1x09 Rewind 1921

[7.4/10] I think my common refrain for Lovecraft Country is going to be, “I like the concept, but not the execution.” The show comes up with a good reason for Tic, Leti, and Montrose to go back in time to Tulsa in 1921. Hippolyta’s back and able to fix the machine at the Observatory and she can use her Afrofuturism abilities (that eventually turn her into Storm) to send them there to retrieve the Book of Names and save Dee. It’s a little convenient, but it works well enough as a plot motivator.

I even like the Back to the Future mixed with a family’s, and our nation’s, grim history. The former works better than the latter though. “Rewind 1921” isn’t exactly subtle about it, but I like the arc between Tic and Montrose here. Tic is initially ready to cut Montrose out of his life, only tolerating the abuse he suffered because he thought he needed to honor his father. Then he learns that Uncle Geroge might be his real dad, and it’s the final straw. The last tie holding him to this man is severed.

But going back in time, he can better understand the rough life Montrose led, and the way Montrose was, consciously or not, just perpetuating the cycle of abuse and the bad example he saw in his own father. We see the fear, abuse, and humiliation Montros suffered for being gay. And most importantly, we learn that biological or not, he desperately wanted to be Tic’s father, that being Tic’s dad matters to him in a way Tic never understood. Using the literal images of the past to inform Tic’s understanding of who his dad is in the present in a good approach.

Unfortunately, the episode lays it on a little thick elsewhere and relies on a lot of contrivances for everyone to reach that point. Our heroes manage to spy on their past relatives at just the right times to learn all of this information. They’re welcomed into homes and overhear exposition in just the right ways. People are willing to sacrifice their own lives to save randos from the future without that much proof and to preserve a timeline they don’t even know is good. It all just feels like a stretch, in the way a lot of the non one-off elements of the show do.

A lot of the Tulsa material doesn’t work especially well either. It feels a lot like the use of Emmett Till in the last episode -- something that “Rewind 1921” points to and heavily underscores as awful, but treats mostly as a side dish to its time-hopping adventure story. I wish we spent more time on Montrose’s trauma at returning to this place, and less on unconvincing CGI immolations and people walking through explosions.

There’s at least some solid stable time loop material. Once more, the show signposts too heavily that Tic is the famed stranger who saved Montrose, George, and Dora back in 1921, but it works as vindication of Tic’s renewed relationship with and understanding of his father. Likewise, Leti’s experiences with Tic’s great grandparents are pretty rushed, but it’s a decent explanation for why nobody missed/could find the Book of Names for long.

It’s just all something of a bumpy ride. (Not to mention, the assorted drama with Leti/Ruby/Christina and the suspense over what’ll happen at the autumnal equinox continues to fall flat for me.) You can see the show trying to excavate family drama and point to key horrific moments in America’s black history, and sometimes it truly succeeds. The acting’s good across the board here, and the craft of recreating 1921 is impressive. But a lot of the dialogue and writing overall is weak, and the show continues to have trouble stringing together all of its disparate elements into a cohesive and satisfying whole.