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"Lovecraft Country" - new HBO series, from the minds of JJ Abrams, Jordan Peele, others

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
It has an 80 in Metacritic, but all the critics who gave it a super high score are the usual suspects that salivate at racism, feminism, oppression and black people.

What's the audience score, though? That's always more important in my opinion
 

TrainedRage

Banned
Im gonna give it a try. I will post my thoughts on the first episode in a bit...



EDIT: Just finished the first episode. There were quite a few lines about 'crackas' and how badly white people suck. Maybe 6 times. There was a scene that went on for a while that showed a bunch of segregation and juxtaposition of how different things were for whites and blacks. There was a cringe singing "party" scene. Aside from that there was a weird chase scene
The 3 black main characters stop in a midwestern town to get some food and are reported to the police and ran out of town by people shooting and hollering at them. Essentially trying to kill them for just being in the town. It was very heavy handed and not needed IMO
I didn't really like.

It was very well produced and you could tell they have a HUGE budget. The city looks incredible for the 50's style. The atmosphere and setting are amazing to look at and feel very much like an important character. The lighting is wonderful and has such a cool look to it. The leads are pretty empathetic, I liked and cared about the journey they set out on. The last 20 min of the show painted a nice picture of where the show can go. They don't shy away from blood and gore and language.

Overall I liked it 7/10. I could do without the heavy handed segregation and ALL white people bad stuff. Obviously that was part of the times and should be part of the story however it some of it feels like cheap jabs written for a gotcha by a mad white woman. The lead is bad ass and his friend is fine as hell so that helps. Give it a go if you like horror/action/mystery. Not a bad debut. Im hoping that most of the rascist jabs were just part of the beginning exposition.
 
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kittoo

Cretinously credulous
The book starts very strong but keeps going downhill with nothing but shit left in last 30%. Hopefully the show is better.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
I really liked the show once they got on the road. I could have done without the first quarter of the episode with those musical numbers. I'm not into jazz or whatever that genre was, and I didn't think they were good performances. I had to keep skipping ahead in HBO Now.

At the conclusion, was that supposed to be an homage to

Miskatonic University, or some library or other building from Lovecraft stories?
 
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Labolas

Member

Racism is the real monster.
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Going to give the show a shot since it has Lovecraft in the title, but if it goes in the "durrr.... racism is bad... durr." angle then it can go into the trash with the rest of these virtue signaling shows.
 

Kimahri

Banned
So is this where we are now? A show handles horrific racism and the only possibly reason is that it's "anti-white"?

I'm not gonna presume that I know exactly how things were in the 50s, and if this show is representable, but I do recall watching TV shows in the 90s that dealt with racism as well, and here are some of the scenes I remember:

A black guy was beat up and knees bashed in with baseball bat because he had the audacity to join the sports team.

A father was lynched from a tree for moving to the wrong neighborhood.

A bunch of kids and teenagers were hosed down by the fire department for daring to want to use the same bus as whites.

Now, these shows I watched back then might have been hubris of course, but I always believed they were somewhat historical in nature. In any case, it's pretty clear that if they were made today, it would be labled woke anti-white propaganda. Am I wrong?

Sad times when dealing with racism is seen as worse than racism.

Sundown Towns was a real thing by the way. There's even a book about it, released 14 years ago, so a bit ahead of the woke brigade: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743294483/?tag=neogaf0e-20
 

Pejo

Member
I'll give this show a chance, but JJ being at the helm doesn't leave a positive taste in my mouth. Locke & Key ended up being really good, though not really horror. I just hope there's some good horror bits to this show besides the "RACISM BAD" message that they seem to be beating you over the head with.
 
I liked the pilot up to the cabin part, more or less, then the ending felt rushed and the season preview looked dreadful; I'm going to give it at least one more chance, right now it has the potential to turn into a dumpster fire.
 

Werewolf Jones

Gold Member
Watched the two episodes, it has potential but the disjointed narrative in the second episode brings it down a peg and feels amateur. There is clearly a lot to unpack that could amount to half a season of intrigue and instead it just glossed over it.
 

LOLCats

Banned
wow lot of jj Abrams haters, i feel like the stuff he makes is better than most shit out there. but maybe i have shitty taste or havnt watched his bad shows.
 
Watched the two episodes, it has potential but the disjointed narrative in the second episode brings it down a peg and feels amateur. There is clearly a lot to unpack that could amount to half a season of intrigue and instead it just glossed over it.
Yeah episode 2 was eh. All the reviews said it was the worst when they saw the first 6. Episode 3 is back to form.
 
Watched only the pilot and didn't like it tbh. It was all serious and all of a sudden...................

IDK what I expected lol
 
So this show is weird as hell.

Finally caught up to episode 5..

Good lord.

It's got some super fucking cringe worthy shit mixed in with some very cool horror and social commentary stuff.

Guess I'll keep watching.
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
Just finally binged all the episodes until now (ep 6)... I'm in love with the show! WOW! That first episode HOOKED you in! I don't know what others thought they were going to get in eps 2 and 3 but I liked them!

I'm more about lore than anything else... The twists and turns this show takes keeps me guessing! Jamie Chung is GORGEOUS as are Uncle George's wife and Leti. Ruby is a cutie, too!

I'm still wondering what the end game is... Even though I'm sure I know based on ep 2.
 

sol_bad

Member
I finally caught up as well. Those 9 tails are something right?
I like how each episode, or nearly every episode feels like a different genera.
 
I saw the first episode. I thought it was mediocre at best. Very much felt like a bog-standard TV drama (those chase scenes were so cliche) with a twist of ham-fisted social commentary.

The female actress is extremely hot, though. Reminds me of Tisha Campbell in her prime.
 
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