I want to love this show. I love Jordan Peele, and everything he touches is a lot of fun. But I can only muster a middling "like" for Lovecraft Country, and this episode highlights a lot of the things they get wrong. It's a great adventure show, with strong characters that are well-acted. However, it feels more like a "Call of Cthulhu" RPG campaign than anything directly inspired by Lovecraft. A museum heist? An evil sorceress literally playing hide and seek with children? Main characters talking about casting spells that are *not* scholars of the occult, cultists, or hopelessly insane? Worst of all, there are heroes that are probably not going to die horribly. Lovecraft's stories are all about hopelessness, despair, and madness. This show is fun, and the characters are spirited, and they successfully fight the forces of evil. But it's an extremely loose homage to the titular source material, and doesn't really scratch the horror itch. This episode, with the trapped balance beam, felt more like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Country, which is fine. Just not Lovecraftian. (Side note: It's streaming on HBO Max on August 5th, but I guess that doesn't count as "airing" yet.) (Also, I'm slightly offended that they used Marilyn Manson's "I Put a Spell on You" instead of the earlier version by Screamin' Jay Hawkins.)
Review of A History of Violence
