Warning: This article contains discussion of murder, child death, lynching, racism, police brutality, images of body horror, and spoilers for Lovecraft Country.

This episode was … a lot. For the majority of its runtime, it was a lot in a good — if deeply painful, and fundamentally terrifying — way. That said, a review would be remiss without acknowledging elements that may have been highly contentious (or highly subjective) as to whether or not they worked in practice. Let’s dive right in, shall we?

Lovecraft Country‘s eighth episode, “Jig-A-Bobo,” brings to the foreground something that’s been waiting in the wings since early in the season: the murder of Emmett Till. Lovecraft Country is very much no stranger to using real events, contexts, and ideas to tell its story. Segregation, sundown towns, drag balls, mentions of Martin Luther King’s activism, the Tulsa race massacre, and pioneering are only some of the elements taken from reality and woven into this narrative.

This eighth episode brings to fruition the first time a real person has not just been mentioned in the script, but has been more actively portrayed within it, ever since Emmett “Bobo” Till’s first appearance in episodes three and four. These scenes were ultimately fleeting cameos, and some viewers might not have made the connection between “Bobo” and Till until episode eight.

Nonetheless, I have to admit, the inclusion of a real figure, one so pivotal to both the past and present of Black communities and lives in America, had me wary. Would the show turn to historical revisionism and magically “undo” the real Till’s murder? If they did, would it feel meaningful or flippant? Alternately, would they kill him all over again, and if so, how would that murder be handled?

If you haven’t watched the episode, you may have guessed by now that the writers’ room took the second avenue. For what it’s worth, despite my initial reservations, I do think that (for the most part) they chose the most appropriate, sensitive, and respectful avenue available to them.

Focusing on what happens within and to a community in the wake of a hate crime centers Till’s humanity, his life and loved ones. As a result I think it takes an important and necessary step away from simply interacting with his image as something that bears nearly mythic proportions.

However, I can definitely see that this approach could have and did open some other wounds that weren’t served well by the narrative to follow. I, personally, still have some fairly significant reservations about Till’s presence in the show as a minor or cameo character given what the eighth episode brought to light. Bringing real figures — in addition to real events and conflicts — into a fictional setting is never altogether without its risks.

While minor characters dying to further the motivations or stories of their friends, families, and communities is nothing new; I’m not entirely convinced that it felt honest or respectful to do so when the minor character in question was a real person who was really murdered. What “Jig-A-Bobo” has to say about communal grief, guilt, and rage is important. It’s striking, painful, moving and complicated in all the ways that it aimed to be. However, I’m not sure I’m on board with or convinced by the direction it led certain fictional characters.

I’m talking, primarily, about Christina. As any of you who’ve followed this series of reviews for a while now will know, she’s a character I really struggle with. Many of the ways I struggle with her are clearly deliberate. She’s unavoidably a villain, unmistakably a terrible person, yet also interesting in the bizarre transparency and honesty with which she pursues her deeply selfish goals. Then there are some I’m not sure the show has adequately considered, mostly when it comes to depictions of her gender and sexuality.

Following a fraught confrontation with Ruby over her indifference to Emmett Till’s murder, and the waves of grief and fury that rippled across Chicago, Christina — let me get this straight — enlists two white men to replicate Till’s murder on her own body. It’s revealed soon enough that she seems to be doing so primarily to test her magical invulnerability courtesy of the Mark of Cain. Yet so too is it part of the ongoing dissection of Christina’s performative nature.

For a character who moves fluidly between “ally” and adversary, Christina’s performative-ness and her entitlement to (and indeed, exploitation of) experiences and knowledge she can never fully understand or care about is an important part of where her arc is going. Though I’m still frustrated and uncomfortable with the show’s seeming refusal to move past its transphobic echoes in the Christina/William subplot, it’s clear that her relationship with Ruby has affected her in some way.

One assumes that the authorial intent here is (in part) to have this sequence with Christina’s “death” indicate that — Ruby told Christina she wanted her to feel the terror, pain, grief and fury she felt. Presumably, this is Christina’s unsuccessful or even false attempt to do that. The question is whether or not it worked, for the audience, and that’s not one I can answer for everyone.

For me, personally, I’m not convinced. It felt like more of a showcase of the sadism of the white men Christina hired than anything. The scene is also so brief — with Christina’s Mark bringing her back to life less than a minute after her “death” — that I’m not convinced it was worth it. Even if Christina breaking into angry, terrified sobs afterward seems to indicate a real change of direction for this character, is it really?

I just can’t tell if that change is going to justify the writing choice made. Then again, perhaps that discomfort is entirely the point. Suffice it to say this is one of the elements that I think is going to leave audience sentiment divided well after this season’s conclusion.

Speaking of questionably effective elements, we need to talk about Ji-ah’s (also fleeting) appearance. Bringing her in for an expository scene — one that doesn’t even say anything the audience didn’t know — that sparked a fresh argument between Atticus and Leti feels a little hollow and rushed. What did she do for the rest of the episode? Is she going back to Korea? What role is she going to play in the season’s climax?

