Lovecraft Country: Whitey's On The Moon Books Included

August 24, 2020 4:20 AM - Season 1, Episode 2

The lodge of the Sons of Adam fills with guests, including Letitia, George and an increasingly suspicious Atticus, on the night before a major ritual. Our heroes are tormented by memories and plan their rescue of Atticus' missing father. This thread includes discussion of Matt Ruff's original book of 8 linked short stories.
posted by mediareport (4 comments total)

Loved the change from the original that had Atticus saved by the power of his escaped slave ancestor rather than magically saved by kind white saviour Caleb Braithwaite. Hey, surprise - Black folks can have magic in the TV version. It's also now clear we have a gender-swapped Caleb/Christina (with William being her non-Braithwaite sidekick, apparently?)

I did not expect them to plow through the first, longest story in just 2 episodes and I am here for the rapid pace of plot development. Such a huge contrast to, say, EVERY NETFLIX SHOW EVER. That said, the writing in this episode felt clunkier than the first, with the same kind of too-convenient turns that were a flaw in the book (the way George puts together where Montrose is being held was particularly "who cares, we need them to find the dad quick"). But the good moments were very, very good and the more I think about Atticus being attacked by his Korean War memories the more I like that thread they've added.

That opening Jeffersons theme told me Misha Green makes the aesthetic choice regularly to yank you out of her show into a meta-awareness of Showness, which is weird, but I like weird (and I loved the modern hip hop in the street party scene last episode). Next time I cycle through streaming services to Hulu again, I'll check out her previous show Underground. There's a kind of fearlessness there that I can admire even when it doesn't always work for me.

I really hope Uncle George comes back as a ghost. At this point, I can't see this show *not* bringing him back as a ghost.
posted by mediareport at 5:01 AM on August 24, 2020 [5 favorites]

Oh, meant to add: I'm excited to see what this team does with the story where Ruby gets a potion that lets her turn into a white woman. The book version started as a sharp Jekyll and Hyde riff but petered out into The Lady and the Tiger, and I expect that Misha Green and Co. will do much more interesting things with it.
posted by mediareport at 5:08 AM on August 24, 2020 [4 favorites]

It's interesting seeing the reaction of people who are not familiar with the book mirror my "wait, what, I thought this was going to be the main story" reaction at the end of this episode/the equivalent chapter in the book. I recall it being jarring in the source material but it quickly recovered on the strength of the characters and subsequent stories.

It's a bit of an odd episode even while it sets up some players and themes. There were some awkward transitions: going from the dinner scene straight into the rescue, the previous night's woodland excursion, the resolution to Letitia's nightmare/vision etc. But like mediareport above, I much prefer this approach to them spending half the series on this "prologue".

In part because I know what's coming, I'm excited for the rest of this and the performances, costumes and overall presentation continues to impress.
posted by slimepuppy at 7:19 AM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]

That opening Jeffersons theme told me Misha Green makes the aesthetic choice regularly to yank you out of her show into a meta-awareness of Showness, which is weird, but I like weird (and I loved the modern hip hop in the street party scene last episode).

Same here. Normally wildly anachronistic soundtrack songs are a big Nope for me, but I love the way Green is using them in LC so far, even the Marilyn Manson song.

I loved this episode just as much as I loved the first one, and I felt like I was right there with the characters in several scenes (eg, the looks on their faces when the woman started talking about the black bears). I so want to run around solving mysteries and fighting racists with Letitia Fucking Lewis and Tic.
posted by lord_wolf at 2:38 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]