Lovecraft Country / YMMV

Aluminum Christmas Trees: Contrary to most modern people's preconceptions, the show accurately portrays the fact that the North of the United States could be just as virulently racist and dangerous for African Americans as the Jim Crow South, as the protagonists make their way from Chicago to Massachusetts and at one point get chased out of a 'sundown town'. The "Safe Negro Travel Guide" is a fictionalized version of the real "Negro Motorist Green Book".
Complete Monster: These racists show that even in a world filled with literal monsters, humans can be even worse:
- Captain Seamus Lancaster is the brutal, corrupt and racist officer who has designs on rising in his lodge at the Sons of Adam, introducing himself by subjecting Letitia "Leti" Lewis to a "rough ride" as a form of torture and interrogation. Having delivered multiple victims for the horrific experiments of Hiram Epstein, Lancaster has an immortal body that he maintains by having black men abducted and murdered so he can take their body parts and organs to replace his own, even infecting young Diana with a curse to murder her should she not obey him.
- "Holy Ghost": Hiram Epstein, years ago in the basement of the haunted Winthrop house, captured eight black men and women and tortured them to death in a variety of ghastly experiments. Hiram kept the souls of his victims trapped in the Winthrop house in torment for years afterward, among his mutilated victims a woman impaled on railway spikes and a football player whose head has been reduced to a wailing infant through a deranged time travel experiment.
Genius Bonus: From the book: Adah's Book of Days includes an accounting of the amount of money she figured her former master owed her, both for her labor and the "insults" he visited upon her, which she calculated using Bible verses. For example she charged $27.26 for each time her master whipped her, due to Matthew 27:26 being about Jesus being whipped. For another unspecified (although apparently common) insult she consulted the book of Deuteronomy and charged $22.25: Deuteronomy 22:25 involves the punishment for raping a married woman.
Harsher in Hindsight: Bobo asking the Ouijia Board if he'll have a good time on his vacation.
Heartwarming Moments: The crew singing "Sh-Boom" in the car together. Even Montrose joins in!
I Knew It!:
- After the fifth episode premiered, a significant portion of the show's fan base had this reaction when it was shown that Christina and William are the same person. Some people had been calling it since the second episode. Though it turns out that William really was a different person, at some point he was killed and Christina was using his blood for a spell to impersonate him.
- Also in the fifth episode, there's Montrose being gay, which people had him pegged for since he first appeared.
- People also assumed Uncle George was Tic's real father, which is acknowledged to be a possibility in "Rewind 1921".
Narm:
- The CGI snake from the second episode—specifically, the CGI snake that appears from a man's pants in place of his penis. The comical timing of the event—even in context—combined with the awful rendering and the fact the Atticus illusion has a literal "trouser snake" makes it a moment near impossible not to burst out laughing at.
- In episode 3, Hiram Epstein's ghost rising from the basement floor looks far too much like Voldemort to take him seriously, and the CGI does the scene no favors.
- While it doesn't quite ruin the moment, there's a small amount of tension lost when Montrose mentions how the words he'll always remember from right before Thomas got killed were "nigger faggot", which might remind more than a few viewers of an old sketch featuring Donald Glover.
- In the same episode, Leti stoicly walking through Tulsa as it is firebombed, just after witnessing Tic's grandmother burn to death in front of her, was clearly meant to be a dramatic moment. But considering it occurs as Tic is desperately trying to keep the time portal open, and Hippolyta is almost being torn apart by powering the machine herself, many viewers found themselves yelling at her to run, dammit!
Signature Scene: Leti's breakneck run to the car while evading the shoggoths in the first episode managed to be this, with many critics naming it a great horror movie chase scene.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Montrose killed a Native American Two Spirit in cold blood, Ruby anally raped a man to Pay Evil unto Evil, George doesn't live past the second episode, and Tic executed an innocent nurse during the Korean War. This is in addition to being a bleak and horrifying show contrasting Cosmic Horror with Humans Are the Real Monsters. Some viewers are tuning out as a result.
Too Cool to Live: Uncle George Freeman, a compassionate, intelligent man with a loving nature, affinity for pulp fiction and keen genre savviness, dies at the end of episode 2. While he’s been teased multiple times as having one role or another in spite of this, he’s only had a few small scenes (only one of which had him being voiced), and he ended up not making a return.
Ugly Cute: The baby shoggoth Christina midwifes in episode two. Despite being covered in slime and having a head that's mostly mouth, it manages to be adorable.

YMMV / Lovecraft Country

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