Screen Time: Lovecraft Country (Part 2)

Halloween is over and Biden is president-elect, but luckily (?) for us, the horrors of America and its past are with us always! And so this week we are getting more Screen Time with the second half of the season of HBO’s Lovecraft Country.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
So there was some big news this week. But the
fun part is that the horrors of America and it's
racist past are always with us, and so this week
we are getting more screen time with the second half
of the season of HBO's Lovecraft Country. She goes on
a speed dating event at the beginning and none of
the men pick her, like just lock the He's okay

(00:28):
to be weird if you're that beautiful. I feel like
if you look like that, you could be a serial
killer and say my hobby is killing people, and men
would be like, tell me more. That's interesting. Welcome back
to Popcorn Book Club. I'm Danis Schwartz, joint as always
by Tin Tran, Jennifer Wright, Cramadanqua, and Melissa Hunter, and

(00:48):
this week we are diving back into Lovecraft Country for
some screen time the second half of the season. So
episodes six, seven, eight, nine, ten, ten. Oh yeah, this
is not a situation like Brave New World. Where are
nine episodes? A thing that I think about two regularly,
honestly just got canceled. I wonder why. I think it's

(01:14):
because of the episode. If they had if they had
stopped at eight, they would have been like, you know,
what this show deserves more episodes because they went into
that nine much uh and The Queen's Gambit, which is
excellent on Netflix now and I really like it on
the books so I can pitch up is only seven episodes,
which was very frustrating intriguing. I don't know if I

(01:38):
like that either. It was too short. People are getting loose.
I like that more than nine though. People are playing
what are we British? Like, No British people can do that.
Like this show has been on for seventeen years. It's
called nine episodes, and we love it, but we need
and Warrington's worry and every now and then we're going

(02:00):
to do a Christmas episode that's related to having a
lot of Christmas special I feel like we really should
bring that into American culture of just like Christmas Special,
an episode of our favorite characters getting back together, just
Christmas Special. I think, I don't know how kind of
hate all of the Zoom specials. I feel like a

(02:21):
lot of shows different. It just makes me sad in
the same way that seeing kids who have really cute
like homemade masks make me really sad. It's like for
a second and then it's a like Tanya Harding's ice
skating outfits or something. Oh. I like British TV shows

(02:43):
because it's like the second best example of British socialism.
One is healthcare, and then it's how every comedian just
seems to get six episodes of the BBC. They all
just they all kind of have one. It's an eight
dollar budget and you have to shoot it at your
mom's house. But you get have a dumb question, people
have another channel? Or is it just BBC? There's the channels. No,

(03:11):
they have BBC, BBC Weather, BBC Night On one too
or there lots of BBCs but pretty much ye, yeah
they have. I think it's the same way. I think
it's the same way, Like we have CBS, NBC, ABC
and Fox. But those are different companies. Well I mean

(03:33):
not as much anymore. But they have Chey. They have
Channel four, which is different than BBC four different, Yeah, okay,
you different, and they also get all of our TV.
Now I did lead. I think it was a stupid question.

(03:53):
I think if you're British, sound off in our in
our Instagram or Twitter, don't come from me. I backed
your culture. I just don't understand it. My biggest British
mistranslation is you realize when British people say not bad,
they mean not good, very bad. Yeah, they mean bad

(04:14):
because you'll say they'll say, oh it's not bad, but
they that doesn't. In America that means pretty good, but
in England that means bad. My brains can't compute that
right now. I already have a headache, and that just
made it worse. I have some dates I need to
re examine. It's a British I'd be so speaking of

(04:39):
not bad depending on the translation, should we talk about
Lovecraft country not bad? American meaning? I had ups and
downs with it same. I liked some episodes more than others,
and I I came my end conclusion was I think
I maybe liked the structure of the book better, but

(05:03):
I'm curious to know what everyone thinks. I think it
helped me to watch some of these when I had
some more distance from the book, because I wasn't constantly
trying to remember, Oh did they do that in the book?
Is that something they've changed? Um? I really enjoyed the
meet me in Daigu, and it was one that had

(05:25):
nothing to do with the book, and I thought that
was really interesting. Yeah, I think I liked that one too,
just for it because I didn't have anything to do
with the book, and it took us to a different time,
but the pace of it felt so much more manageable
than some of the other episodes where things were happening
so quickly. But there's so much to love about this

(05:46):
series and then just some choices that make me just
like laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. Well, I
think in that same regard, I think that was my
favorite episode at these five by far, and I think
it was made me think of even though that wasn't
in the book, like it made me think about. What
I loved about the book was each each story felt

(06:07):
like a bottle episode, right, but then they all came
together at the end, and that's why it felt so satisfying.
And I feel like the times when they are inter cut,
cutting between all of these wildly different stories with wildly
different like tones and steaks, it just felt like I

(06:27):
felt like I couldn't get a handle on it. And
that's why I was like, Oh, I wish they were
all like that episode. I would like to to add,
just to call myself out, I did not finish the
last two. Oh I didn't either, thank god, Okay, I did.
Don't worry. I watched all of them. I watched all
of them when they aired. Also, I was like, okay,

(06:49):
you are in charge of explaining how it all came
together and that I should get a silver star because
I did not finish. But you got a good star
for this episode. Yeah. Yeah, you're like a star baker.
It's like it's like burn this bake off where each
episode is separate and you're you're you were in the

(07:11):
bottom two in another episode, but in this one you
came back up. It's a star baker. You won. The
technical follow up question is great British bake Off on
the BBC because no Channel four, which is a different network.
I used to be on the BBC, and then when
they switched host switched hosts and one of the judges

(07:32):
it moved to channel channel is trading up? Okay, Karama.
Since you were the one who watched this the way
it was meant to be watched, do you want to
walk through sort of the basic plot of the second
half of the season in the most basic terms. Yea,

(07:54):
I sort of lost of Yeah, some of this feels
like hate crime, but kidding, um, So the sixth episode,
which we've just sort of touched on, takes place primarily
in Korea during the Korean War. As we all know,
um Tick is a Korean war vet, and it does

(08:17):
follow Giaff, who is a woman. I use that term
like shadily because it turns out that she was not
fully human. Get into that in a second. But um
Jamie Chung is stunning beautiful. Okay, everybody on this show

(08:38):
is beautiful everyone, but not like just beautiful in a
she's hot way, but beautiful in like watching her think
is incredible. It's almost uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, like it looks like
someone in an Instagram filter. It's like, how is someone
that beautiful? It does? She just problem for me in
this episode because she goes on a speed dating event

(09:02):
at the beginning and none of the men pick her,
and like, I just lock, He's okay to be weird
if you're that beautiful, not in nineteen fifties Korea that weird.
She just likes Judy Garland movies. She's like, I went
to the movie theater. You feel like if you look

(09:24):
like that, you could be a serial killer and say,
my hobby is killing people and men would be like,
tell me more. That's interesting. In the final episode, a
guy does come over to her in a bar and
it's like and she's in a bad mood and he's like, hey,
you look good, and he's just like do you want
to have sex with me? And you die and and

(09:45):
he like walks away and I'm like no, he would
just say, Okay, where do we go? I feel like
he was like shady. I know he was shady, but
it dislight sense of self preservation where he like, oh,
I don't funk with crazy. That's crazy. I don't think

(10:05):
that's true to keep somebody pretty. A lot of people
would have said, yes, well that she speaks English that
he was like, oh no, I thought she didn't speak English.
That would have been great. But she now knows that
I'm a fucking idiot to transfer back. A lot of

(10:26):
men were willing to have sex with her, uh and
get murdered. I believe if I counted correctly, yes, So
it turns out she is a kumiho. I think I
said that correctly, which is a Korean fox demon sort
of if you're familiar with, like a kitsune, which is
in Japanese culture sort of analogous to that nine tail right, yeah, yeah,

(10:48):
nine tailed fox creature. And I also say to me,
the nine tails looked like tarantula legs, which is very tired.
We're not of her eyes. They made it very, very scary,
and I wished it was cute. I wish the tales
were cute. Wanted them to be like little Pokemon tails. Yeah,
something scary, but but but cute like a fox. I

(11:12):
wanted them to be Pokemon nine tails, fluffy tails. I'm
thinking of the Pokemon right now, okay, and puffy little
I didn't like the tarantula legs out of her eyes,
and it really expect it could be and I'm not
an expert on Korean mythology, so it could be that
that's what they look like in traditional Korean mythological like illustrations.

