Welcome to Multiversity Comics’ coverage of Lovecraft Country! This is the buzziest HBO debut since last year’s Watchmen and I am thrilled to report that it absolutely lives up to the hype. With its third episode, the series shifts gears but stays as strong as ever.
Quick author’s note: I previously (embarrassingly) thought Leti and Tic were cousins but they’re just old friends.
1. Leti Takes the Floor
“Holy Ghost” is a very different episode of Lovecraft Country than we’ve seen before both in its scope and its subject. Here, we get the Misha Green spin on a haunted house story- one where Leti is the star- in yet another very strong episode. We open about three weeks after the death of George Freeman; Tic holds down the fort with his family, staying with a mourning Hippolyta and checking in on his mess of a father. The central point of the episode, though: Leti opens a boarding house for Black people in an all white neighborhood and it has…complicated results. This is a much smaller episode than the last couple in a lot of ways. We’re dealing with the haunting of one house and very specific instances of racism. There’s no secret societies, no introductions to ensemble casts. Mostly we see Jurnee Smollett act circles around everyone else on television as she anchors an affecting, great episode.
2. Haunted by Whiteness
It wouldn’t be an episode of Lovecraft Country if the horror wasn’t equally rooted in the supernatural and the terrifying truth of what living in America as a Black person looked like in the Jim Crow era. In “Holy Ghost,” there aren’t witches or vampires. Here, we get ghosts and white neighbors. The first are actually a relatively minor focus on the scale of things. The house used to be owned by a white scientist named Winthrop who did inhumane experiments (like exchanging and removing body parts) on Black people in his basement. Naturally, his victims still wander the house and Winthrop still occupies the basement. They, more than anything, serve as fuel for Leti’s fear in her home and are handled as a collective in the ridiculously good final act of the episode. The greater threat to the residents of the boarding house are their very unwelcoming neighbors. There are two major incidents after Leti’s boarding house opens. First, a group of men park their cars outside of the house and tie bricks to their car horns in an effort to antagonize the new residents of the neighborhood. The second happens as Leti hosts a party and a window shade is opened to reveal a burning cross on the lawn. As a viewer, it’s a gut punch even if its par for the course given what we’ve seen before now. For Leti and the people around her though, it brings a moment of clarity and empowerment. Leti grabs a bat, shatters the windows of the cars outside her house and knocks the bricks off of their wheels. Now, it’s not empowering in the traditional sense- there’s very little actual material triumph. But when Leti’s walking with her bat, it’s not just with rage, it’s with a certain swagger. There’s something unlocked in her and it leads to one of the most powerful moments of a generally powerful episode.
3. Sister, Sister But Make it Sad
“Holy Ghost” really digs into Leti and Ruby’s relationship for the first time and whew, there is quite a lot there and we only really get a few minutes of the real meaty stuff. Things start out on a hopeful note: after years of asking Ruby for favors, Leti is finally able to give her sister something- a free room in the house she’s bought with mysterious funds. For the bulk of the episode, the interactions we see between them are pretty positive! But then, late in the episode, Leti slips up, mentioning the fact that she has some money left over from what their mother left her. What follows is a heartbreaking scene of sisterly strife. Ruby let’s out all of her feelings about Leti being unreliable and needy and a negligent family member and Leti stands there and takes it. Wunmi Mosaku draws from a deep well of emotion and delivers a knockout performance in the moment, making her demolishing feel real. Smolett is the straightman in the situation and she plays her heartbreak well. Next week is the much-hyped Ruby-centric episode and this scene made me incredibly excited for it.
4. Like an Onion
Probably the most important scene of the episode is a more fleeting one. As the party rages at the boarding house Leti moves around, ably playing the role of hostess. She moves fluidly from room to room and floor to floor, exuding warmth and energy to everyone she sees. As Leti begins to dance and flirt, Tic looks on, barely containing his jealousy. Soon, Leti stands in the bathroom and turns to leave only to find Tic standing in the doorway. The door closes and in the blink of an eye, the two of them are having sex. It’s over quickly and there’s a certain sting after when we’re made aware of the fact that Leti is bleeding. Tic briefly apologizes before leaving. Afterward, we learn that it was Leti’s first time. Despite what we assumed about her based on her confidence and flirtatiousness, Leti holds a vulnerability that we as viewers, and Tic as a character, didn’t appreciate and didn’t even entertain as possible. We’re confronted with that when Leti breaks down within moments of Tic leaving. There’s also an extent to which is demonstrates a misunderstanding of Tic that we’ve had. He’s seemed to be a gentle giant of sorts and while this doesn’t undercut his noble nature, it does add a darker dimension to him as a character. There’s a lot of weight to these moments and seeing what comes from it it sure to be great.
5. Another Great Final Act
Lovecraft Country deserves an award for its final acts alone. In “Holy Ghost,” everything culminates with Leti, Tic, and an Orisha (an African witch) working to exorcise the ghost Winthrop. The scene is pretty crazy in concept alone but honestly really kicks into high gear when two local white dudes break into the house to do god knows what hate crimes. They meet their fates at the hands of the ghosts of Winthrop’s test subjects in a gruesome and darkly empowering sequence. Then things kick into even HIGHER gear when the Orisha and Tic get knocked out. Winthrop tries to possess Tic but then the Black test subjects join hands with Leti, helping her oust him from the house in a moment filled with power and rage a sort of magic. The most striking part of that by a fair bit is that as Winthrop loses his grip, all of the ghost start to look more like themselves. One with the head of a baby gains the head of a man. One regrows a shriveled arm. It’s a moment of power literally being reclaimed by Black people. Then, best of all, Leti gets some semblance of a happy ending, ultimately being profiled by a Black journalist. There’s just the small issue of Christina Braithwhite that Tic susses out. She’s in town, she’s the one that gave Leti the money (unbeknownst to Leti), and she’s sticking around. Christina is most definitely a fully evil character but Abbey Lee is incredibly charming and plays off of the rest of the cast very well. Her presence is a bad omen for our heroes but a very good one for the narrative of Lovecraft Country.
