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Lovecraft Country

Olli

(he/him)
I just watched the first episode of HBO's Lovecraft Country adaptation yesterday. It was definitely not what I would have expected, if I hadn't been reading about it beforehand. Not really spoilers: it's about racism in 1950s USA and so far the real monsters seem to have been inside us all along.
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
I'm gonna watch it soon. I read one negative review from a black critic, but everything else I've seen has been a positive response.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
I was surprised that the original book was written by a white guy but the show was developed by a black woman so I expect it to at least care about how it handles race. The depiction of racism seemed over the top in the pilot but it is a horror story.
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
I'm really not sure what to think of this show yet. I caught up to episode 2 tonight, and it did a lot of things I did not expect at all. Mostly, like, instead of stretching some things out over 2 or 3 episodes it just... resolved a lot of stuff already.
 

John

(he/him)
Yeah I wasn't expecting the mansion to be demolished after one episode
They did a little foreshadowing by saying there's multiple Lodges all around the country, so I'm pretty sure the cultists will be back (and not just the young woman and man who didn't get turned to stone). It wouldn't surprise me if the same people show up at every Lodge.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
I haven't seen the show but I can wholeheartedly recommend the book.

However much you think it has resolved, it has resolved less than you think.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
Now I see that the book is a collection of connected stories and it's making a lot of sense why this is a TV show
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
I'm definitely digging the episodic structure. Nice to have an HBO show where conflicts introduced in an episode are resolved in that same episode.
 

John

(he/him)
The new episode dropped early for the long weekend, and it wasn’t great. It pivoted to a horror Goonies, with the same clunky dialog and romance. There was some interesting ideas, like the caverns that tesseract between Chicago and Philly, and presumably others. I also liked the intersex Arawak person being cursed to "live" over one-eyed willy's treasure, but then the episodic reset got rid of that one.

Even the B-Plot was uninspiring. Sister finally goes to apply for her upscale store job, misses out because there's already a Black woman hired. She is consoled by the evil magic aryan. The end.

They can't all be winners.
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
I quite liked it, but then I'm a sucker for an adventure serial. I was definitely disappointed when they made it seem like the Arawak revenant was going to be an actual character, but nope.

The B-plot seemed to be setting up next week's episode.
 

John

(he/him)
I think I'm done with this show. The body horror in this episode was way too much, and the mystery just isn't grabbing me. The first couple episodes were so good, but it feels like it's said all it has to say on the social commentary front. Both Atticus and Montrose have stopped being characters, and are now plot devices. The show lost the "fun" intrigue, and now it's just "bad stuff's gonna happen".
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
The serialized bits are encroaching on the episodic bits and the Hippolyta episode feels robbed as a result. It is gorgeous and entrancing but barely gets any time to breathe because they have to move the (not particularly interesting) plot forward.

I’m still enjoying it quite a bit, though.
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
I am really enjoying this show. Watched the most recent 3 episodes last night to get caught up and every single one was crazy good in different ways.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
Season finale next week.

HBO has now had two genre shows in two years that featured the Tulsa race massacre as a key part of their mythology.
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
I’m really hoping we see an Old One or something in the season finale. The opening dream sequence of the show seems like a kind of sideways foreshadowing of a lot of stuff, and you don’t just tease Cthulhu like that and put tentacles in your publicity photos and call your show Lovecraft Country unless you’re gonna have some sort of cosmic horror.
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
I'm pretty annoyed that they killed a queer character off-screen for the sake of a third act twist.
 

John

(he/him)
I watched the finale, and tried to explain just how dumb the show had gotten to my wife who had dropped off the show after episode 3 or 4.

"So, remember the blonde girl? Yeah, she's the baddy, trying to use magic to become immortal. That blonde guy, that's also her, she used magic to take on his skin. Yeah, not just his appearance, she grows his skin every time she needs to become him. So, the teenage daughter ended up getting cursed by the evil cops who also know magic, so the main characters go back in time to the Tulsa Race Riots in order to grab a magic book. Why they didn't go a day earlier instead of right when all the shit goes down, who knows, that's not how time works here. They end up getting the book, and uncurse the girl, but she's still got a dead arm where the curse demon slashed her in her mind.

The main character still goes to the magic séance that blonde girl wants to do to become immortal, even though everyone told him she needs all his blood to do it, and he needs blood to live. Dunno why he didn't just nope that out and hop off to Canada, considering his aunt is now a superhero because she went traipsing off through time and space, lived a couple hundred years, and has infinite knowledge. She could probably find a way to hide them. But anyway, he martyrs himself, gives her all his blood, and then his fox demon he met in Japan in the war sucks all her powers away through evil tails that come out of all her orifices.

Oh, and when this was going on, Aunt Superhero took teenage daughter through Time and Space, and gave her a terminator robot arm instead of her dead cursed one, so she killed blondie good. Now she's supposedly gonna go off having adventures with her pet shoggoth.
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
I guess I'm in the minority here because I liked the show pretty well the whole way through? Give me alllll the dumb genre tropes, please and thank you.
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
Oh, I definitely enjoy the show quite a bit and will watch season two if it happens. I want to see more of Leti’s “I cannot deal with this today” face anytime a new supernatural thing enters her life.
 

muteKi

Geno Cidecity
The wife had put this in and oh dear the combination of a small group of Black people surviving racism in the 50s and Draculas is exactly in the center of my strike zone
 
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