Lovecraft Country

I've been waiting for Lovecraft Country nearly all year, and the anticipation was not unwarranted. The premiere episode was everything I hoped and dreamed it would be.

The acting, cinematography, writing, set design, and wardrobe were all top notch (as we've all come to expect from HBO). This first episode really does a fantastic job of taking you back in time.

My favorite part was the way that my expectations were completely upended by the ending. I thought I knew what this series was going to be about, but now I have no idea where they are going to take us, and I couldn't be more excited!

Creative history lesson whose fantasy ultimately got so absurd that it was unwatchable :-(

This series starts out very well hitting character development, backstory and monsters. A lot of action and likable characters. The series goes along just fine and is very enjoyable . . . Until it wasn't. It got stupid, preachy and disjointed toward the end. So promising, yet so disappointing.

The pacing from the first to the second episode was incredibly inconsistent. The first episode was enjoyable enough and showed great imagery of racism prior to the Civil Rights.

The second episode though - my god was that bad. Weird jumps between scenes, it didn't take time to develop the setting, characters, or do horror in any meaningful way. With this being commentary on Lovecraft, I would have thought there'd be horror, and not just vague illusions to tropes like cults or monsters. This was more of a middle grade dark fantasy story. Looking at the novel, this story was only a hundred pages long, and the HBO adaptation didn't add anything to it - so that is about the length of a middle grade novel. Adult horror is usually longer and better developed. With Jordan Peele involved as a producer, I'm really surprised by the low quality.

The series tried tying together so many ideas in such a short period that it ended up being way too choppy. Every episode feels like its purpose is to highlight racial inequality during the time period, rather than delivering a coherent plot. It focused so much on race that it really hampered the enjoyability of the fantasy aspects.