# Lovecraft Country S1 \[SPOILERS within\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, hbomax-wb-dc\ **Created:** [July 26, 2020, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355 "2020-07-26T02:19:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2020, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/1 "2020-07-26T02:19:27Z")
[![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvamPJp17Ds) omg omg OMG YES! This looks amazing; I am so in! 16 August 2020 is first episode! I can’t wait! ---
**Author:** ![bmoak1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f4b2a3/32.png) [@bmoak1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak1)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/2 "2020-07-27T02:54:46Z")
Read the book. Tempted to get HBO just for this. ---
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/3 "2020-07-27T03:13:12Z")
Matt Ruff said he conceived the novel as a TV treatment — a monster-of-the-week show like “X Files.” Researching a travel guide is a great way to move people around 1950s America … I’m curious whether the show will take advantage of that opportunity. I think episodic storytelling has potential in prestige TV, and maybe it’s just me, but I feel like it rarely gets used. (For fans of the book I’ll recommend two other recent re-examinations of Lovecraft via fiction: the novella “The Ballad of Black Tom” and Alan Moore’s graphic novels “Neonomicon” and “Providence.”) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/4 "2020-07-27T03:16:48Z")
Make your sanity roll. ---
**Author:** ![westofley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3da27b/32.png) [@westofley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/westofley)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/5 "2020-07-27T03:48:09Z")
I’m so stoked for it. I love Lovecraftian horror (although Lovecraft himself can be a little dense at times). Should I read the book? ---
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2020, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/6 "2020-07-27T05:28:16Z")
I’d recommend the book highly! It is more a “critique of” or “reckoning with” than an “homage to” Lovecraft. Chiefly on grounds of race, though also on other grounds. But it does this while having a good time rolling around in the genre sandbox. I particularly liked how it includes stories from all over the Lovecraft Mythos — not just the alien god stories, but the witch stories and haunted house stories and the sci fi and… It’s episodic in structure but with a longer narrative arc, much like, well, a TV show. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/7 "2020-08-17T02:27:33Z")
So the show premiered tonight and after watching it, I noticed something. In the past year or so, HBO had Watchmen, The Plot Against America, Perry Mason and now this show. All are in part about how racist, sexist or anti-Semitic the US was during the twentieth century (and really mostly the first half of it). Am I just lumping four unrelated series together? ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/8 "2020-08-17T02:34:42Z")
Well, I think that there is a cultural change where more voices are being heard and the accepted narrative on American history is being challenged in a lot of works of art. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/9 "2020-08-17T03:08:47Z")
Recording and I hope it lives up to expectations. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/10 "2020-08-17T18:47:06Z")
I went in never having had this show on my radar at all and holy cow, it’s good! The evocation of Chicago black neighborhoods was so vivid, the characters are already so fleshed out and holy shit, the tension! And the music, my goodness, SO amazing! I’m hooked, they’re gonna have to work hard to turn me off this one. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/11 "2020-08-17T19:13:41Z")
I’ll be honest; I did not enjoy the racist assholes, first outside that diner and then the racist Massachusetts sheriff and his asshole deputies. On the bright side, most of them died, some quite horribly. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/12 "2020-08-18T01:08:23Z")
I casually tuned into this, and ended up really enjoying it. I don’t know how much input Jordan Peele and JJ Abrams actually had into the details, but it definitely has the feel of Get Out/Us meets Super 8, and I like that. Can’t wait for episode two. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/13 "2020-08-18T02:03:03Z")
That was an outstanding first episode. Very theatrical. Well plotted and well done. I love the music. I can’t wait for the next episode. What year are we in though. Atticus mentioned fighting in Korea, so I’m guessing early 1950s based on everything else. At first I thought late 40s. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/14 "2020-08-19T17:07:05Z")
Wow, what a great first episode. The racism was, fittingly, far, far scarier than the monsters. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/15 "2020-08-19T18:26:54Z")
Just finished the first ep. Even though I figured our protagonists would make it, my heart was pounding during the sunset scene. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/16 "2020-08-19T18:35:37Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > What year are we in though. Atticus mentioned fighting in Korea, so I’m guessing early 1950s based on everything else. At first I thought late 40s. I think that makes sense–I was trying to date things with the cars but it’s difficult, but the Woodie wagons stopped being made circa '53 or so and the Woodie they’re driving around looks pretty pristine and likely would have been a late model for the time, say a '48-50 model. The clothing silhouette on the women really says '50s to me as well, and I don’t think that shorts outfit Jurnee was rocking would have flown earlier but for early '50s, yeah, that would fit. Korean war ran from '50-53 and Tic is schlepping around a military duffel bag like he just mustered out so that fits too. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/17 "2020-08-20T14:41:09Z")
I liked it but I knew the monsters were going to show up in the woods in Mass. to kill the white guys. ---
**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/18 "2020-08-20T14:52:28Z")
I read the book quite some time ago. Going from memory, wasn’t there a lot more that happened before they left Chicago? Like I seem to recall some clandestine meetings in a library or a church while trying to work out where Dad went. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/19 "2020-08-20T15:34:13Z")
Interesting geography choices. They make up a county, Devon; they also have a town called Ardham, I suppose based on Arkham; but the brother also identifies one of the hotspots as being between the two very real towns of Uxbridge and Millville (which caught my eye because that’s about 30 minutes from me). There’s a good zoo in that area, but I don’t recall ever seeing anything quite like that there. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355/20 "2020-08-20T15:47:04Z")
If you see any people who look like fish, just leave them alone. Or you might have to use words like antediluvian and chthonic. No one wants that. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lovecraft-country-s1-spoilers-within/916355.md?page=2)