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Managing editor & film and television critic with a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature with a Writing Minor from the University of Guam. Currently in graduate school completing a Master's in English Literature.
“Here’s to the girls … who know when to create and when to destroy.” The seventh episode of HBO’s Lovecraft Country Season 1 is titled “I Am.”, written by series creator Misha Green, along with Shannon Houston, and directed by Charlotte Sieling.
Some spoilers ahead for those who have not yet seen this episode or the prior episodes of the series. If you have not yet done so, get to that now, then return to this article!
This week’s episode of HBO’s horror drama examines metaphysically at Black individuals’ dreams and, moreover, freedoms thereof. Its plot centers on Hippolyta Freeman (Aunjanue Ellis) and the Braithwhite orrery, which unlocks a passageway to alternate timelines parallel from the characters’ reality. The model of the solar system has coordinates that lead the woman to Kansas, as well as a quote engraved into the Sun: “Every Beginning Is In Time And Every Limit Of Extension In Space.” What Hippolyta discovers next are worlds beyond her imagination, along with the solution to what has been holding her back.
In Mayfield, Hippolyta is nearly assaulted by two policemen until her nephew Atticus “Tic” Freeman (Jonathan Majors) saves her, although he believes he lost her to the portal and flees before authorities arrive. Meanwhile, Hippolyta is transported to an Afrofuturistic world, where she meets a goddess named Seraphina/ Beyond C’est (Karen Leblanc). The goddess grants her the ability to become whoever she chooses and be posited into whichever world apart from her own that she chooses. First, she dances with French entertainer Josephine Baker (Carra Patterson), then she is brought to an African compound where she is trained by warrior women and kill a horde of white male soldiers.
Hippolyta unlocks the complete freedom within when she is brought back to her husband George Freeman (guest star Courtney B. Vance). She admits to him and Baker that she loathes herself for creating her diminished self-perception and comes to closure with the loss of her romantic partner by expressing her anger for possessing such a perception. She goes off with him to travel to other worlds, crying out: “I am Hippolyta. George’s wife … I am Hippolyta. Discover.”
In subplots, the Freemans’ distant cousin Christina Braithwhite (Abbey Lee) tells Ruby Baptiste (Wunmi Mosaku) the truth about her disguise as a white male. She needed his figure to get into her father’s cult of white men, the Order of the Ancient Dawn. Somewhat similar to Hippolyta, the Braithwhite girl tells Baptiste, “I could be so much more, do things most people couldn’t even imagine.” Baptiste is sent to the Freemans to keep tabs on them, and her half-sister Letitia “Leti” Lewis (Jurnee Smollett) begins to have a dream of her own.
Lewis shares Tic’s dream of catching on fire as the dreamer chases the Freemans’ slave ancestor Hanna (Joaquina Kalukango) to the doorway of the Braithwhite home’s front door, although the former also discovers she may be pregnant. They discuss looking for their cousins’ Book of Names, which not only contains spells but also teaches the reader how to cast them. The duo soon finds Tic’s father Montrose Freeman (Michael K. Williams) in a romantic relationship with a man named Sammy (Jon Hudson Odom), much to Tic’s disapproval. Lewis and Tic find out what Hippolyta is up to and try to stop her, although it is too late; Tic also travels to Saint Louis, Missouri, to uncover information on his mother’s background.
These recent three episodes of Lovecraft Country have really upped the ante on the show’s representation of non-white women. Whereas Smollett had taken the spotlight up until the fourth episode, we have also seen Mosaku as a Black woman disguised as a white woman, and a South Korean girl named Ji-Ah (Jamie Chung) who as a kumiho spirit within her. This week, we have Ellis’s Hippolyta at the forefront with powerful Black women to guide her way. The actress’s performance as well as her character’s development in this episode has very well become its highlights. Josephine Baker tells her just what she needs to know: “Anyone can be [a movie star]. Me? I feel like the stars in the black of space — magnificent, ancient, and already extinguished.” In addition, a warrior teaches her to stand her ground and establish dominance as a Black individual over the white oppressor and as a woman over men; only then will she be unstoppable. With these figures at her aid, Hippolyta learns about freedom. She says:
Freedom, like I’ve never known before. I see what I was robbed of back there [in my world]. All those years, I thought I had everything I ever wanted, only to come here and discover that all I ever was was the exact kind of Negro woman white folks wanted me to be. I feel like they just found a smart way to lynch me without me noticing the noose.
Indeed, it is our minds that are the true shackles restraining us from infinite worlds of possibility, and Hippolyta has broken them all.
(Another theme to be explored in this episode is Afrofuturism, although I have yet to learn more about this cultural philosophy of science and history before I could make a stance on it.)
What do you think of the series so far? Have you seen the show yet? Let us know! For more horror, drama, HBO, and Lovecraft Country-related news and reviews follow The Cinema Spot on Twitter (@TheCinemaSpot) and Instagram (@thecinemaspot_).
Managing editor & film and television critic with a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature with a Writing Minor from the University of Guam. Currently in graduate school completing a Master's in English Literature.
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