1x02 Whitey's on the Moon

[7.1/10] This is a weird episode in that I like the themes and many of the concepts, but the story and execution didn’t really work for me.

We get more parental issues at the core here, not only finding out that there might be more to Tick’s parentage than we knew, but also: 1. Getting to meet his father, Montrose (Michael K. Williams!) in person, 2. finding out that Montrose’s father was physically abusive as well, 3. Getting more insight into Letty’s issues with her mother, and 4. Even learning that among the bad guys here, the daughter of the (seeming) Big Bad has parental issues to boot. I’m still not sure where the show intends to go with all this, but it’s compelling facets built around that idea.

There’s also something cool about the notion of an evil estate, one that lures you in with images of things you want or have lost or both. Likewise, the idea of a high class equivalent to the KKK, taking the “grand wizard” part seriously, and trying to return things to a Biblical state where “everything was in its place” seems appropriately villainous and unique as the apparent Big Bads our heroes are facing. Likewise, the fact that Tick is the descendent of the original Braithwaite patriarch and one of his slaves adds a wrinkle that gives Tick a leg up while also making him a target and telling a familiar yet sad story.

The problem is that this felt like two episodes crammed into one. We really needed more time to breathe and take all of the big developments, hints, and setpieces in before moving on to deaths and climaxes. I’m the kind of viewer who complains about over-exposition, and yet it felt like a great deal of what we saw here wasn’t properly established. Things just kind of happen, not just without explanation, but without setup. Sometimes that can be intriguing and mysterious, but here, it felt like the show just proceeded as though the audience already knew what was in the writer’s head.

Details of “The Order of the Ancient Dawn”, or the alien watchdogs, or the simple fact that magic was afoot was just kind of taken for granted without introduction. It really feels like this should have been two episodes -- one spent doing more to establish the mystery and eventually reveal the nature of the Braithwaites and their goals, and another actually playing that out, with resistance and payoff. Instead, this is two hours of story crammed into a single hour, leaving the whole thing feeling breathless and disjointed.

That said, the acting was really good, which helped make up for the choppy pacing and janky structure to the storytelling here. Jurnee Smollett in particular just kills it, both in her monologue about her past, and in her expressions of abject fear and beleaguered sadness. Likewise, Jonathan Majors’s reaction to the death of his uncle is really well done. I hope that the group finds a magical amulet or something to revive Uncle George, because Courtney B. Vance has been a boon as well, and I want more scenes of him and Michael K. Williams playing off one another, especially with the implication that George was sleeping with his brother’s wife.

Unfortunately, the effects work here has been a bit subpar. Maybe they’re going for an unreal vibe and that’s just it, but a lot of the CGI, from the alien dog creatures, to the portal to Eden, to the house falling down all looked pretty unconvincing, and took me out of some major scenes. Otherwise, there was a nice foreboding atmosphere in places, with the Braithewhite and their accomplices giving off a creepy unsettling energy from the beginning. But sometimes that veered into cartoonish, mustache-twirly type vibe from Samuel Briathwhite in particular. And why are Tick and the subtly feminist Christina Braithwaite even vaguely “friends”? The episode barreled through things that required a lot more setup and exploration like that.

Overall, the pieces are there, in terms of ideas, unnerving but societally potent fantasy and horror elements, and especially acting. But I feel like we’ve yet to see Lovecraft Country find a strong way to have that all coalesce into a T.V. show just yet. The first episode deserved some leeway because introductions are tricky and by definition tend to require being broad-based and ping-pong-y in terms of story and character, but I hope the show finds a steadier rhythm from here.