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| Courtesy: HBO |
Atticus may be the one with mystical
secrets in his bloodline, but Leti is the star of the show in this
episode, as Lovecraft Country
returns to Chicago and tries something completely different. In terms
of its supernatural plot, Holy Ghost
feels a bit like the show's first monster-of-the-week episode, as it
presses pause on the Cthulhu mythos elements and the Braithwhite
family legacy and instead tells a classic haunted house story, with a
twist exploring the racism of the 1950s as pioneering black families
began to desegregate neighborhoods. But this episode is also crucial
to the series' character development, as we learn a lot about Leti,
and explore her motivations, desires, and insecurities. Misha Green's
writing is again on-point when it comes to her talent for character
development, and her skills at balancing supernatural and real-life
horrors, and Jurnee Smollett carries the episode with a powerhouse
performance.
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| Courtesy: HBO |
After
coming into some unexpected money, Leti decides to buy a house on
Chicago's still-all-white North side, and turn it into a boarding
house and safe haven for her artist and activist friends, as they
form strength in numbers to try and desegregate the neighborhood. It
doesn't take long for her racist white neighbors to start a campaign
of harassment and threats of violence, as she, Atticus, and her
friends take a stand. A more unexpected problem, however, is that the
house turns out to be maliciously haunted, by the ghost of a white
killer and the restless souls of his black victims. Both plotlines
are very well-told. The haunted-house story in particular is
extremely creepy and effective, with some truly unnerving imagery and
very nasty gore. And as with the first episode about sundown towns,
the dramatic plotline about the characters taking a stand against the
segregation of the neighborhood is excellent in its own right. But
both stories are particularly compelling in what they tell us about
Leti.
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| Courtesy: HBO |
One of
my only gripes about the first episode of Lovecraft Country
was that we got so little backstory on Leti, to really get to know
who she is; looking back now, I see that that was probably the point
all along. Leti is a woman who is aggressively trying to move on from
her past, and redefine herself as a strong woman rather than the
wayward misfit kid her family in Chicago still treats her as. The
more we learn about her, the more we learn that the distancing from
her past, and the focusing on the present, is very much deliberate.
Amid the civil rights movement building up around them, and after the
otherworldly horrors of the last couple episodes throwing her
worldview into upheaval in a way that only Atticus really
understands, she is trying to find her place in the world, her inner
strength, and her path forward, and this episode sees her navigating
all of those things in a big way. She is a wonderfully multi-layered
character, with so much more going on internally than the surface of
the script reveals, and Misha Green's writing and Jurnee Smollett's
acting do a beautiful job of conveying that.
This
episode also sees Michael K. Williams move up to series regular, with
the iconic The Wire and
Boardwalk Empire star
taking the already stellar cast up yet another notch. Since this
episode is so thoroughly Smollett's show, Williams doesn't get a ton
to do, but his scenes as Atticus's largely-absent father Montrose are
quietly powerful, and Montrose's tense relationships with the rest of
the family add some powerful complications to the character dynamics.
It will be very exciting to see how his character develops and works
within the ensemble going forward.
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| Courtesy: HBO |
Holy Ghost
is another very strong episode of Lovecraft Country,
better paced than its predecessor, and just as strong as the first
episode in its combination of real-life and fantastical horrors. The
way it really explores the motivations and internal life of one of
our core characters is very effective, and both Leti as a character
and Smollett as an actress really shine. Hopefully subsequent
episodes will dive into the characters of the other family members
just as effectively. By breaking away from the core
Braithwhite/Cthulhu mythos and doing something so different, the
episode also broadens the horizons of what Lovecraft
Country can be, and gives the
show the possibilities to explore all kinds of supernatural plots.
Definitely a good sign for the show's longevity, both in this season
and possibly beyond.
Score:
-
Christopher S. Jordan
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