The cover shows Topsy AND the white girl Eva. And supposedly the young actresses/dancers in the show are one white girl and one black girl—it’s not two of Topsy.
Which makes the message rather muddled. If only Topsy were haunting and menacing Dee, it would be something like ‘your own past, and specifically the way white people interpret your past, is toxic’. But with one white girl and one black girl…I’m not really seeing it. ?
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Seriously.
And this ‘sex = insanely-messy destructiveness’ theme has been presented repeatedly not only with the Ruby/Christina/William storyline, but also with the Korean War storyline. Which has no other relation to the R/C/W one than the presence of Tic, who is an associate of the others.
There’s a level of obsessiveness about this that doesn’t seem to be serving the themes of the show, but rather some personal preoccupations of the show-creators.
I haven’t read the article yet, but regarding that bit, I thought that was sorta the point: that in a world replete with dark magic, monsters, demons, and so on, the scariest threat to black lives is generic whiteness, a sort of blank canvas stand-in we can all project our own notions of just what ‘whiteness’ means onto.
We shouldn’t forget that film and TV aren’t necessarily realistic; it’s not meant to be just a depiction of events as if somebody standing by just had trained a camera upon them. Rather, the images shown are evocative and symbolic: that’s why in car chases, cars explode that wouldn’t do so in real life—that’s not an error in the film, it’s a portrayal of the rushed excitement, adrenaline and chaos in the story that you don’t have any other way to transmit through a primarily visual medium. It transfers this excitement to the viewer, without needing them to take part in their own car chase.
It’s the same with interactions between black and white characters in the show: it’s meant to portray, I think, the black experience of these interactions; in that way, the possibly hyperbolic depictions are actually starkly realistic in portraying the experience of fear, anger and anguish, often to an uncomfortable degree. I think that’s something the show gets right; unfortunately, the narrative itself occasionally gets buried as a result.
Interesting–thanks. I don’t think that was made clear, though (and as DigitalC posted, some viewers were likely to assume that the book cover’s two figures related to the two figures seen menacing Dee).
If they wanted to have two black girls be the supernatural threat to Dee, shouldn’t they have mentioned Bopsy? (Or was Bopsy mentioned in the show and I just missed it?)
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Thanks for that response. There’s definitely a lot to think about, here.
Not to spoil anything specific for those still catching up with Sunday’s show, but: it’s a good thing that Leti’s dress is—apparently—as invulnerable as she is.
From the quietude in this thread not sure if anyone else is still watching this show but I am.
It was clear that Hip had to come back to save her daughter but I think there could have been less eye rolling ways to contrive for her to run the machine.
The preserve the timeline so I get born no matter what suffering we could otherwise prevent bit always bothers me. Why are you so important Tic? Why does your relationship getting a chance to exist override doing something Leti?
And then of course things are the way they are because they had been there, chicken egg bootstrap … yawn.
Some serious themes but not handled so well. And Ruby’s apparent easy move to more evil so long as her sister isn’t hurt seems off.
I’m hoping they pull it together for a solid finale.
I agree. It almost felt kinda exploitative—all of the terror and murder just so nothing gets changed in the future? It’s not like the future’s so great… It would’ve made a stronger point (in my opinion) if they’d immediately tried to change things—because screw the timeline, this is clearly horror that shouldn’t be permitted to run its course unopposed—but found that they can’t, because that’s just the sort of universe we live in: that’s what makes the horror cosmic.
Just finished it loved Ep 1-2 and a good and satisfying season finale, but in between I found the plot too jumpy, murky and confusing. Great special effects.
The Watchmen and this show have some similarities, not just on the racism, Tulsa, and evil police elements, but also because both shows are super confusing if you aren’t familiar with the source material and still confusing even if you are. But with the Watchmen, the finale managed to tie up all the loose ends. I did not find that satisfaction with Lovecraft Country. In fact, the finale just compounded the confusion. I had to turn to the internet to help me make sense of the whole episode.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the whole season though. Episode 9 was so powerful that more than a week later it is still on my mind. I liked all the characters–even Christina–so even though I didn’t know what the fuck was happening half the time, I still cared enough to try to figure out what they were up to.
