s a lot of crappy fanfiction out there, but I’ve also read some really good fanfiction. There’s one author who does Dracula fanfiction which is so good I’d like to own it bound- they get the original novel better than a lot of film adaptations.
I have had to explain to more than one person recently what fan fiction is. When the WH called Michael Cohen’s new book “fan fiction” and Rachel Maddow said “I don’t think they know what that is”, I lmao. Back to business, I’m all in for this series.Question: Are the monsters a metaphor? Or just monsters? Or maybe we find out later? I thought maybe they wouldn’t attack Tic George & Leti.
I think your question(s) are going to be the basis for many a film studies paper over the next few years.
Joelle is in the house! Excellent. And so is Jackie Robinson.Hot take: I was so transfixed by the introduction of the characters, the boisterous, and colorful mid 50s Chicago, the intimacy of George and his wife, the block party so phenomenally joyous. Earlier Atticus watched kids trying to play in the water from a fire hydrant, so he opens it back up-just one of many of his fuck yous…….just magic.That George and his wife work on a Green Book like publication, the tremendous reveal that the diner they were visiting for the book had been burned down as it was black owned, all of this so damn compelling that………They should have held off with the monsters until the second episode. This first deep dive into the characters, the place and the time needed to be savored Okay not the biggest hot take but I stand by it.
Damn I didn’t catch that Lydia’s was black-owned, just figured it was an owner who served black people and the Green Book got a tip from a patron.
the floors were covered with linoleum to hide the burn marks, just like the white paint. the kid on the phone said “i didn’t serve them, not after what you did to miss lydia” so the previous owner must have been lynched.
Where was it revealed that the diner was black-owned? The reveal was, as I understood it, that the diner had been burned down because it served black customers.
Pretty certain that you are correct. When the guy working the restaurant is overheard on the phone, he is straight up pleading with the people on the other end not to do to him what they did to Lydia. Given the way that the townsfolk were acting, it seems unlikely a black-business would have even been allowed to open there in the first place.
Honestly, having just dove down a totally fascinating rabbit hole about the history of Sundown towns in my state, a lot of these towns got more racist over time during Jim Crow and accelerated their violence against black folx.
And the mob came from the fire department, right? Same guys giving them the stink eye when they first rolled into town.
I don’t know if it was necessarily black-owned, but the skinny waiter said something like “especially after what you did to Lydia” (or “what I did to Lydia?”) which made me think that, yeah, Lydia was a black woman. I mean, could be they just burned her out because she wasn’t racist enough for them.Speaking of that scene, Uncle George stopping to grab the candy or toothpicks or whatever it was on the table had me rolling.
I don’t think a town this violently racist would have a black-owned restaurant in the first place. It literally took ten minutes for a lynch mob to assemble.
Hell, it’s the 50s. A lynch mob can assemble faster than the Avengers. (But yeah, I think you’re right.)
I think it’s implied they burned down Lydia’s restaurant because she served black people, not because she herself was black.
This first episode hits most of the major scenes in the first half of the book’s first chapter, although there are some changes (the sundown chase for example is a story told to Atticus about someone else that had journeyed into that region) I agree that I liked the book’s version of the woods attack better, but I didn’t dislike this version.
I loved the tension from the road trip crew being hunted by monsters… Didn’t even need those creatures at the end to show up. Not sure I’ve ever seen a monster movie where the monsters were just regular, racist rednecks, but it really played out that way.
Lovecraft books vary in monster reveal. If a monster is introduced early, it means there are worse things in store later on. Remember this is horror – it only gets worse.
Just listened to the Lovecraft Country podcast and one of the writers did say that the previous diner was owned by a white woman who dared to serve black people, which is why she was burned out
In the diner scene there was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment where Atticus appears to slide a floor tile to one side with his foot. What was that about?
It showed the scorched wood underneath the new tiles from the building being burnt down.
I have to say, not being a big reader in this area, to really liking genre fiction being allegories about America and its racism—like the excellent Watchmen. I’ve never seen a car chase where the great threat after you is the freaking Sun. Very clever and pointed. Loved the unexpected James Baldwin passage. Formally, love the cinematography and the color palette. If most or all of the filmmaking was in Georgia, well, that’s an easy irony.
I was completely confused by the timeline until the halfway point of the show. That opening made me think Atticus had served in WWI but the cars and Diane’s mention of a computer skotched that idea, not to mention Atticus still looking like a young man. Turns out, that was a flashback to the Korean War, as confirmed when George and Atticus talked about his father at the front of Letitia’s brother’s house. The phone call Atticus had made earlier in the episode was to South Korea. I assume the woman who answered and who told him not to have come back to the United States is a love he met there, and he might even have a mixed kid.I’m a nearsighted idiot. I had seen Birds of Prey on HBO the night before and completely failed to recognize Jurnee Smollett, an actress I hadn’t known of before. I think it was the change in hairstyles and characters. Great performance and notice how the men discriminated against her gender by not letting her drive in the beginning and she tasked with washing the dishes.I’m white. It was awesome seeing a Black family be, straight down the line, a bunch of nerds. I don’t think I’ve seen much of that before in TV/movies, though, as I said, I don’t read or watch much genre fiction, so probably there are scores of Black sci-fi and horror nerd characters. Maybe this show will do what The Good Place’s Chidi did for philosophy lovers: portray Black people as passionate about things our white-controlled pop culture doesn’t usually have them be interested in. But it’s nice to see that population represented in a major TV series.
I didn’t recognize Jurnee from BOP either and was surprised when i looked up the cast. I thought her tight pants seemed a bit anachronistic but i’m probably mistaken.
No, those pants (they’re called cigarette pants, although i have no idea why) were very common in the mid-to-late 50s. I have a photo of my grandmother in France (my grandfather was stationed there after the war) looking fly as hell in a pair.
I’m guessing either because they are slim-legged, or that they are the type of pants that “cigarette girls” in clubs would wear.
I have always assumed “cigarette pants” were long and narrow in the leg, so they reminded one of the tubular shape of cigarettes. I don’t I’ve ever seen an actual illustration of them, so I could be totally wrong. But yeah, tight for sure.
The opening wasn’t really a flashback to the Korean War it was a dream that mashed together elements from the Korean War, World War I, War of the Worlds, Earth Vs. The Flying Saucer and some of the narration was taken from an unproduced Spike Lee Film about Jackie Robinson and probably a boatload more references I missed.
The narration is from The Jackie Robinson Story, a biopic starring the man himself made in 1950 (the middle of his career, no less).