(11:34):
That could That's my guess, because I don't know why
anybody would make them that fuzzy because they did look
like tarantula legs, unless there was like a base mythology
that they were basing it on. Anyway, So Tick ends
up meeting her while she's working as a nurse in
a hospital after Tick as an injury, which I think
was the first I realized that Tick was injured in

(11:55):
the war, and that was not something I was aware
of before. And they end up sort of having a fling.
Gonna say, all the art that I see, there's like Fox,
the very fluffy, very cute, a lot of them, nine
of them, but not not like thin, creepy eyeball Tarantula.

(12:15):
Maybe Misha Green just likes Tarantula legs and she's like,
I think I figure out a way to put these
in there. All of the sex in this show is
very scary. It's like penis snake blood, so much blood,
just blood and skin coming off. Tarantula's out of your eyeballs.
Nobody has oh I guess, okay, I guess Atticus and

(12:37):
Letitia have sex and nothing terrible happens at least one
that's nice um at the house party, yeah, the one
against the sink where she bled because it was her
first time and she okay, forgot okay sex. But don't
they terrible? Don't they have to feel like they have
been nice sex some other time? I think it's true,

(13:00):
do I don't remember if they showed it though, But anyway,
back to plot, Since the episode takes place in Korea,
umu Jia is a cami hoo. So she takes the
souls of men and sees their whole lives flash before
her eyes, and we find out that her mother, Um
was being beaten by her father or something. There was

(13:23):
something going on with the father was daughter. That's what
it was. Step not her biological father, her step Yeah,
that's what it was. The stepfather was raping her daughter
and uh So in order to get him to stop,
she like went to uh some sort of mystic person
and was like, hey, can you make the stop? And

(13:44):
she was like sure, be careful what you wish for,
and turned her daughter into a camiho um, which is
definitely one of those yikes. Maybe the other thing was bad,
but this is not what I wanted um. But so
she has to sleep with a hundred men and take
their souls before where she can then be freed from
the camijo and become a human being again. UM. And

(14:06):
she is supposed to hit number one hundred with tick
and she's really excited to take his soul because of
some issues that she had had with American soldiers, including
tick Um killing one of her friends for being a
Communist spy. So he best friend, um, and then she

(14:29):
what happened? Oh, right, she was going to she she
like did end up actually liking him, and they were
having sex and she was able to control the tarantula
fox leg tails, and then one time they went out
of control and he was like, what the fuck happened?
And she was like, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to

(14:50):
do that. But also she saw his death in the future.
She saw the future instead of just the past, which
was new for her. So she was freaked out and
he was freaked out, but he left. They never talked
again until uh, he got back to the States and
she was like, you went home. We saw that phone call.
She's like, you shouldn't have. So that's the sixth episode.
You guys want to speak on anything in that. Yeah.

(15:12):
I thought it was really interesting to see an episode
where Chick has given a certain amount of power to
wield over other people, and he wielded in a really
monstrous way. He does not hesitate to shoot her best friend.
She might not even have been a communist spy. Um
she was she, but he actually comes up and shoots

(15:33):
like two nurses that are seemingly not implicated in this
our storyline, like it's a brutal scene. It's just I
think shows how like how being in a war like
forces you to dehumanize the enemy, and like the group think.
I've I've never been in the military, but I assume

(15:57):
that there's sort of like this group think of like
an US verst that really forces people to do things
that they would never do in any other context. And
it's a real choice when they have Edicus justified by
saying I'm just following orders, which I think we have
all learned it's not not how you are supposed to
behave because it makes people become monsters. Yeah, it was

(16:21):
like I understand that's what, Yeah, it's done in war.
It seemed like a narrative, a very specific narrative choice
to have Tick do that, and it made me think
in that moment, oh, I wonder if Tick's going to
die in this show, because it felt like you're seeing
on screen that he has like sins that he cannot overcome,

(16:46):
and that's usually like a narrative device to be like
maybe you shouldn't live like that's I don't know. I
just felt like, uh, I saw kind of where I
was going from there, because it is like it is
this question of like you're on this journey and having
it episode six to see what happened before it, and
that he is not this like hero like that is

(17:08):
imperfect or that is perfect in every way, like that
he has these sins of the past that are coming
back to haunt him. Um. I thought it was an
interesting choice. I like I The thing I liked, and
I think you alluded to earlier, is that it shared
that sensibility with the TV the book, rather that it

(17:28):
was a self contained story where it applied mythology on
a social issue that's really genuinely interesting. Like I really
liked being in that world for a little bit, like
seeing the Korean nurses during this war and like getting
their perspective and like getting those moments of the dating
and the taking care of soldiers, and then then mixed

(17:49):
with this really interesting mythology element. Like I think that
that's sort of the show and the book and the
genre at its best, where it's like inserting mythology into
a situation and that's already interesting and then using the
mythology to heighten it. There's also this dry, terrible humor
to this episode. I really love it when they're all

(18:09):
watching Um, a Judy Garland movie at the movie theater
and suddenly, um, there are like loud booms outside and
American soldiers are rolling through their towns distributing pamplints saying
do not be alarmed. Is here as if this is
not a very alarming situation to be in. But I

(18:31):
love that choice too, and kind of positioning the message
of like showing it through like an imperial like American imperialism.
I don't think we get to see it that or
I haven't seen it that much in a lot of
US TV or American TV of just like, yeah, there
is such a complicated history of war and this like

(18:52):
we got to help save democracy in other countries narrative
that like I think we have all been raised to
not question and or think about it from a different perspective,
and like, you know, as as Vietnamese American I think
about I've been starting to unpack that a lot, and
that particular episode felt very like, oh yeah, like seeing

(19:15):
how US military involvement in certain countries is such a
complicated thing to exceed an experience and like try to question.
So I really admired that take from them in that Vein.
I really enjoyed the fact that the episode was like

(19:36):
in Korean. I think that so often in American television,
when we have people of other cultures speaking it to
each other, they are speaking English because there's this like, no,
I don't want to say revulsion, but there's this aversion,
a version sort I'm looking for subtitles and this sort

(19:58):
of feeling like, well, I don't want to have to
read subtitles. I just want to understand what they're saying.
And I like that They were like, nah, you're gonna
read subtitles because they are Korean people in Korea speaking
to other Korean people. It does not make sense for
them to speak English just to make you comfortable, and
this is what their world is like. And also there
are nuances there that exists because like Korean as a

(20:21):
language has a formal and informal case, where English doesn't
really do that anymore. We used to have thou and you,
and then we were like in the seventeenth century, we
were like, what if we just got rid of thou?
What do we stop doing that? So we don't have
that anymore. But languages like French and Spanish and Korean
do have formal and informal, and I think that you

(20:43):
lose that because there's like a little scene where they
were like, oh my god, he started using this case
on the date and I'm like, that's too soon. And
I was like, they're black girl, and I felt like
I was I got to take a glimpse into their
world and I was being invited in in as opposed
to imposing this American perspective on another culture. Yeah, I

(21:06):
love I love that, Like it's like we are making
this to make this to fully represent it's not for
a specific like American audience, like you are seeing it
as it should be seen ideally. I did hear that
the subtitles were very badly you translated them. Yeah. My
friend who is not Korean but does speak fluent Korean.

