1x06 Meet Me in Daegu

[8.5/10] As we hit the back half of Lovecraft Country, I’ve come to the realization that I wish the show were basically just ten movies fully exploring these ideas independently (or with loose connections at best) rather than ten episodes jammed into a serialized narrative. The strongest part of this show is its individual stories, and the weakest part is the linkages it tries to draw between them.

“Meet Me in Daegu” is the peak of that. You don’t really need to have watched the prior five episodes of the series to understand anything. Sure, it adds some context to Tic’s past and his future, but really, the episode works as a standalone tale centered on Ji-Ah, and that’s its best mode.

She’s such a fascinating character here. The concept of her as a kumiho -- a nine-tailed fox in the form of a beautiful woman summoned after the ills caused by men -- is a strong one. It works from a pure horror perspective, since it plays on tropes of sirens and the like luring men to their deaths and creates the terrifying but artistic imagery of Ji-Ah destroying these men via her “tails.” The rules of one-hundred souls that must be collected and the mention and appearance of the mudang who summoned her helps expand the show’s roster of horrors beyond North America in an intriguing way.

But I like these choices more for how they work their way into family, relationship, and character stories. Ji-Ah’s family history is a gut-wrenchingly tragic one. We learn that it mirrors Lolita, with a terrible man who targeted a woman because he was actually after her young daughter. But “Meed Me in Daegu” takes that to even more abject places, implying guilt on the part of Umma, that she might have known or allowed it because of how that man could restore her respectability after she had a child out of wedlock.

It feeds the additional tragedy between Ji-Ah and her Umma. Umma desperately wants her daughter back, and yet sees Ji-Ah as both a representation and corruption of the child she was summoned to avenge. Ji-Ah desperately wants to be accepted and embraced by her Umma, but her only connection to Umma’s real daughter comes from the memories of her abuser. The choices the show makes from a horror perspective allow it to both abstract and drill down into the ripples of abuse and the lingering pain and harm it causes.

Ji-Ah’s status as a monster also works as a not-so-subtle LGBTQ metaphor that’s just as potent. There’s plenty of talk of how being different and fear of being found out informs the decisions that Ji-Ah and her “best friend” from nursing school make in war-addled Korea. Umma tells Ji-Ah that she doesn’t have feelings because she’s a monster, and it syncs nicely with the notion that she feels nothing when forced to consort with men because it’s what her mother demands. The episode rarely gets explicit with it, but the metaphor of having to hide who you are in a society that doesn’t tolerate that sort of difference is a strong one.

Despite that, her relationship with Tic is the most warm and engrossing in the relationship so far. I love the progression, from Ji-Ah loathing the very image of Tic since he coldly shot her best friend, to slowly but surely coming to understand him as a kindred spirit -- as an outsider in his home as well, as someone who tries to escape via art, as someone with a complicated and abusive relationship with their parent, and as someone who feels like a monster but who, with genuine love, can become their better, more vivid selves.

Despite the harsh ending, it’s a heartening take on romance and its ability to strengthen us despite hardship. The two performers have fantastic chemistry together, and their little improvised movie theater date is the sweetest thing. The fact that this sparks genuine feeling in Ji-Ah, one that makes her question everything Umma taught and told her, adds to the depth of the story.

At the same time, the episode is a fascinating time capsule of the life and culture of 1950s Korea during the war. I’ll confess to not knowing how accurate the depiction is, but if it’s even partly correct, it’s both horrifying in seeing the atrocities committed and fascinating as a look at cultural mores forced to confront cultural exchanges and trying times that prompt evolution and also box people in.

On the whole, this Lovecraft Country’s best hour yet, one rife with tragedy, explorations of identity, and the most endearing love story the series has managed to craft yet. Ji-Ah goes from being an unseen and unknown presence on the show to its most rich and three-dimensional character, while adding depth to the protagonist at the same time. That’s a hell of a move.