Thanks. To me it kind of sounded like Sammy Davis Jr. but was wondering who was saying that.
Ah thanks for that, I had just googled the quote and found it in the Spike Lee script. I see the Jackie Robinson Story is on YouTube so I’ll have to give that a watch.
The sexy alien lady was Jaime Chung, so I am assuming that is his girlfriend back in S.K. Looking at Wikipedia, she has a re-occuring role.
Best black nerds since Mike Hanlon.
The family of blerds is hands-down my favorite part of this show.
There are plenty of black nerds, “blerds”. We enjoy manga, sci-fi, horror, cos play, and being smart just like any other bunch of nerds. Popular culture doesn’t usually acknowledge our existence and, to me, it’s because of systemic racism; our existence runs counter to the stereotypes that Blacks are dumb and only interested in rap, sports, and weed.
I wonder who Atticus was talking to on the phone. Definitely a woman. She said Atticus shouldn’t have returned home… Could he be hiding his mother for some reason? Or is this an ex-lover? So many mystery women in this series!He placed the call to South Korea, where he was (presumably) stationed overseas. Notably, the Dejah Thoris-lookalike in his dream appeared to be played by Jamie Chung, so presumably he was imagining the woman he left behind in Korea in that role.
Check out Carpenter’s In The Mouth of Madness for influences, especially the idea of the journey to the Lovecraftian world.
DEJAH THORIS tossin I’M GONNA LOSE MY SHITBecause this is probably the only venue I’ll ever where people might give a shit, Dan Abnett’s current Dejah Thoris ongoing is the best continuation/reimagining of Burroughs work I’ve had the pleasure to read, bar none. HIGHLY recommended.And holy hell, talk about a confident debut episode. Knocked it out of the park on all fronts.
God, that was an incredible pilot episode! I’m beginning to regret my choice of watching this as it comes out instead of waiting a few months and bingeing it. Its good for patience at least. With quarantine going, I keep speeding through shows, so its good to have at least one thing I need to wait to watch, and LC seems amazing enough to keep me hooked week by week
I find some shows are fun to be in on the internet community of it all, and seeing what everyone thinks week to week, I feel this will be one of them!
God, that was an incredible pilot episode! Wasn’t it, though? I was a ball of anxiety from the time they were in the diner to the moment the credits rolled. Good horror, HBO. Good horror.
Love is the heart of fear.
For some reason, I had it in my head that the first season was going to drop all at once (I guess I forgot it was on HBO instead of Hulu or Netflix.) So, I settled in to watch all season and then when this episode was over, it started showing me some other show as the next thing to play. I was disappointed.But, I hadn’t started The Umbrella Academy season 2 yet, so I did that instead.
I was really enjoying it, then the final 30 minutes happened and I was all in. SO hyped to have this fill the Perry Mason void.
You really can’t have black folks running in a period piece without “Sinnerman” on the soundtrack, can you.
Yes but the absolute WRONG version- it’s Nina Simone or gtfo
My subtitles credited it as Nina Simone, was it not? Who was it then?
That was Nina’s.
Apparently it’s a cover done for the show by Alice Smith. It’s definitely not the original but having said that either she is doing an incredible impression of Nina Simone or it’s more a remix than a cover and they’re using the original vocals (sounded like the original piano too, it’s just the other instrumentation that was definitely different along with the structure)
Huh! That’s weird because it definitely sounded like Nina’s version.
I read your comment and initially thought I was crazy… the I went back, relistened (and more importantly googled) and nope, that was absolutely not Nina. No one can do Nina but Nina. They also don’t really sound all that similar, and the original is far more sparsely arranged.
Nice! Just watched Harriet for the first time last night.
if it’s not about Cthulhu then: who gives a fuck?i remember when they tried Revisionist Westerns from 1966 to 1970…didn’t work
But, since most of the dark-skinned women exist on screen as secondary characters, I hope the conversation arrives sooner rather than later.I wouldn’t have called Aunjanue Ellis (or the kid portraying her daughter) secondary characters and, judging by the previews of upcoming episodes, they will become pivotal to the story even more.I’m positive that the colorism issue will come up seeing that Leti is light skinned and her siblings aren’t, meaning that Papa was obviously a rolling stone (I’d be surprised if it’s Mom who was messing around, unless she was a rape victim, which would be a whole other level of deep convo)
Well, they all clearly had the same mom (because the subject of her funeral comes up twice), but having a light-skinned person in a family of dark-skinned people isn’t that unusual.
I didn’t get that they had the same mother, not saying that you’re wrong but I didn’t get that feeling.And, yes, I know that having a light-skinned person in a family of darker skinned people, or, in my immediate family, the opposite happens. Yes, I know how blackness works.
She and her brother fight about Leticia not coming to their mom’s funeral, and I’ll have to rewatch (oh, the horror) but I’m pretty sure her sister says something about “their” mom. Obviously Leticia is somewhat estranged from her family and her brother seems well ensconced somewhere outside of Illinois so I’m not sure what’s up with that – whether they were raised in Chicago and he moved later, or they were raised in the country and the sisters moved to Chicago.I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make it sound like you didn’t! My apologies.
I consider my step-father my father and call him Dad. Like you said, there’s more going on here that I’m sure will work its way into the main story. “Oh, the horror” I see what you did, there. No worries, we’re good!
True! Also I think the complexity of families is something that I hope the show explores – it’s clear there’s a lot of tension between Letitia and her sister and brother, as well as Atticus and his dad and Uncle George. (Good point about your stepdad! In my family it was made clear to us kids early on that we didn’t have step- or half- anything . . . although that did make my cousin finding out that her brother had a different biological father a pretty dramatic revelation at age 11.)
it’s funny I never thought any different about all my steps, but I did call them that to other people, as a way to avoid awkward explanations as an anxious teen. I now wonder if I wound up hurting peoples feelings.
Leti has a line during the fight about how she and Ruby didn’t get to grow up with their dad like Marvin did. I’m thinking Marvin and Ruby are full siblings but their dad died when Ruby was little, after which their mom had Leti with a white or Creole guy.
It does get a little confusing if I refer to my daughter’s sister or brothers to people (her half-siblings from her dad’s other relationships) because they suddenly expect me to have a menagerie of kids in my home.
I hadn’t thought it until you brought up your theory about different mothers (and I still think they do have the same mother), but Leticia and her siblings do have different last names – she is Leticia Fucking Lewis (as she emphatically declares) but her sister and brother are Ruby and Marvin Baptiste. So there may be something there – she doesn’t seem to have a large age gap from her siblings which might imply a mother’s second marriage but possibly a fostering/adoption/illegitimacy scenario.
