Et Tu, Lovecraft Country?

This article contains major spoilers to season 1 of the HBO hit show, Lovecraft Country.

Please do not read any further if you haven’t finished watching season 1 in its entirety.

You’ve been warned!

I really did enjoy Lovecraft Country.

Although there were some pacing issues and questionable character motives, the show rates very highly on my list of shows with a strong first season.

I find it comparable to 24, a real time espionage thriller which debuted in 2001.

Like 24, Lovecraft Country told a story with a unique perspective that had never before been seen on TV.

But the subsequent seasons of 24 struggled mightily to keep the season 1 momentum rolling.

And therein lies my fear with Lovecraft Country. 

After an unparalleled first season which blended the racial tensions present in 1950’s America overlaid with magic, time travel, and monsters it would seem like the sky is the limit for future seasons.

When 24 premiered, it’s real time concept was noteworthy and the pacing seemed so organic that the suspense and tension that built up throughout the course of the show never felt forced.

The 24 that returned in subsequent seasons severely lacked the magic of the first season. 

Part of that problem arose from a serial show with a unique concept adopting a procedural format to further the story line.

In layman’s terms the show became predictable or formulaic. What was once an exclusive way to tell a story now becomes the framework for how the show runs. 

The novel concept becomes a plot device that makes it obvious how the story will progress.

Another way to look at it is this;
What makes shows like Law and Order and its spinoffs so successful is that there is an expected entry and exit point in every episode.

It is a self contained story that can come to a conclusion regardless of characters or situations and then it can repeat the process over and over again.

And that’s ok because that’s what you expect from these kind of procedural shows.

When it comes to Lovecraft Country the season ends with black people seemingly taking ALL of the magic from white people and starting down a new path of freedom and self discovery in the face of oppression.

That sounds great. But what if the second season boils down to a team of Leti, Hippolyta, Dee, and Montrose fighting off white people who want their magic back? That could be cool for a few shows but what would the end game be?

I am not saying the writers can’t come up with something extraordinary in season 2 but with the source material exhausted everything that would come into play would have to be created as a derivative of what we originally saw.

And we saw how that worked out for the final season of Game of Thrones.

It seems that adapting dense layers of source material produces a better product than potentially creating new content on the fly.

Let me make one thing clear, if the show comes back I’m hoping they can avoid all of the pitfalls I outlined above. I would love to see a show that boasts powerful black actors and actresses and developed by an equally talented black woman, Misha Green, continue for seasons on end.

But the cynic in me says the revelation of the ‘I got ya kid’ moment will mark the shows slow descent into Law and Order country.