Lovecraft Country

“Lovecraft Country wears its progressivism like a costume.”

Title: Lovecraft Country
Episodes Reviewed: Season 1
Creators: Misha Green 👩🏾🇺🇸, based on the novel by Matt Ruff 👨🏼🇺🇸
Writers: Misha Green 👩🏾🇺🇸 (10 eps), Shannon Houston 👩🏾🇺🇸 (10 eps), Kevin Lau 👨🏻🇺🇸 (10 eps), Matt Ruff 👨🏼🇺🇸 (10 eps), Wes Taylor 👨🏼🇺🇸 (10 eps), Ihuoma Ofordire 👩🏾🇺🇸 (3 eps), Jonathan I. Kidd 👨🏾🇺🇸 (2 eps), and Sonya Winton-Odamtten 👩🏾🇺🇸 (2 eps)

Reviewed by Monique 👩🏾🇺🇸

—MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD—

Technical: 3/5

Lovecraft Country holds the vast potential to showcase untold stories of people of color in America, especially since the series’ chief focus is scholarship. After listening to the show’s official podcast, it’s evident the writers enjoyed researching Black history to develop springboards for their fantasy narratives. The plethora of historical Easter eggs hidden in each episode even warrant their own separate deep dives.

But a show filled with facts doesn’t automatically make it entertaining. Indeed, Lovecraft Country fails at cogent world-building and character development, proving that the series was more in love with ideas than with the work of entertaining its audience. The pilot earns its reputation as the best, most coherent episode of the entire 10-part season. After that, the series slowly spins out of control, leading to episodes with confusing and offensive plot points.

For instance, there’s never an explanation of why Leti's (Jurnee Smollett) magical boarding house, the main characters’ central meeting place, is physically connected to an evil lair in Washington D.C. Another example of the show’s clunkiness is when Hippolyta (Aunjanue Ellis), the intellectual aunt of the heroic Atticus (Jonathan Majors) develops powers by taking an interstellar trip after accidentally falling into a multiverse portal. Her powers seem more like convenient plot devices, especially since they kick in right before Atticus and the group must travel back in time to save the future. Hippolyta’s journey is more important for the statement it makes—that Black women should be allowed to access all of their gifts at all times—than how it fits into the overall plot. These are just two examples of a laundry list of ways the series fails its audience and risks losing their engagement. In short, the series is a prime example of style over substance.

Other head-scratching moments, such as when Atticus' father Montrose (Michael K. Williams) commits murder or when Leti discovers her boarding house was the center of heinous experiments, land the series in hot water. These storylines get covered in more depth below. With that said, the concepts Lovecraft Country investigates do remain strong. If you choose to stick with the series, it will give you important topics to think about—above all, the show tackles Audre Lorde’s concept of “the master’s tools” in an interesting way. Namely, if oppressed people use the same tools white supremacists use to gain leverage and dominance in society, does that make them better or worse than their oppressors?

The thought experiment could make for a great series that dissects how whiteness is weaponized and politicized to keep others down. But Lovecraft Country seems to want to have its cake and eat it too: The show’s main Black characters come across as three-dimensional and flawed, capable of violence. But the writers also want us to buy the idea that every Black character’s actions aren’t up for critique or debate.

Gender: 3/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES

Lovecraft Country is “woke” enough to commit to passing the Bechdel Test. Still, the series engages in a cardinal sin of Black storytelling: making the heavy-set, darker-skinned Black woman a bastion of evil.

Leti’s sister Ruby (Wunmi Mosaku) should be a subversion of the trope of self-hating, mean, and darker-skinned Black people. But the series fails her by making her exactly that.

The series doesn't commit to breaking down colorist stereotypes by exalting the lighter-skinned Leti as our hero's relatable love interest. Contrast Leti to Ruby, who the writers force to settle for William (Jordan Patrick Smith), a white man who isn’t at all what he seems. In fact, we discover later that he’s actually the evil sorceress Christina (Abbey Lee) in disguise. Even though Leti and Atticus have their issues, their relationship feels more aspirational than the one Ruby gets stuck with, which leads her down a horrible path.

One avenue of Ruby's road to ruin includes sexually assaulting a white man for revenge. Thanks to Christina's shapeshifting elixir, Ruby can change into the form of a white woman. As such, she commits her most violent actions in the series, including her assault of a white man for trying to rape a Black woman. While the storyline wants us to be okay with Ruby taking vengeance this way, this is taking "an eye for an eye" justice too far. Lovecraft Country is asking a lot of us to float the idea that we should accept horrid behavior as a justified means to an end.