It’s possible that Leti isn’t related to the Baptiste family at all. I had an uncle. He was a trip with no luggage lol, man he was something else! One time, he threw a brick at a passing police car, shattered the back window. The cops chased him, knocked two teeth out of his head (his words) and drug him off to jail where they served him ham sandwiches, that he found ironic, “pigs serving up ham, ha!” I thought he was awesome, One time, he took us in after we got evicted from a house, and we lived with him for months. He was always there for our family right up to the day he died. We were at the funeral, looking at the obituary and noticed that Mom wasn’t on the list of his siblings. Turns out that “Uncle” wasn’t related to us AT ALL. He went to school with my Mom, his home life was horrible, he was getting beat up by his parents (Mom and Dad was taking turns, basically, because he was such a “bad” child). One day, he shows up at school, looking like he was about to die and my Mom said “why don’t you come stay at my house, tonight?” He did. He never went back home and that’s how he became my “Uncle” and, as my Mom said when I asked her about it, “he wasn’t blood, but he was your family” So, it’s possible that, of all the scenarios possible for how Lightskinned Leti “Fucking” Lewis wound up in the Baptiste’ family, one of them could have been that someone in there took pity on her and she became “family”.
Okay, I rewatched. 🙂 They definitely all have the same mom (Ruby mentions having to move into a cheaper boarding house because she had to spend a lot of money on Mama’s funeral, and Marvin scolds Leti for not going to Mama’s funeral) BUT Marvin was raised separately from Ruby and Leti and only went to Chicago in the summers. So to me that implies Marvin either had a different dad or was raised by the grandparents or something. (And it seems like Leti’s relationship with her mom was as contentious as Atticus’s with his dad – both Ruby and Martin seem to concede that they’d expected Leti to skip the funeral.)
Like I said before, if Leti did have the same mother as her siblings, how she has either a white or Creole father is going to be an interesting discussion.The other, and what I feel, at this point, is the most obvious scenario, is her father messed around with a white (or Creole/half white) woman, that woman had a baby, didn’t want to raise her, Dad brings her home, drops that poor baby on Mama Baptiste’s lap and says “you gonna raise her” which leads to Mama having all kinds of animosity about raising her man’s love child and taking it on on Leti, who had no say in any of that ish, leading her to have a complex, bitter relationship with Mama. When Mama dies, Leti is like “Good Fucking Riddance, I ain’t like your ass, no way” skips the funeral that her siblings knew she would probably do but resent her for it anyways annnnnnnnd here we are.
So Mama is Catelyn Stark and Leti is Jon Snow.
I think they are half sisters in the pilot bio, so maybe different dads!
Her sister indicated that she now lived in a less desirable boarding house because of the cost of the funeral.
The colorism is a HUGE part of Leti and her sister’s relationship. I hope that part didn’t get ditched.
Of course there’s plenty of room for more explicit references to colorism, but I think we were absolutely meant to be thinking about that during the dialogue where Ruby was grilling Leti about her plans. Ruby says that if Leti isn’t here to mooch off of the family, then she’d better go uptown and get a job. Leti is like, “All I could get uptown [as a Black woman] would be housecleaning, screw that, I’ll get a better job downtown at the department store.” Ruby says that’s not realistic— Ruby has tried to get hired there before, forget it. Leti immediately says she’d have a better chance of being hired than Ruby… and she leaves it at that, with no explanation of why that would be, which suggests that it’s the obvious thing they’d both be very aware of and she’s not comfortable talking about.
* Was the battle scene in the opening set in WWII or during the Korean War, where Atticus served?* The opening sequence pays homage to Lovecraft, H G Wells’s War of the Worlds, and Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter novels. The red woman is meant to represent Dejah Thoris, John Carter’s Martian paramour and the titular character of ERB’s A Princess of Mars. As the role is played by Jamie Chung, who we’ve seen in the trailer in a nurse’s uniform, I have a feeling Atticus met her character in Korea and she was the woman on the phone. John Carter was a soldier who found himself fighting in a war on an alien world far from his home, and falling love with a woman who is native to that world. * I thought it was clever that one of the most terrifying — and funny— moments in the show is when the occupant of the mysterious Rolls Royce steps out of the car and reveals herself to be sooo white —- Nordic, Tolkien Elf level Caucasian — and that’s what seems to scare Atticus.* Tonally, the show has more in common pulpy supernatural soaps like True Blood or Sleepy Hollow — when they were good— than Watchmen, but like that show it centers the themes of race and gender that TB and SH addressed peripherally. Also like Watchmen, its very intelligent with the way it uses historical reference, quotations and music to underscore its themes. Using Hip Hop during that period Chicago street scene to point out what remains the same was brilliant.
See it’s Korea, but it looked more like WWI than anything else with the trenches— of course I’m not too familiar with the Korean War, like many other people.
AFAIK the Korean War definitely had trench warfare up the wazoo. Same with WW2 in certain places, really.
It would be interesting to see it covered in media or pop culture more. The forgotten war indeed.
Arguably the biggest sitcom of all time- M*A*S*H- was set in the Korean War (although it used ‘Korea’ to talk about Vietnam).It tends to be used more as a backdrop to period pieces about Boomer childhoods (Kevin’s dad in The Wonder Years) or to contrast ‘ambiguous’ wars versus ‘righteous’ ones (Mad Men and Draper’s military service versus Sterling’s).
That’s true, I was more referencing the actual combat itself. I don’t even know any of the offensives, tactics or anything, or the equipment used.
There are a bunch of Korean films made in the last 20 or so years that are really good:Tae-Guk-Ji Brotherhood of War (billed as the Korean “Saving Private Ryan”)The Front Line71 Into the FireA couple of mediocre/lousy ones with cameos by Western actors needing a paycheck: Operation Chromite, Battle of Jansari
Red Foreman on “That 70’s Show” was a Korean War veteran. I always assumed that the “forgotten” nature of that conflict was one of his myriad sources of resentment. He may have said as much in one of his tirades, but I’m not totally sure.
Still, those trenches look very WWI (in WWII and later photos they are usually more simple) and the way it’s in black and white also made me think he’s dreaming up something he saw on screen not experienced.
The helmet was the giveaway it wasn’t WWI. Plus the UFO’s screamed 1950’s.
Of course it’s not WWI. It’s a dream. And since that dream puts together a lot of real and fictional elements from various times it’s hard to say decisively what belongs to when.
