TV and Me: Lovecraft Country

Maaan, it’s been a long, long time since I’ve done a TV post.  I’ve watched a lot of TV this past year because of Covid and want to share some of my favorite programs with you.  Feel free to share your faves in the comments section.

Last summer, my dear friend Noob put me on to the book Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff.  She convinced me to give Audible a try (and I am still trying to train my brain to be receptive to audiobooks).  I got Lovecraft Country and used the length of time my trip took from the US to Dakar to listen to it.  It’s a good read.  

Last fall, HBO turned the book into a 10-episode TV show.  Misha Green is the executive producer and I feel that she did a wonderful job adapting Matt Ruff’s novel.  It was enjoyable to see a show with a mostly all-Black cast helmed by a sistah.  The show stars Jonathan Majors as Atticus Freeman, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Letitia Lewis, the awesome Courtney B. Vance (in a short role) as George Freeman, Aunjanue Ellis as Hippolyta Freeman, Michael K. Williams as Montrose Freeman, Abbey Lee as Christina Braithwhite, and Wunmi Mosaku as Ruby Baptiste.

I don’t want to spoil anything, so this will be brief: The show ties aspects of H.P. Lovecraft’s (a virulent racist) Cthulhu Mythos with racism in the US during the 1950s.  Atticus (called “Tic”) has returned home from Korea to go look for his missing father and gets pulled into a dark web of horror and magic and monsters instead.  Definitely worth a watch if you’re a horror aficionado like me and love seeing unambiguously Black actors on the small screen.  Also, Jonathan Majors is fine as wine and we get to see him shirtless quite a bit! (I see you, Misha!)