(21:28):
He I texted him and I was like, tell me
about the Korean in that episode. He was like, yeah,
it was okay. And there were things that I as
a non Korean speaker, but like I know, like six
words in Korean because I'm from Los Angeles. Um. I
was like, why does it say uma on the screen
instead of mother, because that's what that means. It's not
a name. That confused me, and sometimes it did, and

(21:52):
sometimes it didn't. That was the thing. It was inconsistent within,
but you know, they were doing their best and and
I know that they got a career writer on that.
You know. I read an article about there was the
earlier episode where the Native woman who was trapped in
the museum gets freed and then immediately murdered. Yeah, that one. Um,

(22:13):
So there was criticism online of like, hey, that's not
like a great way to use, you know, a character,
and uh, the showrunner apologized and was like, yeah, the
the goal of that episode was to show that like
even marginalized people can then be cruel to like other
marginalized people, Like it's a chain and a system. And
I didn't think that episode was successful at communicating that message.

(22:36):
But I thought that this episode did get that across
and in a way that made sense where it's like, yeah,
well that's what I think you guys are touching on.
Is like it was all from the Korean woman's perspective,
of the Korean woman slash Monsters sponse monsters perspective, and

(22:56):
I think tar Angela Monsters. I feel like that's why
I think it was my favorite episode of this of
the whole season. Is because it felt like a very
surprising turn, like if you I expected to see Ticks
experience in the war, but I didn't expect to see it,
not from his perspective at all, and that he only

(23:17):
comes in and when he later, and when he does,
he immediately kills a woman like I think that's why
it was successful, because it doesn't sideline the marginalized group,
you know, it makes them. It's it's her narrative. I
also liked this episode, and I think I am a
good television watcher, like I'm a smart person. I like

(23:39):
to stay engaged. I found the next four episodes a
little hard to follow and to anchor myself at points
because time traveled at different speeds and a lot happened,
and there's a lot of c g I and a
lot of gore that I sort of got like TV
overload um. And I liked the pacing of the episode

(24:01):
because I could wrap my head around it where it's
like once we got back to uh Chicago and then
also back to Artom. Sorry I was blanking on that.
It just like it got hard for me to to
put like distances and places and times focused in my
head in a way that anchored me. Okay, Okay, there

(24:28):
was a lot. There's like a lot of visceral horror
and like images that were just like throwing at your
face a lot. Everyone was covered in blood at some point. Okay,
my fox tails are getting all tangled. Let's take a break. Yeah, well,

(24:51):
let's talk about the next seven. Talk about those. I
guess it's still my job, but no, I can. I
can give the the big overview that as I saw
it needed its own situation because so different. But I
feel like the next four can be summarized pretty much together.
I mean, I think the big overall plot now is

(25:11):
Christina slash William, who is Christina. Uh wants to do
a spell that will make her immortal, and she needs
ticks blood to do it, and that is just the fact,
and she refuses to examine any further. That's just the
thing she needs and she's willing to do it, and
they want to. Alliance has shift at certain points, but

(25:33):
she enlists Ruby to help her in that. Uh, they
decide I think the overall goal for our gang is
to make a salt circle and to banish um the
their patriarch Titis, who's sort of a reoccurring evil sort
of like Biff in the Backs of the Future Universal,

(25:55):
but you not, like whatever time period they're in, there's
always a Biff. That was That was the ive I
got from Titus or it's like he's just a reoccurring
evil and they wanted to to banish that for good.
Did I get the big Yeah, yeah, yes you did.
I was gonna details are other things, Yeah, the details

(26:17):
that we enjoyed or didn't enjoy, or that that's stuck
with us in some way throughout that. For me, I
really liked the change. I got the change from Horace
to Diana in the second half in a lot of ways.
And Um, I really liked the episode where d is
being followed by uh topsy and very scary. Yeah, they

(26:44):
were very scary that episode. I would say six and eight,
even though I didn't watch the last two, but eight, Yeah,
I really enjoyed it. I thought making Um making her
friend Emmett too was a really interesting I mean we
think in the first half we called that when they
were in that, and I mean it wasn't a calling

(27:07):
because like his name was Bobo, which was his nickname,
Like they specifically explicitly made that clear that that was
going to happen, and I was kind of bracing for that. Um.
I really loved in that episode that they did not
show his body, and it wasn't because there has been
so much body horror, but it was about magic and

(27:28):
the people in this world who are fictional and Emmett
Till as somebody who is a real person who had
a real horrible death. They didn't show his body, and
they didn't they showed his death, but they showed it
on a white woman instead of which I thought was
a fascinating Yeah. Yeah, what did we make of that?

(27:50):
Which is Christina paid a lot of money to be
able to experience Emmett Till's death Ruby as her if
she feels nothing? Um if Like, Ruby is understandably devastated
by this death, and Christina says, nope, she doesn't feel anything,
does not bother her. It is not what she's thinking about.

(28:12):
She can't feel it, um and drops for honesty. Honestly,
I guess, yeah, but I don't know. Maybe at the end,
to me, I thought she was trying to feel it,
like maybe the only way she could feel that would
be if it happened to her personally, which is a

(28:32):
thing that I think some very privileged people do experience that.
You don't really care about making sure people get health
care until someone you love is denied healthcare. So I
felt like Christina was trying to experience was something that
horrible would be like, but she's invulnerable, Like even when

(28:52):
it happens to her, she comes back to life immediately. Yeah,
well she's yeah, and she's like, I feel like it
was a good way to show how she is kind
of this unfeeling like villain, you know that has been
kind of like a next level like sociopath or whatever

(29:14):
you want to call that. I know that's often misused
or overused, but um, but yeah, this is very stupid.
But you know what it made me think of is
I once saw this show where men had to get
like had these like nerve things on them to feel

(29:35):
like to feel like they're having a baby, like the
contractions of labor. No, it was on this very dumb
reality show that I watched all of about about a
woman who is like the bachelorette but she's trying to
have a baby. Labor of Love show. I forgot about that.