I think its possible the trench fighting was referencing more than one historical war. The fantasy and sci fi allusions in that sequence went beyond the three I mentioned and of course they were other historical references like Jackie Robinson.The dream seemed to be a collage of worlds at war, combining the fantasy Atticus liked to read with the history he had lived through. The Korean War was in a way just as much a world war as WWI or II — it was East vs West, democracy vs. communism. Even Robinson taking on racism in baseball, and America, could be seen as a fight between worlds.
Communism is not necessarily opposite to democracy.
Communism is often characterized as being in opposition to democracy, regardless of whether that is actually true. That characterization would have been particularly prominent in the Korean War, red scare-era US that LC is set in.
Perhaps, but I can’t think of any political system further from democracy than North Korean communism.A more trenchant critique would be that the West (technically the UN) was not fighting for democracy, as South Korea was a right-wing dictatorship until 1997.
Yes, the Korean War was a proxy war, but symbolically it was the communist world vs democracies, just as Jackie Robinson’s battle against the Major League Baseball was symbolically a fight against white supremacy. Tic’s is obsessed with science fiction and fantasy, and the world building that is a primary element of those genres. He is so obsessed that it has become the frame by which he views his actual life as worlds in conflict.
actually trenches were in World War One, not World War Two which Trump thinks was ended by the Spanish Flu pandemic
HP Lovecraft (189o-1937) would probably have been very familiar with WWI. It probably looked that way because it was a combination of Atticus’s war with the big one of Lovecraft’s time.
I know they had a lot of fun at the mobile medical units.
The opening battle scene appeared to be a conflict between humanity from across time and aliens and/or interdimensional beings (I guess those would be the same thing). The hats and trenches reminded me of WWI but I think it was supposed to capture the feel of the John Carter books, which, by the way, are bananas.
Yes, all the worlds in Atticus’s mind — both from fiction and reality — were at war. It would make sense if the trench battle was an intentially ambiguous mix of wars too.
Yeah, as with everything else about that dream sequence, the historicity of the war setting doesn’t seem important. It was a soup of all Atticus’ influences. It conflated several eras of pulp sci-fi, as well (1910’s John Carter, 20’s / 30’s Lovecraft, 50’s saucer men.)He served in Korea, but I expect the point was to evoke “war” in a general sense. It kept fading into grainy black-and-white, which I interpreted as his recollection of wartime propaganda from his childhood. Later, they point out the rift between Tic and his father over “enlisting for a country that hates him,” so clearly the heroic imagery of war movies was resonant for him at some time.
Her whiteness scared me and I grew up as a WASP.
Rewatching the episode, I realize that her close up is the first tight close up of a white woman— or any white person — in the show. That is meticulous planning.
I think the opening was more of a love letter to the pulp books Atticus is reading in the scene and that he loves. As he mentions, he loves the pulps..the war stories, the science fiction and the horror where things ethics are good versus evil, and not the misery we see in the show.
Thank-you for the Burroughs key to the sequence.Someone more perceptive than I pointed-out that “True Blood”, like some other works of vampire fiction, actually ahs really weird politics because most of the ‘paranoid’ fantasies of the anti-vampire extremists: vampires are in fact supernatural rather than virus victims, they have a secret government to which they owe allegiance over the human governments, that the blood-substitute will not end their preying on humans when they can…are exactly right, or nearly (only the last is a little wrong, in that only a fraction seem to be committed to the Old Ways).
Vampires are odd metaphors for marginalized groups or minorities— as they are portrayed in TB — because while many are victims (made undead against their will), their survival literally depends on killing humans.
Glad you are recapping this show, @Joelle Monique. I very much enjoyed your work on The Watchmen recaps.
Those recaps were hella dope and Watchmen itself as well.Needed more of these stuffs, which Lovecraft Country delivers with side of pulpy goodness. Looking forward to next week.
I’m with Lovecraft’s cat on this one.
I think there’s a funny thing going on with “Orynthia” in which the author of the book, Matt Ruff, gave the comic character the name “Orynthia Blue” to match her mother’s name (Hippolyta), since Hippolyta is the name of the queen of the Amazons and there was another Amazon queen named Orythia who, according to myth, went to war with Athens to avenge Hippolyta’s murder. However, Ruff added an “n” in the middle of her name for some reason and the showrunners seem to have kept it there. I think it’s a mistake. Or maybe it really is a colorism reference? That would be surprising. Anyway, if this show follows the book, both Ruby and Hippolyta have fairly exciting arcs coming up.
When you mentioned Baldwin’s speech and the variousi that they were showing, I was hoping you would have referenced the subtle nod to one of Gordon Parks’ most famous photos.
This was such a strange show! Tonally and just a lot about it was really wild. I couldn’t figure out what kind of show I was watching and because of that I’m into it. I loved your reviews for Watchmen so I’m looking forward to the discussion on this one!
Great pilot, makes me want to reread the book but i’ll probably wait awhile to avoid spoiling myself via plot points i’d forgotten about.
The way they tied in Bram Stoker’s work made me laugh being a huge fan of Coppola’s gorgeous ‘92 film. I’m all in for this ride.
The minute I saw Atticus reading ‘A Princess of Mars’, I knew this show was going to be for me. Loved most of this pilot. Great casting. Incredible atmosphere. Some amazingly tense sequences. A very rich, promising milieu for future episodes. If I had one criticism, it’s that I wished they spent a bit more time on the monster sequence instead of it being such a rushed, non stop burst of action.
I always set a low bar for adaptations, just to keep myself from being too disappointed too often – but I clearly needn’t have worried here. That was an utterly amazing hour of television period let alone for ‘genre’ fare.
The last time I enjoyed a series premiere this much was Welcome to the Hellmouth. And that wasn’t even my first Buffy episode.
I haven’t seen it yet, but I very much liked the book. From the description, it sounds like it’s notably different to the book in detail but very much like it in tone, in particular the sense that Cosmic Horror might be just the words to describe being black and confronting racism at its deadliest and most naked.
My understanding is that the woman he was calling was in Korea (where he was fighting in the Korean War) and was an ex-lover maybe? Sounded sorta ominous, but then again why would you call spooky ex-girlfriend to catch up in an era where that call probably cost the equivalent of $78…. I immensely enjoyed the entire thing, and I think my favorite part was where Vance’s character told the cop in the cabin as the sheriff was changing into a vampiric monstrosity as coolly and calmly as possible “you need to shoot him”. No shit man! Between racists and interdimensional monsters you can keep the ‘50 to yourself, please and thank you- although if the D’s had nominated Cthulu that would have really put me in a bind.