Despite the series' adherence to colorism, the writing does allow Hippolyta, also darker-skinned, to shine. Her story is the most well-rounded. Even though her powers remain ill-defined, she becomes one of the few characters with a triumphant and empowering story arc. Seeing Hippolyta channel the universe's energy to open a portal through time, save her daughter Dee (Jada Harris) from evil pickaninnies, and other feats of superpowered exceptionalism are something to behold.

Race: 3.5/5

Lovecraft Country feels most confused when it showcases mixed messaging regarding race and sexuality. On the one hand, Lovecraft Country does expand the scope of Black representation, following a positive trend of HBO investing in diverse storytelling, seen in Issa Rae’s Insecure or Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen, the latter of which was tackled expertly by Lindelof’s majority-Black writer’s room.

While Lovecraft Country has the numbers, however, the quality of representation is a different matter entirely. As mentioned, colorism winds its way throughout the show and it’s no more apparent than in the relationship between Leti and Ruby. To reiterate, Leti—who is lighter-skinned—gets to be the conventionally-beautiful love interest. Meanwhile, Ruby becomes metaphorically hitched to performing a magical form of self-hatred and self-destruction.

Ruby's anger is justified; Ruby has to contend with stereotypes about darker-skinned Black women from both white and Black people. However, instead of using her anger to change society with her sister and Atticus, Ruby unleashes her own inner Karen by shapeshifting as a white woman to get the coveted department store job she’s dreamed of. She also uses the potion to talk down to the only other Black woman on the department store floor; someone Ruby felt she was better than.

She becomes more colorstruck by whiteness as the series progresses, to the point where Leti’s warnings to Ruby about Christina go unheard. Instead, Ruby grows more attached to using whiteness as her personal weapon, making her more dependent on Christina. Ruby loses her righteous anger, which had so much potential to be wielded for good, and instead becomes a fool.

Early on, we can see how Ruby decides to use her access to magic to weaponize whiteness for herself. Case in point—when she decides to sexually assault the white man, who happens to be her boss at the department store. This action is supposed to analyze what could happen if Black people gain access to "the master’s tools" of whiteness and privilege. But using Ruby's actions as part of that analysis doesn't allow for nuance. Instead, the act would lead people to assume that Black people's access to power could be just as dangerous, which doesn't seem like the conclusion Lovecraft Country wants us to make. Lovecraft Country's ham-fisted way of studying Lorde's work doesn't give the audience a sound entryway into her philosophy.

This hit-or-miss record of racial representation extends to non-Black characters of color. Atticus’ former girlfriend Ji-Ah (Jamie Chung), whom he met while serving in Korea during the Korean War, has a compelling backstory complete with magical powers. But on the flipside, we meet Yahima (Monique Candelaria), an Indigenous two-spirit person who Montrose ignominiously kills.

Even though Lovecraft Country is a Black-majority series, it tried to include the stories of other characters of color. This decision could have been a great way to show solidarity across the races and demonstrate how white supremacist society can't succeed in the presence of racial unity. But through narrative decisions like the flippant murder of Yahima—by destroying a non-Black character for the sake of expanding a Black character's storyline—Lovecraft Country winds up wielding the tool of oppression itself.

LGBTQ: 2/5

At the end of the fourth episode, "A History of Violence," Montrose's struggle with his sexuality comes to a violent head when he kills Yahima. Their death is hard to stomach, seeing how they were saved by Atticus and the crew moments before. What makes their death even worse is the fact that Indigenous people, especially those who are also two-spirit, are hardly represented in media.

The series glibly pivots from Yahima's death to Montrose coming out and embracing himself in the very next episode, "Strange Case." With the help of his boyfriend Sammy (Jon Hudson Odom) and Sammy’s drag queen friends Lena Horne (Shangela) and Dinah Washington (Monét X Change), Montrose embraces his truth and even attends a drag ball where he literally dances around in showers of glitter. This moment seems distinctly tied to Yahima—is Montrose's ability to accept himself a reward for killing another person of color on the LGBTQ spectrum? With the two episodes buttressed together, Montrose's evolution feels grim in light of the blood on his hands.

