Series Review: Lovecraft Country Episode 1

The projects he’s been involved with range from The Twilight Zone revival series that he was the showrunner on to being EP on the remake of Nia DaCosta’s Candyman (coming out later on this year, depending on Cory, the-not-so-friendly-virus).

He also EP’d David Weil’s Amazon series Hunters and now his latest EP role is on Misha Green’s Lovecraft Country, which premiered on 1Magic on Monday (17 August at 21h30).

Misha Green has done a stellar job thus far of adapting and improving on Matt Ruff’s pulp horror-race bender book Lovecraft Country of 2016, which took the lore of H.P. Lovecraft (real life author) of cosmic entities living beneath reality in the American countryside.

Matt injected black people into these stories where they were either overlooked or made to be part of the monstrous setting.
The book told a story of eight loosely interconnected character-based stories and time will tell if the series is going to do the same, where you are not just following one story and one character throughout the book – in this case the season.

Episode 1 – like Watchmen – is concerned with history and the impact history has on the current. The only thing is, here we don’t have super heroes and Dr Manhattan, but we have ancient histories, scary monsters and yes, racism. So it is like Watchmen after all, without the masks.

Episode 1 introduces us to Atticus Freeman (the wimping son in Da 5 Bloods, aka Jonathan Majors) and his uncle George Freeman, played by the ever wonderful Courney B. Vance of The People vs OJ Simpson fame).

We also meet George’s wife (Hippolyta), his daughter and Letitia Lewis, played by Black Canary from Birds of Prey Jurnee Smollett – Jussie Smollett’s sister.

On the face of it they’re set for a straightforward quest of tracking down Atticus’s old man whilst Uncle George updates his version of the Greenbook.

I must say I was impressed with how the first episode went for the patient build-up instead of just jumping into scary monsters and being locked in the cabin in the wood from the get-go.

The team invests in getting us to first get to know the characters and then it introduces the world, politics and the pulp.

We get to see that Atticus has issues with his father. There are shades of abuse based in the damaged walls in the father’s house which are later confirmed.

But we also learn that Atticus does love his father and wants to do right by him despite their complicated relationship.

Letitia is also a bit of a complex character, who on the face of it seems to use her families for her own needs and then bails on them, whilst Uncle George – although a man who believes in liberties – seems to harbour chauvinist ideas that he starts to address within the episode.

Then there’s the mysterious white lady and silver car that we meet on our way to find Atticus’s father in “Lovecraft Country”: the countryside whereby the real life H.P. Lovecraft stories were set, with strange alien creatures.

This is where reality and fantasy blend and the pulp comes to the fore but with a punch.

Misha Green could have just made this a scary series a la Stranger Things but she is true to the intent of the book and one stunning montage brings historical American imagery of segregation to the fore.

The more the episode continues, the more racism becomes more of a threat than the monsters teased in the opening.

In South Africa we may have not named them Sundown towns – towns whereby black people needed to be out of sight after dark or the local whites would have their way with them.

Usually this meant violent beatings and lynching but guys who moved into all-white suburbs in the 90s know the fear of being chased down the street at night for being black by a group of whites and then there’s our pass law history… so basically we’ve had these towns too.

There are some nice history lesson tidbits thrown in throughout the episode, including why the white house is painted white and the history of systematic violence towards black people.

The trio survive being chased out of town to meet legalized oppression in the form of the police.

Sad that in 2020 the police in the US are still the face of legalized oppression. The continuing Black Lives Matter protests and what’s currently happening in Pittsburgh show you how little has changed in the US and how timely and important shows like these are.

Whilst we still in the mix of historical injustices, Lovecraft throws in our first monsters who are not humans for a classic cabin-in-the-woods sequence, which showcases Jurnee’s acting chops.

It is quite telling that even in a dire situation the cops will not let go of their racist attitudes to arm the black folks. The seed of fear and insecurity that fuels racism runs very deep.

Needless to say, just like in Get Out, I enjoyed seeing the racist get the come-uppance and when the trio reached the house where Atticus’s dad is supposed to be and we have the silver car parked outside and creepy white folks answering the door, I started wishing the whole series was out already because I’m already salivating at the possibilities of what is to come.

There are some interesting questions narratively that are yet to be answered: did the white folks call off the vampire like the monsters that attacked the trio and the cops?

Do the white folks have mystical powers because the racist cars did not flip when it bumped into the silver car? Who was Atticus talking to in South Korea? Do they too have mystical abilities? How are the creepy white folks related to Atticus?

I must say, the trailers had piqued my interest and now that I have seen the first episode, the series has my full attention.

I’m sold on the whole blending of horror and history and I’m loving the idea of re-envisioning and reframing tales to address inequalities of the past.

The Americans are doing a great job when we still have to scratch the surface in SA when it comes to using pulp fiction in addressing our collective past.

What it felt like: Indiana Jones meets Mississippi Burning, with a touch of Watchmen.