(29:57):
Such a good corn it's such a good COVID show,
and they all all the guys on that have to
do it, and they're like, well, I was so excited
labor of love. But just like the idea of like
putting yourself in that situation in order to have empathy
for a person who's having a baby. It's just very funny,
or so I felt very I don't want to say cathartic,

(30:20):
because I don't wish that on anybody, but it did
the Again, I think I said this in the first conversation,
or maybe it was. It wasn't when we're talking about
Lovecraft Country. It was when we were talking about the
hate you give. The woman who accused Emmett Till of
whistling at her is one I believe still alive, at

(30:41):
least as of a couple of years ago, was still alive,
and two was never held responsible in any way. And
for me, visually, that's what that signified, was her facing
some sort of consequence and showing the white woman suffering
for that and about it. She lived. She no conces

(31:03):
zero even now we know that she has lied, she
has admitted she lied, and nothing has happened to her.
She just gets to live out the rest of her
miserable life in peace. I think I liked the use
of Christina to to sort of stand in for a
lot of like white feminism, the idea that like she
thinks like because she's excluded from the boys club of magic,

(31:26):
that she you know, as a victim in certain ways
and then he needs to and that that's the same
as Ruby, Like we're the same, Like we're both like
having a hard time. It's like no girl. Yeah, yeah,
I mean I find I found her a very interesting villain.
But I didn't quite find the ending. I don't want

(31:48):
to bad to the ending. I didn't find the ending
as cathartic as I think it could have been. We're
in the book the way they outsmarted her in the
high ending of this show. Yeah, the last a little
bit ending with yes, okay, I hadn't seen the end,

(32:08):
yeah okay, summarize from our from our listeners who obviously
did not watch the I'll just get to the end
part real fast. So they're trying to beat Christina at
her own game and do the spell before she does
the spell. And but surprise, Ruby, who has come with

(32:29):
Leticia to help, is actually Christina in uh in a
in a ruby uh Ruby ruchell um because Ruby's in
a coma. I think I missed how that happened. Um, well,

(32:49):
what they said was Christina Ruby Fast trying to steal
the potion because they didn't spell. Yeah, they didn't show it.
I don't think they didn't show it. They did so
because we had to believe it was Ruby through the
car ride. I love. Yeah, she said it's your fault
that your sister is dead, which debatable whether she's dead

(33:10):
or not. But she caught her trying to She caught
Ruby trying to steal the post right for their spell,
because they needed a little bit of Christina and they
needed a little bit of Titus. Yes, so she's the
Ruby art. So she's got the Ruby poly juice and
it's like she's turns back, you know, she's Christina a surprise,

(33:33):
and then Christina gets at like Atticus as guys get
at a kuss on like a on, like a juice cross.
It's a it's a Chris crucifix and his arms are
like bleeding out, and it's the scene where Christina is
like in a white dress and she's you know, very
pale and blonde, and it's just like doused in blood

(33:56):
and it's very Yes, I it was like if if
a model, if like a photo shoot, we're like we
want carry vibes, it would be that, you know, it's
it's it's like it's the America, It's next Top Model.
But they're just when special and then she you know,

(34:20):
and and they show it's really intentionally gross. They really
they really gross that. And then then to me, this
is the goof maybe the goofiest part of the whole show.

(34:41):
Is like it's just there's like a storm of clouds
and Letitia is on her knees saying the spell and
she and and there's like a literal tornado. And then
and they're like we we can't get the spell to
work unless they're connec acted. And so then the fox demon,

(35:04):
I'm Gia, It's like I can do it. And so
she gets out her fox tails and connects Tick and Christina,
but it's too it works, it takes away her immortality,
but Tick is still dead. And then and all of
these things collel these like it's it's in some kind

(35:26):
of like abandoned colosseum looking place they did it. I
think the seller where Montrose was at in the in
the first Yeah, it's that place. I think it's somewhere
on the grounds of that, I was they didn't in

(35:48):
the place. Yeah, it was a lot of things happening,
and and then she loses her immortality and then they
all leave and leave Christina under all these like cinder
blocks and she can't get out. And then and then
d comes up and hasn't has a mechanical arm now
because she lost her arm, and the curse and uh

(36:10):
kills her like breaks her chokes like like not just
chokes her, like goes through her na. There's like a
lot of viscera, which I don't love a child. I
didn't love that. I don't think she's a child anymore.
That's the thing. That's the thing that where when you
it's sort of like what Star goes through in the

(36:30):
heat you give when you get to be a kid
at any once you watch one of your friends die horribly,
I know, but I did it was that, Yeah, I
just with that in one little scene. I listened to
the HBO Lovecraft Country podcast really working for that gold Star. Yeah, yeah,

(36:56):
because I didn't want I didn't want to get too
influenced by all the other episode and I wanted to
like unpack it myself. But I did listen to that
final episode, because there was a lot happening in that episode.
I was like, I'm gonna hear from these clowns, Um,
these clowns being Mishagree and Journey Smellett, who are wonderful
clowns in the best sense, Um, And they talk about

(37:19):
how it's the youth pushing forward, and that's what that
was supposed to sort of symbolize. It's kind of like
how TikTok might save democracy because young people are spreading
information so quickly and through ways that are entertaining. And
I think that she's been radicalized. She's the young person
and she's the one who realizes, uh that they are

(37:40):
only going to advance by spilling blood other than their own.
And she even says they never learn. And then that's
her saying like, we can't keep doing what we've always done.
We can't just take magic away from them. Because she's
under these rocks, she can get out. She's like, no
season two for you, Christina. Oh Yeah, that was another
important is that in the spell worked and that like

(38:02):
it reversed her immortality but also took away not only
her magic, but magic of from all white peoples, all
white people then it's like it's ours now. Um what, Yeah,
I was not happy with it. You saw it, you
would be like, even if they got there in time

(38:27):
for the story, I'm sure he has to sacrifice himself
to save everybody else Jesus Cross, But Jesus Cross as
it happens, I just did. I felt like this didn't
feel like he died to sacrifice people. It felt like
he just died. I think this was my issue with
the show and why I go back to episode six

(38:48):
being and I think eight equally was like similarly contained. Um,
it just felt like there were so many ideas and
and it was so ambitious for a show. It like that.
It was because when I read the book, I'm like, oh,
there's going to be an ambitious show, and then somehow

(39:08):
they added like a thousand more ideas to it, and
like Hippolyta, which I don't love pronouncing it like that,
but that's how they pronounced on the show, Hippolyta's journey.
I was like, that was the goofiest bit to me that.
I was just like, Oh, I loved seeing her kid
to dance with I thought that was really sweet. I

(39:30):
think it was fun, but I don't know if it meshed,
I don't what happened. I just here's my problem with it,
is like it wasn't any of those shows. It wasn't
a gladiator show. It wasn't like a show Girls show.
So the way it was written and directed, in my opinions,

(39:52):
it made it seem like kind of cheap because it's
not directors who are directing that kind of show. They're
doing a horror show. So just felt like I was
watching like someone trying to do Game of Thrones who
only directs like thrillers, you know what I mean. It
just felt like and it and then the space stuff.

(40:13):
I get that. I'm not saying that other people aren't
allowed to like it. I just it really I did
not like it. I think. I think in terms of
production and in terms of like fitting into the larger
narrative of the show, not great on that one. And
in terms of like at the end me knowing what
the funk was happening, not super great either, because I

(40:35):
was like, wait, is she in space? Time for it? Yeah?
But that's important. Yes, I'm like, this feels radical in
nineteen fifty something, you have like a blue haired woman
like just like she got um what's that? What's that
box die that's got like edgy people on it. It's

(40:56):
like edgy you know the thing. I'll find it, but
it's like riot something. Um. But anyway, my point is not, yeah,
I did have a point, not just trying to remember
the name of the box eye. Um. For me, I
thought that it was really moving to be able to
see a black woman name herself as something and then

(41:17):
just get to do it and just get to experiment
and try, and particularly for Hippolyta, because if you look
at the beginning of the show, all she wants to
do is go on a guide trip with her husband
or just go on a guide trip, and then she
is able to do that, but only through the death
of her husband. So it's she's taking on the mantle
of this business so that they can stay alive. And

(41:40):
in this episode, Hippolyta wouldn't. She's asked like, what do
you want to do? She's like, hell, fun, I know,
I want to dance on stage with Josephine Baker. And
then she gets to do it, and she just gets
to be like, wait, this is my life now. I
just get to say something and then do it. And
I thought that was something beautiful to get to watch,
and I thought that it was a very visually stunning episode,
but yeah, I don't know what the fun was going on.