I kept thinking “Montrose is going to shit a brick when he gets that phone bill.”
That also seemed to be a bit of an anachronism. I’m pretty sure it was impossible to make a voice call to Korea in the 50s. The first trans-pacific telephone cable was only laid in ‘64. I mean, reliable long distance calling wasn’t even a thing within the US until the late 50s.
I don’t think I could have asked for anything more in a series premiere!I thought the balance between horror scenes was pitch perfect. I was just as terrified (well, more, because it’s real life) for the sheriff chase scene as the giant monsters, but the giant monsters and the direction of that scene in which we had no idea where the threat was coming was great. (Making them vampiric is maybe a LITTLE on the nose but that’s okay)But neither of those scenes were as scary for me as the scene in the diner, when the trio are slowly putting it together that this WAS Lydia’s until she was burned out (and maybe murdered?). When Atticus scuffed that flooring back to see the scorch marks just as Leticia was running out screaming, ooh! My blood ran cold!I thought it was just a perfect tapestry of very overt sci-fi (like, this is a show for sci-fi fans in a way that Watchmen, as much as I love it, was not necessarily a show for comic fans. There’s no subtlety in red aliens and giant vampiric mole rats) and very real horror, and I love that it reclaimed the Green Book, too. And the music and fashion!! (Also, what show gives space and breathing room to just . . . quote James Baldwin? That was amazing and I cried.)I also love how a theme of this show seems to be the debate about separating the art from the artist. Tic and Uncle George both love Lovecraft, but they feel shame for doing so, because they know Lovecraft wouldn’t have loved them. There are so many of us who idolized or built an identity on art that was created by someone we probably wouldn’t be able to stay in the same room as. Balancing what the art means to you versus what the artist said or did is a conversation very worth having, and I’m not sure I’ve seen it done so eloquently in a piece of art itself.(Also, more Hippolyta, please! And her and George’s daughter who clearly has the sight, or something.)(Also also, those street scenes in Chicago that, were it for the clothes, could definitely be modern day, from the hydrant to the army recruiter, were amazing. I wanted to be at that block party.)(Also also also, the direct homage to the Gordon Parks photo!)(Also also also also, with the inclusion of Baldwin and the blow job scene, I wonder if the show will talk about the thread between blackness and homosexuality and how many men found themselves – and find themselves – trying to navigate those two areas of their identity.)
If it’s anything like the book (And the previews indicate it is) then every member of the two families has a story devoted to them
Yay! I was bummed thinking we might have left Hippolyta and Dee behind in Chicago, never to be heard from again.
Two fun details. The storefront next to “Lydias” was still boarded up – in retrospect from the same fire.
The James Baldwin quote was an amazing thematic score to that montage. But he’s also specifically talking about the illusory role that an “Alabama sheriff” lives in. Or a Massachusetts sheriff.
I like how it’s c. 1960 and Atticus interrupts it and doesn’t treat it differently than he would a hetero situation. A stand-up guy. His decade’s Captain America. A shining example of how you don’t have to be a bigot to enjoy Lovecraft’s works.
Hell, he was in the army. This can’t be the first beej he’s inadvertently stepped in on.
Letitia’s wardrobe is a.ma.zing. Those shorts with the buttons up the sides. Her shoes! (I could never wear any of those shoes. I broke my foot several years ago and haven’t been able to wear heels for more than 30 minutes since, but I still love to look at them and hers are so pretty!)
Yes! thanks for reminding me of the Gordon Parks photo reference
I think, like the book, this premiere set it up to be a rollicking, adrenaline filled piece of epic genre fun. Fan-fiction is the perfect way to describe it, and I’m here for it. I have more to say about reframing Lovecraftian horror fiction as a triumph of bipoc and diversity over the unnameable, unknowable forces as missing the point and not really engaging in cosmic horror, but then that would be a really depressing show (spoiler, everyone dies, but not before being driven insane by the inability to comprehend their insignificance). I think Lovecraft Country is going to succeed more in further establishing the right of diverse narratives in the realm of genre /scifi/ pulp fiction. I’m just not sure where I/we can address the bleakness of cosmic horror. But Lovecraft wasn’t all Cthulhu, and taking away those racist stereotypes found in pulp like Lovecraft and Howard is something to be celebrated. But uh…dealing with the Cthulhu mythos that way is sort of missing the point
I was amazed. Yet another HBO series which hits the ground running with both a fantastic introduction and bringing up uncomfortable realistic portrayals of our horribly racist past. Unlike Watchmen, Lovecraft Country has the confrontation of racism baked into its DNA as part of the original text. I expected shoggoths to be a bit blobbier, but I understand it was probably easier to render them as quadrupedal/bipedal.
I really enjoyed the first episode. My only minor nitpick, the location chosen for shooting the scenes in Massachusetts doesn’t look right to me. I grew up in Mass. and the scenery doesn’t look like the kind of countryside and forests you see in New England.
I had the same quibble. Also… they’re in eastern MA and all of the cops are speaking w/ Southern accents? Seems like a lost opportunity to point out that racism was just as prevalent in states that had a history of strong abolition movements. The trope that all racists are somehow drawling yokels ignores how insidious it is (Watchmen was particularly good on this point).
I grew up about 10 mins from where they pointed to the map between Uxbridge and Millville (which was really funny to see those town names in a major production) and I’d agree it doesn’t look like that. It actually confused me for a few minutes that they were already supposed to have arrived in Massachusetts during those scenes. Wrong types of foliage and everything seemed too flat. From a cursory look it appears the show was filmed in Illinois and Georgia. They filmed in White Pines Forest National Park in Illinois and I would bet that’s where a lot of the outdoor stuff was shot from looking at pictures online.
Question for the crowd, I have 14 year old twin boys who are big fans of Lovecraftian monsters/sci fi. They are very excited by the ads for this, but being an HBO production I know that might not be the best idea. I won’t (knowingly)let them watch Game of Thrones for a few more years. Would you let your own kids watch this? Yes with an if? No with a but? I’m excited to watch it myself and would love to share that experience with them.
