Not quite sure how to feel about this week's #LovecraftCountry. Taken on its own it's a strong hour, anchored by a fantastic Jamie Chung, who's never been less than magnetic in anything I've seen her in. Someone give her a show already.
But as part of the ongoing story of #LovecraftCountry, it feels like an odd fit. Are we just supposed to handwave the fact that Tic is apparently a war criminal? Is this something the show is going to revisit, or is it in the past?
The episode does such a great job of putting us in Ji-Ah's point of view that we end up alienated from Tic. To the point that her forgiveness of him feels unearned. "We're both monsters, so it's OK" is a really glib way of addressing the things he's done. #LovecraftCountry
Also not sure what to make of the equivalence drawn between racist violence and anti-communist violence. On one level, it's a productive tension - in Korea, Tic is an American imperialist, an instigator of lynchings similar to anti-black ones in the US. #LovecraftCountry
But on the other hand, being a communist and being black are not the same thing. Nothing that happens to communists in this episode (lynching, summary execution, torture) is OK, but that still doesn't make their condition the same as being born black in the US. #LovecraftCountry
It's an equivalence that eventually goes very strange places, as the communist character makes "can't we all just get along" arguments that clearly have more to do with racism. Meanwhile, communism itself is very much not a go along and get along creed. #LovecraftCountry
Again, it's not OK to kill people for that, but by eliding the difference between a race you were born into and a revolutionary philosophy you embraced, the episode creates the impression that it doesn't understand the difference. #LovecraftCountry
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