(42:02):
At the end of it, I was like, cool, this
was so much fun and I enjoyed that. And I
heard that it was supposed to be a love letter
to black women, and I was like, I felt that,
but it's kind of like it felt like a little
bit like a drunken love letter. I was like, but
I don't know exactly what I think tomorrow. Yeah, I
in that framing, I like it much better. I think

(42:25):
what I wanted to point out with it is that,
like the story in the book is so beautiful and contained,
and I that's it was one of my favorite stories
in the book, and I felt like that's what I
felt like the show kept doing was like, let's let's
take this box that we put all these stories in

(42:47):
and let's open them, and then they kind of goes everywhere,
and then it just becomes a lot harder to follow
the thread, which is fun, but then it also kind
of makes my head spin a little bit. It's like
one of those jar of snake things that you get,
and like one snake would have been enough would have

(43:09):
been like okay, but it was like all the snakes.
That That was my big critique because so so often
when there's an adaptation, you're like, okay, you understand that,
like more nuance can just be in text than can
be on screen, just like that's the by the forms.
But they in the show made the universe so big

(43:30):
and had so many ideas that it, as Molist was saying,
like I got a little confusing, Like I had fun
with that episode like in Isolation, Like I was like, oh,
that Josephine Baker was really fun. And I almost wish
then just like make that the episode, you know, then
to do it so that's emachally gets to stay with

(43:50):
Josephine Baker longer. I don't know. I had fun, but
I then was intimidated coming back to Chicago, being like
I don't know what characters are where and what the
stakes are. But the thing that I always think about
when I think about Hippolyta is that she wanted to
name Pluto. Like she was someone who when she was
young had such big ideas and such big dreams, and

(44:13):
she kind of had to crush them down as she
got older and she got married and she had children,
and it's just so beautiful to see her get to
have those big, enormous, crazy dreams again where she gets
to fight Confederate soldiers and dance with Josephine Baker. And
that'd be weird that they were Confederate soldiers but also
in some dusty village, but they were gladiators and like fantasy,

(44:37):
her fantasy. It was not bad. But when they were
Confederate soldiers, I was like, hold out, yeah, because what
you're what you're all saying. I loved that. I loved
getting to see Hippolyta like have agency find herself, call
out name the things that she wanted to name. I
loved the level of quality in the detail with the

(44:58):
Josephine Baker. As you moved to the other ones, it
felt like it lost that, like even set quality or
like just general storyline quality, like the world of Josephine
Baker was if that world felt so full, like it
felt full in line with the rest of the show.

(45:18):
It felt like it could sit alongside like Chicago nineties,
like it just totally shifted so much that I was like, uh,
this almost is like like you've all said, it just
doesn't match. I enjoyed it. I loved it. But it's
just like if we are going to do that, like
make sure it matches. Also, she turns into a computer
that really confused or like she turns into what does

(45:41):
she have? She has some sort of chip in her body? Clear, Look,
that episode wasn't for us. That episode was literally for
Hippolyta and she got it amazing. That was that was fun.
I thought. Um, another sort of question I had. I

(46:02):
loved the Curse and Die because I thought that they
captured like how viscerally scary the police officers were. And
then that was horrific when she was being uh chased
by the creepiest racist imagery I've ever seen in my
entire life. Um, I wish that the cops. What I
what I liked about the book conclusion was like the

(46:25):
mundane bureaucracy of racism, Like how these like quote like
masters of the universe racist people were in a convention
center and we conquered all of them, and the cops
were in that and it was just like how shitty
and yeah, mundane racist infrastructure is so I it those

(46:45):
cops didn't quite get their come up and and I
think centering the finale, just on Christina made it seem
like here's just one evil woman and not like this
whole system is incredibly evil and deep in our systemic infrastructure.
I mean, they did take magic away from white people,
like we didn't see that. That's true that the cops

(47:06):
did get come up in a little bit, but from Christina, Yeah,
because they she turned the healing against them. Yeah, the
restorative power against them. So they did get a little bit,
but not not in the way of the book. Um.
But something I really liked structurally about the episode where

(47:27):
d is getting chased by um, these terrifying girls from
the cover of Uncle Tom's cabin is that it was
just one piece of scary imagery as opposed to a
bunch of different ones. So it was the same thing
following her, and I think visually that works so much
better than in the book having all of these different

(47:47):
things where it's like, oh, thematically they are all related,
but visually having the same specter come after her again
and turning dancing scary was like also one of music video. Really,
I was the scariest for me was when she did

(48:07):
the over the back yes look, scary flexibility of the
of the Oh my god, that visual is just horrifying
to me. Yeah, because that's like those details to me
about this show are are what are so impressive when
they like really nail it, Like the fact, like you said, Karama,
that they move in such a specific way like that

(48:30):
could have just been regular spooky chasing, but it was
like the choreography of like the bones cracking and like
this just and and the sort of like he'll click
to that, and the music and music about knocking at
the door. I'm I think what I really admire about

(48:53):
the show and where some of my at the same
time issues come with it, is I feel like it
is so ambitious and they try to really go for it,
and sometimes it came off as like kind of silly
or like a little not great, like the baby on
the baby ghost, the baby head ghosts, like oh you

(49:19):
you thought that would be really scary, but it's kind
of silly versus this, Like again, it's like this full
commitment to like let's just go for it and then
see like I thought those like underground monsters were really
goofy um, but then and so I feel like it's,
you know, it's they were trying everything um and to

(49:43):
varying degrees of success. I did like that Tick got
his own underground monster and he was back. I did
like that too, But I also laughed when whatever moment
made the show goths eyes like fi are blood like
she shoot blood at them made me laugh. So that's

(50:08):
a choice. I am so fascinated. I really want to
find out what the budget was for this show, because
it feels like almost Game of Thrones level budgets period
piece that like goes into outer space and has like
ground monsters and baby football players and like just so

(50:30):
many elements that feels like this is a This is
a wildly expensive show. One thing that I thought was important,
that is a thing in our culture that's not always discussed,
is like how racist the origin of any mini miney
mo is? Oh yeah, very ship is racist. The ice

(50:51):
cream truck song is racist. It's the ice cream truck
the one that's like the song that plays when ice
cream trucks go by, nigger watermelon, ha ha ha, what
are going to? You know? They're like a couple of
different ones, but there's like one that is that plays

(51:11):
frequently and it's called nigger watermelon. Ha ha ha. I
love that the ha ha ha. It is included in
the title that just really makes it. There's like an
NPR article on it that I'll send you all. That's
very illuminating. Yeah, you guys can still lead. Speaking of
horrific racism, should we talk about the time travel episode

(51:34):
to Tulsa. I really enjoyed that one. He liked it
because it felt like the only one that was rooted
in the book in terms of like it felt like
a replacement for the narrow House story, but completely departed
from the book in a way that felt like it worked.
So like the episode that takes place in Korea was

(51:57):
not rooted in the book, but it did take a
depart or from the book and it was amazing. But
this one was like, Okay, we need them to get
a book like they did in the Narrow House, but
we're just going to change it up and make a
time travel they turns out that Tick was the guy.
I felt that at the beginning of the episode of
time Travel. I was like, Oh, he's the one. He's Jackie.