We don’t know. Sadly, for all that Ji-ah is a really great character and I loved her episode, I’m concerned that the show doesn’t really know what to do with or about her as they draw ever closer to their finale.

Last but not least, before I dive into the actual heart of this episode, I have some unpacking about Montrose to do. His rapprochement with Atticus was … a lot more touching than I expected. A lot of it came from, finally, Montrose being able to speak to his own experience — his desires, his family, the way that he loves — using his own words, in his own terms, without being interrupted or spoken over. He was given room to express the nuances of his complex, (at times violent) painful, loving humanity in ways that are long overdue.

I also absolutely loved the acknowledgment that he and Dora both signed on for a lavender marriage with their eyes open. It’s a family dynamic and experience that’s rarely seen in fiction. If it is, it’s presented as either tragic or deceitful, and there was something really lovely in seeing this type of partnership reflected as something loving and valuable in its own right.

Of course, this recognition now brings with it a different kind of fear, given the show’s track record with its queer characters to date. Following this conversation, Montrose vows that he’ll do whatever it takes to protect his son and his grandson — yes, Leti’s pregnant and now Atticus knows about it — even if it costs his life.

I felt my stomach absolutely plummet. If Lovecraft Country has spent all season linking Montrose’s queerness to violence, trauma, and hatefulness, and then turns around to ensure he can only find “redemption” by sacrificing himself for a heterosexual nuclear family, I’ll … I don’t know. I’ll have some very serious words, that’s for sure.

All that being said, this episode is (more than anyone’s) Diana’s. It is a necessary step to answer episode seven and Hippolyta’s arc coming to what seems to be a grinding halt with her disappearance. My concerns about how Till’s murder and its aftermath were handled notwithstanding, I loved this central hook. Jada Harris absolutely blew me away, and I can’t stress enough how delighted I am that she got to be the focal point of an episode and the glue that held it together. It was great to see her that way, even if the adults in Diana’s life aren’t able or willing to see her the same way.

Indeed, much of the horror of Diana’s experience in this episode is precisely this isolation. It’s precisely the way she slips between the cracks and has to weather her grief, rage, and fear entirely on her own while the adults in her life are too focused on their own concerns to notice.

The terror that pervades this experience is heightened with the introduction of the curse placed on Diana by the recurrently, viciously racist police captain Lancaster. This terrifying encounter leads her to be stalked by two figures styled after the pickaninny. These figures are a racist caricature of young Black girls steeped in minstrelsy and Antebellum-era fiction, most notably Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Their presence is prefaced by a warped version of A.F. Winnemore’s 1847 minstrel song Stop Dat Knocking and, my God, are they terrifying. They’re simultaneously tragic in some unspeakable way, too. After all, they represent the exploitation of Black girls’ innocence, freedom and liveliness by white oppressors.

Shout out to Kaelynn Harris and Bianca Brewton, by the way, for bringing to life these alarming, highly personalized, spectacularly acted and mobilized entities. There’s not much I love in horror as much as casting dancers as horror movie creatures. “Jig-A-Bobo” utilizes that casting to fantastic, horrifying effect.

Diana’s facing off against these entities — that no one else can see, and that she can’t speak of without losing her voice — is intimately terrifying. It is one more thing she’s dealing with on top of her best friend’s murder, her father’s murder, and her mother’s disappearance. We mourn Till’s murder as much as we mourn the systematic, persistent thievery of Diana’s innocence.

Though it’s ultimately rewarding to see the police’s power demystified when she confronts them, this episode is a stark, painful reminder that Black children, (and Black girls specifically) experience danger that the adults in their lives may never be able to adequately protect them from. Diana’s resourcefulness and stubbornness in the face of overwhelming, incomprehensibly unfair odds is both triumphant and tragic. No child should have to guard their own survival so closely and on their own, yet Diana does, and she’s not the only one.

Speaking of protection, though: Atticus summoning a shoggoth of his own to protect himself and those he loves against a deeply terrifying police onslaught is (perhaps) a great deal more satisfying than it should be. It doesn’t allay all my frustrations with him, and I don’t think it’s supposed to, but I have missed this creature design. There’s something deeply delightful in seeing these creatures be on our heroes’ side for a change.

“Jig-A-Bobo” makes some pacing missteps that leave me a little concerned for whether this very busy show will be able to tie up all its many threads in a satisfying way two episodes from now. Some of its plot elements didn’t quite land the way I can only assume they were intended to.

I’m deeply anxious for Diana in ways we’re clearly supposed to be — and I’m deeply anxious for the show’s queer viewers in ways I still don’t think the writers’ room has really considered. All in all, though, I’d say the episode is mostly effective at what it set out to do. It has certainly walked the talk on making sure I show up next week.

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Lovecraft Country

8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• Fantastic acting as always
• Stellar cinematography
• Wonderful creature design and VFX

Cons

• Handling of Emmett Till's murder may have mixed results
• Some elements were rushed through