The storyline’s obliviousness caused enough outrage to prompt creator Misha Green into issuing an apology while pledging to be more mindful when writing stories involving LGBTQ characters. While the apology is a step in the right direction, it’s painful to think about how Yahima could have been utilized if they weren’t created solely for another character’s development. Lovecraft Country may give underrepresented people the mic. But by disregarding the importance Yahima had for non-Black viewers, the series risks silencing the stories of other vulnerable communities at the expense of detailing Black pain and trauma.

Worse yet, Yahima isn’t the only queer person of color to be punished in Lovecraft Country. Later in the series, we find out that Ji-Ah had made a friend while serving as a nurse during the Korean War. That friend, fellow nurse Young-Ja (Prisca Kim), makes veiled hints about wanting to live her truth, complete with knowing glances at Ji-Ah and lingering touches. While the show points to Young-Ja’s adherence to Communist ideals and political activism as the truth she wants to live by, some viewers felt “Communism” was a stand-in for queerness. Later, after being rounded up by Atticus' regiment, Young-Ja is shot dead by Atticus himself. Viewers have to, once again, endure a cisgender Black man inflicting the “bury your gays” trope onto other queer characters of color. This murder makes it so difficult to believe that Ji-Ah would ever fall in love with Atticus, but the writers still blithely craft a romance between the two of them.

Ruby’s romance with Christina also falls in line with Lovecraft Country’s penchant for tying queerness to violence and death. Their relationship could have provided an opportunity to address the issues an interracial lesbian couple in the 1950s could potentially come up against. But with Christina as the series’ main villain, the couple is inevitably colored by evil intent. Worse yet, their arc hastily ends with Ruby becoming another victim of the “bury your gays” trope due to her dependence on Christina’s affection and race-shifting potion.

Christina also dies; however, her death is more expected since she’s been trying to establish a permanent white order in America. She becomes white supremacy incarnate. Still, despite the show telegraphing her death, it’s tragic that Christina becomes yet another dead queer character in this series. In this way, Lovecraft Country only wears progressivism as a costume. With this level of casually-written queer deaths, the series is just as regressive as some of its TV counterparts.

All that being said, it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of seeing stars like Drag Race alums Shangela and Monét X Change light up the screen as out gay men who have seemingly established fulfilling, if still “taboo,” lives for themselves in mid-century America. And despite Montrose still never atoning for Yahima’s death, we do get a chance to see Montrose open himself up to Atticus regarding the trauma he faced as a young boy growing up, including being physically abused by his father and seeing his young boyfriend get shot by the KKK. On the directorial side of Lovecraft Country, Cheryl Dunye, the out Black lesbian filmmaker behind The Watermelon Woman (1996), serves as the director of “Strange Case.” However, a few authentic hiring decisions aren’t enough to overlook how the series treats queer lives with such insouciance.

Deduction for Religion: -0.50

In addition to its fumble on queer representation, Lovecraft Country also caught some flack from Jewish viewers. Philissa Cramer writes for Forward.com about the series engaging in antisemitism. In “Holy Ghost” (Season 1, Episode 3), Leti opens her boarding house but discovers that a scientist named Hiram Epstein once used the house to carry out horrific experiments on Black people. The character is used by the series to discuss the culture of white scientists using Black bodies for gruesome experiments under the guise of "medical advancement."

However, in the novel the series is based on, Epstein was originally named Winthrop, leading Cramer to believe Lovecraft Country was engaging in a centuries-old offense of “blood libel.” As Cramer describes, Jewish people have historically been targeted by xenophobes as "stealing the blood of non-Jewish children to use in religious rituals, often to make matzah for Passover.” This stereotype has been used as part of the basis for committing crimes against Jewish people, including Nazi pogroms carried out during World War II.

Within the article, Cramer posts the statement HBO gave her and Forward.com about the charge of antisemitism. The network merely states that Epstein's name "was neither conceived nor intended as a reference to the trope cited."

Mediaversity Grade: C- 2.75/5

Lovecraft Country came swinging out the gate as a “prestige” show, but HBO’s wishy-washy stance on whether the series will get a second season says a lot. While engaging, Lovecraft Country leaves a lot to be desired. The series wants to prove itself as knowledgeable and deeply interested in Black philosophy. But its navel-gazing leaves it vulnerable to huge storytelling and even cultural mistakes.

If the series focused more on telling a fun story rather than proving its encyclopedic knowledge, Lovecraft Country might have been more satisfying of a watch. As it stands, the series is still resting on its potential.

Like Lovecraft Country? Try these other genre titles by Black storytellers.

Grade: CLiMarch 4, 2021Female/Nonbinary Creator