(52:19):
You haven't seen enough time traveling important. He had that
dream at the very beginning of the very first episode
of Jackie Robinson saving him from a monster and I
was like, hmmm, why is this such an important moment
for him because it's him. Yeah, yeah, I really like that,

(52:41):
especially because I'm embarrassed to say, like I'm one of
the people that didn't really know about the Tulsa massacre
until Watchman, and like that is something deeply on me,
and so it was interesting to it's partly on you,
but it's partly on that. I was a very good student.

(53:02):
I got an A in ap U S history. It
did not come up in APIs Did you know Abraham
Lincoln solved racism? That's what happened. But then the last
racist shot him and he died. Oh yeah, the last
racist and it's done. Yeah. It was so interesting because
when I realized that, like in the you know, in

(53:23):
the knowing that the Tulsa mascar was going to be
in the show, I was really interested to see, like
how could they do it, like as like Watchman did
it so well, like portrayed it in such a way
that was so powerful. Um. And I was really amazed
by like using the tropes of this show and like

(53:47):
the magic and the monsters and all of that, like
they did something completely different. Um that was really compelling.
If I loved Letitia and the great grandmother or grandma
other in the fire. Um, I don't know if Tienne,
Jennifer did you guys get to this part. So so

(54:09):
they go back in time to get the Book of Names.
They go through the portal Hippolytis Portle. Hippolyte helps them
run the portal because she's like, you know, a computer
tow or something. Her eyes her eyes go white and
she can open portals. Yeah, storm, but it was very
it was very sex man um especial because their hair

(54:29):
changes color too. Um. And so they go in to
and it's into Tulsa in ninety one, um, and it's
like the night of the massacre, and they go with, um,
I'm really bad with character names. You'll find this as
we go on. What is Tick's father's name, Mantras Mantras

(54:54):
Um and he was there, you know, he was a
survivor of the massac her And so they have to
go get the Book of Names and taking her his
dad are fighting because he's been drinking and he wants
to interfere. But there's also all this build up of
all the other issues that they've had, and so Leticia
gets into the house to the grandmother's house and they

(55:18):
know that like that house is going to burn up
and they're all gonna die. Um, her, her whole family
is going to die. And so she's in there. And
then meanwhile, uh, Montrose sees his younger self with another
little boy or not little boy. I guess they're like
third fourteen or something and young adolescent but there, but

(55:39):
and it's someone that he was romantic with, and you know,
they're both closeted, and he like tells calls him the
F word, and Montrose wants to this other boy, and
Montros wants to interfere and take us like you can't interfere,
like we can't mess with time because otherwise I won't
be here, you know, and all of that stuff. And

(56:00):
then they realized that he's uh the like these men,
these white people surround these kids, including Montrose and kills
the other boy. And then there and then Montrose and
his two other friends are like surrounded by all these
white kids, and man, older Montrose explains like, oh, when

(56:23):
I I just there was a there was a guy
who came and like Jackie Robinson with his baseball bat
and and knocked him all out and saved us and
so they're waiting for that to happen, and then they
realized that was Tick, and so then they well, it's
a it's a little prisoner of Azkaband moment. Yes, yes,
very I will say whoa, we both will say, oh

(56:50):
my god. I think there's something about just a small
thing that isn't a tying a little pet peeve. But
like some of it, it feels a little too spelled
out for me in some of these episodes, Like I
feel like sometimes they say like fourteen things they don't
need to say. And one of it was like, I'm

(57:11):
the I'm the baseball player. Like he like he like
hits the bat, he like almost walks into the bat
and they look at each other and then it should
just be that Tick just goes over there. But he
says I'm the baseball player, like or he says like
I'm the guy, and it's the guys. We're ahead of it.
We know anyway, what will you say? Don't tell, show,

(57:31):
don't tell. What I was going to say is far
less important and relevant. But a person of Escaban is
the best of the Harry Potter movies, and absolutely font
Koran has a visual language. But also I will agree
with you, Melissa, and that it did feel throughout the show,
not just in this episode, that there was a lack

(57:53):
of trust in the audience sometimes that we were there
with them and that we were ready to understand and
to see the moments, but maybe a justifiable trust because
there were some moments I did not understand. But that's
the thing. They didn't do those moments that way. But
then the ones where it's like we get that he's
the baseball player. You've been setting this upstance the first

(58:15):
episode were good, no, no, no, let's spend another forty
seconds making sure they fucking get it. And I mean
I wonder if it too was like people being the
writers at some point be like, Okay, wait a minute,
actually there is a lot going on, so we should
say everything that's going on, just to make sure. I
think it is that balance, like you're saying of Like

(58:37):
I think if they pulled out you know, let's say
there were one thousand ideas in the show. If they
pulled out three hundred of them, they probably could have
trusted the audience a little bit more to not have
to spell everything out. I think that is where the
problem came in. I also there was like a whole
baptism in the last episode that I did not understand.

(59:00):
My friends that I've been texting about the show with
did not understand. But I really know that he was
that baseball player in the Tulsa episode. Um, yeah, there
was there was an imbalance for sure. I'm gonna go
shed my skin suit and then I'll be back. Why

(59:25):
would you say that. I think that this was a
very ambitious show. It was a very entertaining show, and
I think that I feel like Misha Green did a

(59:49):
great job as a part of that team, as a
part of that room. I think all of the writers
deserved praise and um for this undertaking because it was
and they created something that really was truly an adaptation.
They were like, this is a jumping off point for negotiation,
and then they negotiated the ship out of new stories

(01:00:10):
and interesting ways of looking at things. And they also
acknowledged within the show they were like, so this is
the source material we got different, it's different, it's not
the same. This is like a thing that we're doing,
and I a nod at it. I will say to that, like,

(01:00:30):
in less talented hands actor wise, like this show would
have not been as compelling those that family of actors.
Like I was watching ye, I was watching it earlier
today and I was like, I love this family. Like
it just hit me. I was like, wait a minute,
I love every single member of this family. And it's
because those actors are so They're so good at grounding

(01:00:54):
this wild story that is going every which way. But
at the or of it, You're like, oh, this this
family and their relationships are so strong that it keeps
you like looped into wanting to see all the crazy
stuff that happens to them. In the last minute, because
I'm thinking of Stacy Dash playing well not no, not

(01:01:19):
quite in the last minute of that, I was explaining
the ending very poorly. Um, when Letitia has to run
and she's saying this incantation and in the language of Adam,
and it's on her knees and is shouting, and I'm like,
a journey is putting in the work right here. She

(01:01:40):
is like, this is tough to make feel in any
way sane and grounded. Um. I was very impressed by
her moment. Look, there were parts of it that I
wish I could understood better because um, sometimes I went
to the bathroom and came back and something wildly different
was happening. No, you can posit it's on your click

(01:02:05):
your computer. You can't. You can have like a minute break,
and this is us. They're gonna be talking about pretty
much the same thing because Randall Randall is going to
be anxious, Kevin is gonna be self absorbed. Think's going
to be kind of in the middle and kind of
sad and feels responsible for their dad's death. That's the episode,

(01:02:29):
that's right, That's why you can go to the bathroom.
That was not true on this show. So there were
precipic that I do wish I had understood a little
bit better, and maybe, um I should have been watching
it more attentively than I was, and maybe that would
have helped. But I never didn't enjoy watching the performances,
even if I came back and something insane was on

(01:02:50):
the screen. Um, it was always being perfectly acted everybody,
and it was great. They're always a joy to watch. Like,
how do you how years a good actor? If you
can do skin, shed sex, orgasm and make it make
it work on screen like that is that is a

(01:03:12):
level of acting that I have not seen. And I
was like, Okay, I this is grossing me out across
the board, but like, I buy these performances that you
are doing that and having sex and your skin is
falling off of you. Yeah, that's like my thing. It's
I've said it before, it's my thing. Anything freaks me out.