Sooooo when I was eleven we got HBO and, unbeknownst to my parents, I would watch any movie that even remotely had the promise of boobs in it- I cannot BEGIN to tell you the number of R rated flicks that I sat through (A Passage to India! The Big Chill!) that ultimately a) bored the shit out of me and b) seriously did not have any boobs. That said, one summer night after my parents had gone to bed I was flipping through channels and came across Friday the 13th on The Movie Channel, and it was right on a boob part! I was in. Then I watched the rest of it, scared the shit out of myself and slept with the lights on for a good solid week. I guess my point is that although I was traumatized it had no lasting impact, and 11-year-old me would totally not watch that movie again… which brings us to your question: 14 and 11 are two entirely different ages and maturity levels. At 14 I think they’d be okay with the gore, and the sex (thus far) has been more implied than anything (although I’m sure being 14 they’ve already seen WAY worse on the internet)- but what would make me really think on this is the racism, which is seldom sugarcoated in any real way. However, this may be a feature rather than a bug as far as your kids are concerned- if you have black children it’s a history lesson about thriving black communities and how a lot of us have long loved America even though America hasn’t always loved us back- and if you have white kids it’s an omg-they-did-this-shit-to-black-people-for-realz!?!? situation, which is also an unqualified good if the end result is empathy and understanding. As a parent, I know my kids pretty well and would let my 15-year-old daughter watch without many reservations- but I wouldn’t let my 12-year-old nephew near it based on a lack of maturity.
I have a teenager, who granted is no longer 14, but yes? I think so? There is some quite obvious sex, but it’s not gratuitous. There are bad words, obviously, but nothing they (sadly, in some cases) haven’t heard before.I would say watch it with them, though. There’s a lot of context for the scenes featuring overt and subtle racism that they might need an adult to talk through with them.
Thank you, we’ll try it and see how it goes.
I have a feeling this might get real dark, real soon.(They should start with the book.)
They have read a few short stories, but I haven’t had them try to tackle the books yet. Too much guidance needed at that age for the racist stuff. An hour a week plus discussion I could handle. The gore issue is an interesting one. We’ll see after the first episode if they handle it well. It’s one thing to read about it, it’s another thing to see it on screen. If it’s too much for them, they can always try again when they’re older if HBO sticks the landing.
Ha, not HPL, sorry, I meant this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraft_Country_(novel)
The book pays homage to the mythos, but reworks them into what they really were about: white supremacy.
Ah, ok I see, I very much appreciate you doing my homework for me, and I mean that sincerely. Life is kicking my ass right now and every little bit helps.
I’m a bit surprised at the other replies you got which focused on the sexual content and didn’t mention the gore! FWIW my 16 year old twins are keen to watch this but decided the gore is too much for them. It’s a monster show after all.
The first episode was definitely teen safe. But this being HBO, who knows where things will go the rest of the season.
I, a voluntarily childless person, would think it would depend on the kid. I would let my sister watch this (back in 2009 when she was last young enough to need my permission to do anything in any context). But not my mother.
There is a lot of sex/nudity in the show if that is a concern.
“Atticus and a fellow traveler choose to walk several miles back to town
rather than travel with the white riders on a small truck transporting
them the same distance after the bus breaks down”It certainly wasn’t my impression that they were given a choice in the matter.
Agreed (this wasn’t my impression either and I highly doubt that they had the option of riding on the back of the truck with the other passengers). As a matter of fact, there was a scene where the bus driver assisted the white passengers with their luggage but left the black woman’s bag in the undercarriage. It was Atticus who assisted her.
I don’t think they even bothered to ask or try. Atticus sized up the situation very quickly watching the truck driver saunter to the back of the truck. He knew the answer without bothering to ask the question.
I agree – I don’t think there was ever any question about whether they’d be around to pack in with a bunch of white folks.
I was tensely waiting for them to be snubbed, and when it cut to them walking I was confused, and I assumed it was meant as a commentary on how them being snubbed was so inevitable in the circumstances it didn’t need to be shown.
The score developed a very tense buzzing as Atticus watched the white passengers loading up their luggage, a sort of Spider Sense going off. If he’d tried it would not have gone well.
Yeah, they definitely didn’t choose that. There was no way those white people were going to let them sit in the back of that truck with them. It would be too close. I don’t know how anyone could interpret it as a choice.
I really wish they had murdered the cop when they were turning around during the “U-Turn” scene. Like, just the quick slow down to say, “thank you” and then BLAMMO no more racist white sheriff.
One of his inferrably racist white deputies would probably just have become the new sheriff, and might have made things worse by spreading it around that the old sheriff had been murdered by out-of-town black people. About which his being right would be a coincidence.
“But then, with a casual stroke of his pen, Lovecraft inserts prickling and divisive racism. Every Black human is a mongrel, while he depicts Indigenous peoples as dumb and filthy.”Hey, don’t forget that he also hated Italians, Jews, and Asians! And anyone else who didn’t look like a Teutonic superman (so he presumably hated himself most of all).
He also hated the sea and everything in it.
+1 for the Sea Captain joke
I still maintain he was right about the fucking fish.
Well, if you read between the lines in ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth’ you may want to rephrase as ‘he was right about the fish-fucking’
Don’t forget the Irish. He was terrified of every ethnicity but his own (except that, of course, he was terrified of women of every ethnicity), as well as the countryside, forests, the sea, and the outdoors in general.
To paraphrase Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions… Lovecraft hated anything that wasn’t his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island.
As long as he avoided Federal Hill, and didn’t go near the waterfront!
The core element of Lovecraft’s works, as I understand them, is xenophobia. Makes sense an ardent xenophobe could write about strange terrifying creatures so compellingly.
“Atticus and a fellow traveler choose to walk several miles back to town rather than travel with the white riders on a small truck transporting them the same distance after the bus breaks down”
I read that scene as them being told not to ride, rather than them choosing to walk.
Loved the premiere. The CGI seems a wee bit too obvious, which is fine during the over the top dream intro sequence, but a little jarring in the woods. That said, the pacing was great.The only slip in characterization, at least just in the premiere, is the most confusing. The uncle seems like a slight miss in the diner scene. Since he started the the Guide due to his personal injury, and he keeps it going for years, it seems like he should have been the cautious one and that Atticus/Leti should have been the ones that weighed towards the right to eat there. Especially given the early introduction where he was stressing getting the Guide entries correct, because of the risk to people using it.I hadn’t read the book since it first came out. My memory was that the sheriff was more of a (very) reluctant neutral character, but that could be my mistake.
He didn’t start the guide due to his injury – he got kneecapped during one of his research trips. But I think that’s sort of what makes him so bold – he feels like someone has to suffer for the cause so it might as well be him.
Excellent use of Tall Skinny Papa as a character-building shorthand for Ruby, who (judging from the song choice) seems to be modeled after Rosetta Tharpe. Sister Rosetta started off as a child prodigy, playing guitar and singing religious songs before making a fairly brief attempt at more secular work driven by the influence of her then husband/manager. Ultimately, her heart belonged to the spiritual music of her youth and she spent the rest of her life performing that. But her guitar work was far ahead of its time, influencing the first wave of rock n’ rollers in ways that have not been acknowledged widely. But it’s absolutely undeniable.