My thoughts about last night’s show and the whole season:
I think the last scene is setting up Dee to be an anti-hero character in season 2. Leti et al. were satisfied with just binding up white people. But I think Dee and her new Terminator 2 arm are more keen on revenge, and she probably won’t be a very discriminating one since she doesn’t hesitate even a little bit as she kills Christina–a person who Dee had never even met. Dee is the truest victim out of all of them. Lost her father to racists (or so she’s been told). Lost her best friend to racists. Psychologically and physically tortured by racists. Lost her arm to racists. People have been turned into vengeful killers for way less.
I kinda hope Christina isn’t really dead. I know she’s the antagonist of the season, but she’s a soft one compared to the racist police officers. Christina is borderline sociopathic, but it’s an acquired sociopathy–not one born from inherent evil, but one from being a magical person who was unloved by her father and separated from regularfolks. Her ass needed to be binded because she was fixin’ to do bad things with her wizardry. But she did have a human side, as evidenced by 1) her relationship with Ruby, 2) her putting the invulnerability spell back on Leti, to fulfill her promise to Ruby, and 3) her singing that she-bop song on the way to Ardham!
I hope Ruby really isn’t dead either. Not just because she’s my favorite character, but also because it doesn’t make sense that she would be dead. Ruby’s white woman and William are both alive. Comatosed, but still alive. So why wouldn’t Ruby be? Christina, after all, clearly loves her. So I just don’t think she’d kill her.
I love how the show started off being about Tic, but Leti is actually the protagonist of the whole thing. She’s the one who saves George and Tic from the KKK at the diner. She’s the one who FloJos to the car in the forest with all those monsters running about. She’s the one who exorcises the spirits from the house. She’s the one who gets the Book of Names. She’s the one who learns the incantation that binds up Christina and all the white people. Tic gets crucified at the end, but Leti is the savior. The writers do an excellent job of foreshadowing this in just about every episode (I’m remembering specifically the scene when they’re in the museum basement and a very pissed off Leti lets Tic know that he’s not the only one invested in solving the puzzle, so quit pushing her to the sidelines. Later she tells him he ain’t the center of the universe. “I am, bitch!” she probably wanted to say, but didn’t because she didn’t know what the future had in store for either of them yet.)
The story is every bit as much about sexism as it is about racism. We see from the very beginning how George did not view Hippolyta as an equal partner. It took him running around with Leti to show him that women can do some things too. George’s death is the best thing to happen to Hippolyta. She only spends a few minutes reconnecting with George after she goes through that multiverse contraption, choosing to reserve the rest of those 200 years being the Miss Thing she has always wanted to be. We also see how sexism has turned Christina into the diabolical force that she is. You can hardly blame her for gunning for Tic–whose penis somehow makes up for the fact that he only has a "one drop’ connection to her father and thus entitles him to the kingdom she has spent her whole life hungering for. I’d probably be a bit evil-esque too, if I were in her shoes.
I think they jammed way too many things into that last episode. I feel like the mind-melding trick of Ji-Ah was used to reveal the answers to all the mysteries of the episode so that the writers had license to go extra crazy. Also, what the hell did Leti tell Ruby in the cemetery to convince her to help her? Maybe it will be revealed in season 2…along with the reason for Leti being in jail during her mother’s funeral. I look forward to seeing what other adventures the gang will have, but I will definitely need to rewatch this season first!
I’m not sure why you expect a season 2, that seemed like the end of the story to me. I’m sure they could force another one if they wanted, but much like Watchmen this was a self contained one season story. They took away all magic from white people and killed Christina, there is nothing more to tell.
I’m super curious what Leti et al. will do with all this magic. Will they use it to transform Jim Crow America into a racial utopia? Or are magical black people no more immune to evil than white people? And how will Leti and Tic’s son figure in all of this?
I don’t how anyone could think there’s nothing more to tell.
One thing I wish the series had dealt with: giving us some idea how prevalent the use of magic really is. Since the 1950s world of the show was pretty much identical to what we know of the actual 1950s, presumably the answer would be ‘use of magic is extremely rare.’ But then again, it’s possible the show’s creators simply didn’t think it was a point of any interest.
I agree with you that Ruby is likely to be in a coma, rather than dead. Christina may have said what she did purely to throw Leti off-balance.
I guess I’d look at the show if it gets another season. But to my mind it has a lot of problems. There was a lot of sloppy writing, and worse, far too often the message conveyed was ‘if you’re in trouble or even just unhappy, violence is the best remedy.’ (Granted, there’s complexity in that message which will vary according to the life-experience of the viewer.)
Still, I can see how the show might be deeply meaningful to many, and I’m glad it was made available by HBO.