(01:03:33):
And I hated the skin thing. I hated at least
favorite hated this one thing. The tarantula eyeball thing. Um
eyeballs just freaked me out, Like anything anything that means
you're getting tapped in your eyes. So yeah, they coming
out of that woman's eyes. I did not. My friend

(01:03:53):
literally texted me after the first Skin episode and he
was like, have you seen this week's episode of Love
Crap Country? And I was like yes, and he was like,
I thought of you. You were probably in hell and
you man, that sucks. Yeah. The skin I kind of
not used to the skin. Is that weird to say?
I like the fifth time, I was like, yeah, Dina,

(01:04:18):
actually it is weird. It's now that's the only way
I want to have sex with peeling skin. We can
mutiny and get rid of her, right. The skin thing,
that's like if you hadn't do spin podcast, that's just
about skin shedding. You're on your own, you know, like
you should follow your heart and your big imagination in

(01:04:41):
your figure, like calling Mr I Heart Radio, Isaac Heart Radio,
Heart Radio. Mr Isaac Heart Radio, we got a skin
freak here. Something that he did like that I want
to talk about really quickly. In that last episode, sorry
for people who didn't watch, it was when they were

(01:05:01):
all in the car together and we have this nice
moment of levity and they're singing along to that song
which did play in the first episode. Also fun fact,
I did not recognize that on my own. They pointed
that out in the Lovecraft Country podcast and like, oh, yeah,
that claim all those sex don't. I'm gonna be honest.

(01:05:23):
I appreciate honesty. Like I honestly think we should kick
Data out if she into skin stuff. I'm not in. Yeah,
I just feel like it was so gross to me
in like episode five that I was like almost couldn't watch,
And then by the episode might be even the next
episode six or seven, when they're having sex voluntarily and

(01:05:43):
it skin comes off, I was like, Okay, well, at
least like my eyes can watch the screen now. No,
I I looked. I was like I was skin shedding.
It's coming. I gotta I gotta post man um. But
I think that is a good sort of segue into
how we do get as a society inundated with racism

(01:06:05):
and we do become used to it, and like that's
an American not bad, but but I think that it
does sort of play into that where we did get
I mean, I was so horrified by it, but it

(01:06:25):
was slightly easier than the first time I had seen it.
And that's the thing. If you keep seeing a horrible, horrible,
horrible thing over and over and over again, you have
to to some degree inure yourself. So that year. Did
I use that word right, We'll see someone will tell
me if I did. It was impress point. I think
it was. I mean, I don't even know what that

(01:06:46):
word um. But you have to in some way like
brace yourself and be like, well, here's another one and
here's another one. And I think that that's something that
this show kind of does well because the characters at
a certain point or just like this fucking magic ship again,
Like we're in episode three, after all of the stuff

(01:07:06):
that's happened with her house, She's like, get the funk
out of my house and she's just kind of at
that point, she's not like, oh, pleasa mercy, like she's
just get out of my house. This is my house.
And they have to to some degree set aside their stuff,
and I think that it becomes more horrific to them
again when it affects d and when it sort of

(01:07:27):
leads into the younger generation. I wonder what the viewership
of the show is because actually I can tell you
that because I haven't I am dB pro accounts well,
because I was saying it's like so compelling, you know,
and fascinating and like the visuals are really interesting, but
also it's like hard horror, Like I think that will

(01:07:48):
turn and probably did turn a lot of people off
who were like, you know it said like from the
you know, producer of get Out, didn't it? I think
on the ads, so like people who are like like
to get Out, which wasn't like body gore horror, but
like social horror, might have been like oh, and then
came to this. Get Out was listed as a comedy

(01:08:10):
for the Golden Globes because they have facile separations of genres. Well,
but who couldn't forget the best comedy of the year.
The Martian, I was I didn't expect you to say
that that martial best comedy lead, My favorite jokes, some

(01:08:31):
of the best jokes I've ever heard. I don't know.
I'm not going to claim to know the viewership, but
I think it's popular or well liked enough that there
was a whole SNL skit about it. I saw that.
I just said, skit, Oh no, no, cancel, wow, canceled
nearly sketch Canadiens. There there was a sketch about it. Yeah.

(01:08:56):
It was when using Ray was hosting and they're at
a football game and they're asking her like, so, what's
this show you're and she The whole joke is that
it's like so confusing that everyone she's telling like the
show about there, like wait, what is happening in this show?
So popular enough that it's like like good. I think

(01:09:21):
that reminds me of when I was twenty. I was
living in Ghana, UM at the time, so I had
gone home for summer break from college in the US,
and I was working at a radio station. I did
like an internship in production, and I was reading Lolita
on my brakes, which was not as well known in Ghana.

(01:09:44):
People ask me they're like, oh, what's this book you're reading,
And I'm like, it's Lolita, And then they would say,
what's that book about. It's about a father and it's
adopted daughter taking a road trip. Yeah, road trip. It's
about a father daughter road trip. And it's interest thing
having to explain some things to people when you've become
so normalized, like oh, yeah, you know that kids sucking

(01:10:11):
that was turned into a couple of kids. We all
agree it's literature, right, yeah, high and important literature. Yeah,
but um, yeah, that's funny. I didn't watch the episode
of SNL um because I'm bad, but I'll check that skin.
Really feel I want to keep skits about the world

(01:10:37):
because then Karama and I will just sound like we're
saying skit without it making fun. Wait, have you guys,
Have you guys seen that clip of Studio sixty favorite
clips up where where the dad. It's like, it's like
the Studio sixty is like the st Now it's like
the Aron sorkin SNL And you know, one of the

(01:10:59):
writers is showing his parents around and one of the
dad calls it a skin. It's his mom's his mother.
His mom calls it a skit and she's complementing him.
She says, oh, this is like, where do you do. Oh,
you're wonderful Skins. She's just a nice lady, and he goes,
it's not a it's not He goes, it's not a skit, mom.
Skits are what the football players do and they dress

(01:11:19):
up as cheerleaders and mistake it for witch. What we
do here is sketches and it's some of the most
groundbreaking comedic minds in the country doing things seen by
millions of people. And then out of nowhere, the dad goes, well,
that's all very well, son, but your brother is out
in Afghanistan and the most errand sirkin thing that's ever

(01:11:44):
been one to in thirty seconds, I'm gonna I'm gonna
find this clip because everyone needs his mother is never
going to tour her son's workplace ever again. Ah. On
that last thoughts on the show, very ambitious, and my

(01:12:10):
my final word is like incredibly ambitious, A really big
universe that did really fascinating things that I think, like
details will keep trickling down to me that I that
I took out of it. Yeah, you'll just wake up
in the middle of the night you'd be like, I'll
be like, that was a weird I would totally recommend
it to watch because I think so much of what

(01:12:32):
it does is the amount of good that the show
is doing outweighs the like nitpicky bad not nippicky. We're
not being nippy, but like the bad things that we've mentioned.
I like fully enjoyed it, and also just those actors
are so talented, um just incredible. So yeah, I love it. Yeah,

(01:12:53):
I think there are so many wonderful individual moments from
the show that I think we'll end up thinking about
in the future and get such an accomplishment to be
able to craft a show that has really really iconic
moments like that. Would you say it was crafted with love?
Okay out Melissa, Okay, and that's my time. I I

(01:13:21):
was a little more mixed on it. I think as
a whole, I love the episodes that I loved, and
the scenes that I loved I thought were truly incredible
and just x some of the highest level of television.
And then some parts I thought we're just not good
at all. So I feel like a little I've never
felt this way about a show. Does that make sense?