I thought the exact same thing.
Playing “the Devil’s music”, ha, Sister Rosetta Tharpe invented it. Rock on. 🔥🏆❤️
Perhaps I’m totally off here, but my read on Atticus’ dream was that it was some kind of mashup of a real memory of his father’s from WWII, and that the alien woman is Atticus’ mother (especially because of the mystery about where his mother is from)
Looks like a well rounded group of investigators. The strong offensive type (Majors), the skeptical but knowledgeable elder (Vance), and the social spit fire who might be touched by the Mythos (??)(Smollet). This is classic Calrpg group dynamic. This is going to be awesome.
I was thinking the same thing while I was watching it. Slotting in how the adventure was run in my head the entire time.
I saw Leti more as driven than social. Athletically prowessed, forthright, politically active. The ambition of Cordelia Chase with the cynicism of Buffy Summers.
Excellent debut! Expectations were blown away in the best of ways. I can only get a little nitpicky about the pace once the Shoggoth’s attacked. It seemed ridiculously rushed. And our heroes seemed just a bit too collected considering all that horror and insanity happening all at once. But don’t get me wrong. I am so very much down with this show. Bring it . . .
Rule#1 of being a Mythos investigator, always have a camera, a flashlight and Listen skill over 45%.
damn peele really went all in on the details.
Misha Green is the showrunner. Peele is just a producer. (Sorry, but after the whole thing with Candyman, it’s really annoying to see Jordan Peele get the credit for work performed by women. Not that it’s Peele’s fault; he’s always correcting people.0
As kids played in the open spray of a busted fire hydrant and the army
recruited young men outside a busy shop corner, decades blurred into a
single never-ending moment.
It’s funny you saying this because as non-American this was such a quintessential American moment for me. The kind of idealised version of scene from American movies. In many way so was the whole episode as for someone who only sees it through media it was all very unreal and foreboding. After all cornfields and woods always hide monsters even if in this case those monsters were human till the very last moment. So yes, it looks like the story of “[a]n American boy, and a dream that is truly American.”
Of course the show also went to confuse me using by kilometres. I did not expect American character in American media describing distances in US in kilometers.
I think the kilometers thing was to hammer home what nerds (I say with love) the trio are. Only nerds use the metric system. (I say with love!) I was wondering how this would come across to a non-American. The show felt very, very American to me (the good and the very bad) – from the cornfields and the car to the music and block party (And murderous racist cops, obviously) – and I wondered if a foreign audience would appreciate it. (Then again, I felt the same way about Watchmen and I think that was really popular outside of the country.)
Everyone uses kilometres (and metric system) except a few English speaking weirdos (even adding you all up it’s like 5% of humanity). ;PWell, we are used to very American fiction so it’s fine but I remember joking even as a kid with my family that we are safe because aliens and monsters only come to US. Also watching stories about different places and people is both educational and escapism.
Still, it certainly feels different than it must feel for you. I remember reading that Stephen King’s stories are so popular because they take boring, mundane places that nothing ever happens in – like small towns in US – into something scary and full of horrifying dangers.
But the way small towns (and cornfields and cabin in the woods and house and etc) look in US is not how they look where I’m from. I only knew American ones from movies and TV and then usually something bad happens there. So for me they are not boring and mundane. They are always foreboding and full of dangers. There are aliens in cornfields and beasts in the forests. After all everything there already looks a little alien to me.
Hush little baby, don’t say a wordAnd never mind that noise you heard It’s just the beasts under your bedIn your closet, in your head
If you’re going to quote Metallica I can think of at least two songs that are far more appropriate. Admittedly ‘Call of Ktulu’ (sic) is an instrumental so not a great one for quoting but ‘The Thing That Should Not Be’ is also all about everyone’s favourite flying octopus god and even goes as far as using Lovecraft’s “That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die*” in the lyrics*Also seen as the epitaph on Eddies gravestone in the album cover for Iron. Maiden’s ‘Live After Death’Yeah. There was a lot of HP Lovecraft in 80’s metal!
Everyone uses kilometres (and metric system) except a few English speaking weirdos (even adding you all up it’s like 5% of humanity). ;PWell, we are used to very American fiction so it’s fine but I remember joking even as a kid with my family that we are safe because aliens and monsters only come to US. Also stories about different places and people are both educational and escapism (not that different from what Tic likes).
Still, it certainly feels different than it must feel for you. I remember reading that Stephen King’s stories are so popular because they take boring, mundane places that nothing ever happens in – like small towns in US – into something scary and full of horrifying dangers.
But the way small towns (and cornfields and cabin in the woods and house and etc) look in US is not how they look where I’m from. I only knew American ones from movies and TV and then usually something bad happens there. So for me they are not boring and mundane. They are always foreboding and full of dangers. There are aliens in cornfields and beasts in the forests. After all everything there already looks a little alien to me.
Tic would also be accustomed to the metric system from the army, which has used kilometers or ‘clicks’ since WWII in line with NATO standardization.
So, I have never seen “clicks” written out, but, having been in the military, I’ve heard it and used it. But, in my head, I always saw it as “kliks.” I guess because it’s for kilometers, which starts with a “k”.
Even the title cards felt very American to me and I’m British. I felt like I was watching a cross between q Stephen King novel, Stranger Things, Guardians of the Galaxy, War of the Worlds, and Mississippi Burning.
Ha! Yes! That is such a good summary. (I unfortunately know – or knew in passing, rather – one of the cops who killed the Freedom Riders and he was the only adult I was allowed to call a fucking pig as a young child without my parents or grandparents whipping my ass. I took great pleasure in saying it at him anytime I saw him.)
“Atticus and a fellow traveler choose to walk several miles back to town rather than travel with the white riders on a small truck transporting them the same distance after the bus breaks down.”
It’s downright adorable that you think they CHOSE not to ride in the truck.
“Could he be hiding his mother for some reason?”
His mother? Whom he called in KOREA? And who spoke in KOREAN?
Jesus…
I probably just missed it, but I didn’t realize their walking to town was a choice – my interpretation was that only the white riders were welcome on the truck that was taking people to town and they were forced to walk. Probably something to do with there being no “back of the bus” to enforce the social hierarchy they so viciously and desperately cling to.
“Is this an allegory for the Black American horror reality”? What do you mean by this?
