Misha Green, the showrunner for Lovecraft Country is credited with writing Episode 2, which makes sense if you think of her other famous show Underground (about the slave underground railroad), which has some great tie-ins with this episode, themes and ideas.
So after the harrowing trip to Ardham in Episode 1, we get to see how Ardham “Atticus's home” treats him.
Ardham becomes a place of manipulation and control. Firstly it tries using the soft glove of control, which is material access.
Just like the apartheid negotiators during the CODESA talks and talks about talks, the white masters of Ardham know the power of consumerism and materialism for dumbing down the mind and resistance.
Samuel, the grand wizard, uses Uncle George's love for books and Leti’s love for everything nice - in this case, clothes - as a way to preoccupy their minds to the point where they lose focus on what matters.
The guys are so preoccupied, they don’t even realize that memories from the previous night are missing.
Just like the comrades were introduced to expensive liquor, the nice life and given business interests to soften them up during the negotiations.
It's an old trick and the guys fall for it - except for Atticus.
Who, for a little time, plays that woke dude who's surrounded by folks who are oblivious to their own ignorance.
The burden of truth ends up making Atticus look like the crazy one. As he remembers the horrors of the monsters, the creature comforts of Ardham have his travelling companions on easy street - but not for too long.
I really dig Uncle George's character because even though he does not remember the previous night's journey he does start to question why he can't remember as truth is presented. He questions instead of clinging to his creature comforts.
Which then brings in the second mode of control that the white masters have been using since the heyday of colonization: if they can't seduce you with trinkets and consumerism, then they shall break you down with force.
Here the force is both physical and psychological as the trio are trapped using magic and are subjected to psychic torture that is meant to break them down so that they are more compliant to the masters of Ardham's wishes.
It's powerful stuff.
In South Africa the apartheid state used its police and army to brutalize and control the black masses, then used poverty and erasure of our collective history as a tool to create a feeling of being less than because it's easy to control a person who is unsure of themselves and is broken.
Uncle George plays the role of the daddy and reassures the trio to not let the wizards break them down.
The torture was telling, although weaponised, as it revealed a truth that the characters are hiding or struggling with, which were great character moments for all three.
It’s at this point were the episode started to be a bit of hit and miss for me. The story didn't really explain things like how the wizard, if he was observing Uncle George, would allow him to be in a room where he had access to the secret room where the secret society manual resides.
It felt too convenient, but I dug that the chance encounter gave Uncle George a chance to have one-up over the wizards.
I also dug the character of Christina, the white lady, because yes she shows racism is very tight cousins with sexism, and the actor, Abbey Lee, is intriguing.
But we do not get to spend enough time with her. We don’t even know by the end of the episode if she's dead or not or if she will have any role beyond the first two episodes?
I dug that we got to meet Montrose finally. Atticus's old man played by the fabulous Omar Little aka Michael K. Williams.
But I felt his escape, his digging out of the ground and him meeting with the trio as he escapes was just too easy and convenient.
Although I appreciate what the escape gave us: another clue to Atticus's family history and that Uncle George is not the saint we all thought he was. He might even be Atticus’s father. The escape gave us the white wizard's end game.
Which is to use Atticus as a gateway to Eden through sacrificing him because of who he is.
Basically something that happens a lot in the world were black culture is used for the benefit of others and not necessarily to the benefit of black people.
Music to commerce is littered with the exploitation of black body, talent and knowledge by the powers that be.
But I dug how the episode turns this on its head, as the wizard believes they have found their Eden by exploiting Atticus's paternal slave master line, but it's Atticus's maternal line, the ancestors of his mother, that comes to save him and destroys the wizard.
History repeats itself, whereby Hannah and Atticus's slave ancestors, guide Atticus to safety whilst destroying the house like she burned down the house when she first escaped.
The visual effects of the house being destroyed were not the best the show has delivered. Although I appreciated that the show does not pull an American God where one book is being stretched out to multiple seasons.
The eventual destruction and death of Uncle George happens too quickly and we end the show with a lot of elements from the story not clear.
Such as: did everyone die in the house including the villagers? Are Christina and the butler dead? The monsters that we now know that get birthed through cows - what happens to them?
Because the preview to next week's episode seems we are going down a different path and shifting gears just slightly… but I will give the show time because it's that good.
I also had issues with the show being too on the nose with some ideas, like the sheriff was basically a caricature of racist hillbilly, which made the sheriff from Episode 1 more nuanced.
The show has some brilliant ideas and may be trying to pack everything all in one episode was not the route to go hence some stuff was not as nuanced as it should.
The pacing and some of the minor story choices did not work that well either but it does not detract from what a great episode “Whitey's on the Moon” was.
It has a lot to say and I didn’t even cover all of it in this extra long review but we shall keep watching the series.
Episode felt like: A super-sized episode of the Twilight Zone meets the Outer Limits with some melodrama thrown into the mix.
Verdict: ***1/2
Rating
*Yikes **You are on your own ***its not bad ****Almost Perfect *****instant classic