(01:13:42):
Like that we're so like such swings of of highs
and lows that I feel like sometimes I feel about
a show of like a first the first season isn't great,
and then the sixth season is great. But this I
all felt in one season. So I feel I feel mixed,
but I'm happy it exists, is it? Did you watch

(01:14:03):
the fourth season of Veronica mars As I did? Yes,
I did a similar feeling. We'll have to talk about
that maybe on a bonus. Also we'll have another because
I remember you were a marshmallow you had talked to
about Veroni because seven Jeans. But what I thought about
the show a lot of things, but one I think

(01:14:25):
that it did a really good job trying to take
a structure that I think is difficult to translate onto
a screen. Because we talked a lot about how we
enjoyed the book in terms of individual mini stories, but
I think that's very difficult to do separate bottle episodes
that are all connected to each other, and especially if
it's something that's being released weekly, because you also need

(01:14:46):
to think about how you're going to bring people back
in next week. And I think that if they're all
separate stories that sort of involved the same people, but
you're not quite sure how they're all connected, then it's
gonna be a little bit harder to bring people back
week to week. Yeah, you need you need a cliffhanger
at the end to drive the plot forward. Yeah. So

(01:15:08):
for me, I think that's it was a good option
for them to restructure it. I thought that some of
the changes and some of the conclusions that they made
didn't quite make sense for me. Fully, still, I felt
less weird about Montrose being gay in this by the end,

(01:15:30):
but still didn't fully get it because it felt like
it was trying to say that the cycle of abuse
is like kind of okay because his family abused him,
so it's okay that he abused his kid, and that
like that didn't sit well with me. And then again,
the two spirit character that was killed that was that

(01:15:51):
did not land the way that they intended it to
land for anyone, I think, um, but I think that
overall really great ideas and I also would recommend it.
Quick question George being uh att kiss his father not
in the book, right, Okay, you go. Last time, I

(01:16:17):
just kept forgetting because that was one of the things
that I was watching and I was like, okay, but Also,
Montrose wasn't like in a my like majority sexless marriage
with a very different or at least they did not
make mention of it being a majority sexless marriage in
the book. I don't think. I don't think they did.

(01:16:38):
I don't think they really talked about sex in the book,
which is no no and and Atticus and Latitia didn't
have a relationship sexual I loved in the book. I
I liked her having a dream and a goal that
had nothing to do with romance. I thought that was
really nice. But Hollywood, baby, make the hot people kiss.
I like, I'm an action figure person when it comes

(01:17:00):
to TV shows. I like when when hot people kissed. Well.
I also feel like, I mean, I used to be
very on Humbler and there are a lot of like
ace people on Tumbler who were like, we just want
TV where people aren't trying to have sex, Like that
would be super cool if there was just a TV
show where it didn't need to be sexy people being

(01:17:22):
sexy with each other sex and like, it's fine if
they're sexy, but maybe they could just be friends. Which
it stinks. That not stinks because I think that they
do have incredible chemistry Jonathan Major's and Journey Smlett. But
I think that it would have been great to just
see these two friends who care about it each other
a lot because they both grew up reading sci fi together,
just have this connection. End. But I think that there

(01:17:45):
was a big emphasis on family, particularly towards the end
of this, and Gia became like sort of part of
their family near the end. I got mad about that though,
because I was like, girl, have some self respect. This
guy said that he meant nothing like yeah, and then
you stayed not only in his country but in his
city to chill him, waiting to save his families. So

(01:18:09):
maybe they just had like they have different levels of
you know, jealousy and self respect, you know, as fox deemons. Yeah,
we don't want to speak for the fox human community.
I'll speaking for the fox human community. I think it
would have been okay if she killed him. Um, he
murdered her best friend in cold blood. He stood there

(01:18:29):
and shot a bunch of nurses in front of her.
You're really telling me that out of ninety nine other men,
nobody else would take her to the movies. Yes, yes,
they were like weird, You're weird, alright. I think if
you went through other men, there was probably somebody who
was a comfortable level of goodness to the person who

(01:18:50):
killed your best friend. Yes, you have to believe that
something in Tick is even after killing her best friend,
makes him still worth like not not murdering when you're like, wow,
those other men must have been real piece of ship. Yah,
Well you forgot jen is that liking Judy Garland movies

(01:19:10):
is gay? So maybe she also had ninety nine other
best friends and they each one best friend and but
but but then they all didn't take them to the movies. Additionally,
you know, like, so this is like one better. It's
like what it's like when your standards are so low
they're like at the floor because people are shitty on Tinder.

(01:19:34):
And then it's like, well this one actually asked me
out on a date. That's the lesson I've been there. Well,
on that note, everybody can bring standards just just just
just say that that's okay to do. But to finish
my point, there was an emphasis on family, and I
think that having Letitia and uh Tick make a family

(01:19:57):
was something that played into that. So I get why,
like story wise they did it, but also it would
have been great if they had not, and my favorite character,
the little boy at the library read the Earth which
never came back. No. I hope he's doing great because
the best life. He's doing great. He may be probably

(01:20:17):
wrote a bestseller and I heard it ye old man
now in like years. Yeah, he's like quarantine with his grandkids.
Probably probably well. On that note. Uh, that's it for
Lovecraft Country. Next week we are diving into our new book,
which is V for Vendetta, which is V for Vendetta.

(01:20:39):
Like the the Omnibus is in three books, book one,
Book two, Book three, So we'll only talk book one,
which I feel like is a reasonable there's plenty to
talk about their uh, and then we'll chat about the movie.
It is a scarily prescient prescient which prescient is that correct?
Scarily write that word down frightening lee p word. Uh

(01:21:05):
so see then like not like Ben Shapiro, what as present.
That's our show for the week. Thank you so much
for listening. I'm Danish Schwartz and you can find me

(01:21:26):
on Twitter at Danish Schwartz with three z s. You
can follow Jennifer Wright at jen Ashley Wright, Karama donqua
Is at Karama Drama. Melissa Hunter is at Melissa f
t W and Tan Tran is smart enough to have
gotten off Twitter, but she is on insta at Hank Tina.
Our executive producer is Christopher Hesiodes were produced and edited

(01:21:46):
by Mike Johns Special thanks to David Wasserman. Next week
we'll get into the reason the Internet knows you, Guy Foxes.
It's V for Vendetta, just a little bit late for
the fifth of November. Popcorn Book Club is a production
of I Heart Radio m HM