I was loving it up until it turned into ‘Evil Dead.’ Let’s see how it goes next week.
The names of Uncle George’s daughter and wife are an homage to Wonder Woman and her mother, no?
Huh, I looked up the actors name on IMDb and when the wife’s name came up, I was like, that’s an unusual and not common name for a woman. But maybe you might have something here.
Between Watchmen, Umbrella Academy Season 2, a couple others and this show, I’m beginning to wonder how many times we can go back to virtually the exact same goddamn well. Yes. Racism is bad and southern people suck. What else can we make a sci fi show about?
They “choose” to walk back to town. Right.
This pilot was awesome, though the comparison to Watchmen is merely superficial IMO.
This first episode was just so compelling, chilling, and beautifully shot .I wanted to point out that in addition to quoting Baldwin during the road trip montage, they also recreated Gordon Park’s Segregation Story as well as Margaret Bourke-White‘s flood relief line photo. Just an incredible sequence all around.
Did Atticus and that woman choose to walk after the bus broke down, or were they not allowed to ride with the white passengers and were thus left behind? Because that was my interpretation. “The bus broke down, sucks to be you, nearest town is that way. You best start walking now because you aint riding with us white folks”.
“Atticus and a fellow traveler choose to walk several miles back to town
rather than travel with the white riders on a small truck transporting
them the same distance after the bus breaks down.”Did they have a choice? I could be wrong, but I assumed that they had no option but to walk. If black people are only allowed to sit at the back of a large bus, I figured there’s no way they’d be invited to sit along with the other white folks at the back of a pick up truck.
And this is how a stuntman drives a car full of actors who are concerned with lines and emotions, with hydraulic controls from a crash rig on the roof. Each of the three versions was completely reworked, engine replaced, new brakes and reinforced chassis etc.
Great opener for the series. I cannot imagine what is was like (and still is) to be Black and traverse this country. From what White people consider mundane, like stopping to buy gas, food, or use a restroom, to worrying about being hunted down as sport – it is shameful. A movie simply pulling back the covers on that would in itself be powerful.
I know it added an action setpiece to the show, but it really didn’t make any sense to have them “racing” against sundown WITH the sheriff trailing them while not exceeding the speed limit. That in effect said the racist sheriff was willing to MURDER them for being Black after sundown, but was not willing to fabricate a simple speeding charge to pull them over to facilitate that MURDER. It was just awkward. And after all that they only ended up in the same pre-arranged situation anyway.
And earlier at the broken down bus, I do not think they CHOSE to walk to town. I assumed the truck driver’s stare said “you aren’t getting in my truck”.
Yeah that scene where the gas station attendant was doing the monkey imitation to Tic had me mad a fuck! Ugh I wish he knocked that fucker in his face. And those stupid blonde bimbos all laughing too….made me sick to my stomach.
The sheriff was toying with them.
But WAS the sheriff just toying with them? The idea of sundown towns and counties came from the reality of murdering Blacks simply for existing there at that moment. To say he was just toying MAY be a defensive White position to obfuscate the murderous habits of White law enforcement and society in general. I don’t think a lot of Black Americans thought they were only being toyed with, especially when they actually faced their last breaths at the barrel end of those cops’ guns. I just thought the scene was a little illogical given they ended up right back in the same situation, but worse. In fact, it stands to make the piece-of-shit racist sheriff not look all that bad because he let them go. From a narrative perspective I would just lump those cops together.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mean toying with them in a cutesy way. I meant it in the worst way. He wanted them to think they were getting away. He was playing a game with their lives because he knew he could. How else would those cops know to block the road unless he told them to?
Ah, ok. I get that. You know it would be interesting to watch three focus groups discuss these scenes – one all Black, the other all White, and one mixed, and see what the tone of the discussions and takes are from each group. Hell, throw in a fourth one made up of of non-Americans…
BTW, my son works with me. (We are White) He comes in to work this morning and tells me his landlord sent over a contractor to make some repairs at his place. The guy meets him at the door and asks him, “You’re not one of those Black Lives Matter people are you?” These racist shitheads will not cease until they burn this country down for spite.
What the hell? Why would it even matter? Like who meets a stranger and immediately brings that up? Racists are weird.
Well, when I think of him toying with them, I think of it like a cat batting around a small mouse. The cat knows it’s going to eat the mouse; it just wants to have a little fun first. Where’s the fun in simply killing three travelers on the road right then, when instead you can make them think they might get away while you know full well that your boys are stationed just over the county line to stop them? It’s the same sort of reasoning behind the sheriff making Atticus say “pretty please, can this smart n***** make a u-turn” – the fun is in the humiliation, for him.
Isn’t that the point of the juxtaposition of the sundown chase method with the Baldwin speech though, to show that these racist cops have the twisted worldview that they’re defending their community? If he had straight up murdered them or fabricated a charge, it would have made him look like that gy from Desperation, rather than a twisted product of the twisted society in which he lived.Christ I’m glad I’m British and white. That episode made America seem like a cross between R’lyeh and Minas Morghul.
So they were driving from Chicago to New England correct? Maybe I’m naive about the era they are in but I was surprised at the many racist fucks they came across in the Midwest and Northeast. But hey, I live in Minnesota so what do I know.
That’s one of the great things about this show: puncturing the idea that violent racism was safely contained in the South.
I spoiled myself a bit, but I think the issues you are worried about might be coming up (I am a little concerned about how much of the story we are getting to since we seem to have two episodes of the first chapter of the book). They do seem to be gender flipping at least two characters.
In this entire eldritch-heavy episode, which I loved, the most arresting image was the shotgun in the hand of the man in the speeding truck outside the diner. At that moment, I truly felt like I was living in a surreal and dangerous universe. Truly Lovecraft’s racism, and that of the society in which he lived, was the most terrible and unknowable of all his monsters.
I loved it although the monsters at the end kept reminding me of ‘the Butts’ from season 1 of Doom Patrol.
I finally watched E1 last night (Tuesday) and could immediately tell I was going to love this series as much as Watchmen. I can’t wait for more! #AllyInTraining
This was…surprisingly good, actually. It did everything I wanted it to do. Story, characters, setting, style, themes- Everything was… perfect?
I have no notes.
Why is the novel by Matt Ruff never mentioned by anyone in these reviews and write ups? It is really good and if it didn’t exist this show wouldn’t exist.
Orithyia is the name of a mythological Amazon queen, just like Hippolyta.
Racism is way blown out of proportion. Really wasn’t that bad back then.
You thought they CHOSE to not get in the truck? Really?