There are monsters galore in HBO’s pulpy new drama – but according to its cast and creator the real terror comes from the reality of America’s past
In the first episode of Lovecraft Country, Korean war veteran Atticus “Tic” Freeman (Jonathan Majors) is heading north to Chicago when he gets chatting to a fellow passenger, an older woman, in the “colored” section of the bus. He tells her about the book he’s been reading since before they crossed the Kentucky border. It’s the first instalment of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s sci-fi classic about John Carter of Mars, and when Tic is asked why he’d want to read a book with a slavery-defending Confederate officer for its hero, he tells her: “Stories are like people. Loving them doesn’t make them perfect. You just try to cherish them, overlook their flaws.” She looks askance at this, but Tic soon charms her with his enthusiasm: “I love that the heroes get to go on adventures in other worlds, defy insurmountable odds, defeat monsters, save the day. Little negro boys from the South Side of Chicago don’t get to do that.”
This same enthusiasm for all things sci-fi, fantasy and horror is evident in every frame of Lovecraft Country, a 10-part HBO series exec-produced by both Get Out’s Jordan Peele and JJ Abrams. The creative force behind it, though, is showrunner Misha Green, whose last series, the escaped-slave heist thriller Underground, also used light-footed genre conventions as a way into one of the heaviest periods of American history.
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