Did you catch the fire? Sunday’s journey through Lovecraft Country was full of hope—as passed down to us by our ancestors and living elders. It might seem an odd takeaway that an episode beginning with a hexed Dee coming dangerously close to becoming a Topsy twin (uh, triplet? I’m still having nightmares about them damn twins, y’all!) and ending with Tulsa, Okla., engulfed by the flames of white terrorism would be hopeful, but it was.
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In week seven of HBO’s groundbreaking series, I spoke about righteous rage but I’m thinking that the fire this time (to reference the work of James Baldwin and the recently deceased Randall Kenan) also contains a just love; a love grounded in justice for ancestors of yore and the descendants of the future. In this episode, we see, through the lens of the past, the fire that is ours in the present day to catch and pass on. And we see this coupling—of rage and love—in the Greenwood citizens’ defense of their families and community; in Tic’s rejection and subsequent protection of his father; by Hippolyta, who channels the fire as the literal motherboard for the time machine; and again literally in Leti’s long, fiery walk back to the Stradford Hotel (a real-life location) and the portal, clutching the Book of Names.
Before we get to Tulsa 1921, let’s check in on the Black Scooby Gang (my ode to Buffy the Vampire Slayer), who began the episode blaming each other for Dee’s demise. We got some fast-moving narrative development in the first third of this episode, giving us Lancaster’s final death at the hands of Christina’s clever manipulation of his regeneration spell (with help from Ruby), Hippolyta’s superhero-like entrance, and Act One culminating with Ruby driving off in Christina’s Rolls Royce after a “Come to Jesus” moment with Leti.
At first, I interpreted Ruby warning Leti against following “after some man” as simply hypocritical, for she is doing the same with Christina—following after her own (wo)man. But this scene and the next, featuring Christina and Ruby, brings clarity to Ruby’s motives. She is maneuvering to protect herself and Leti, period. Fuck everyone else. The promise she extracts from Christina regarding Leti was a foreshadowing filled with foreboding. Yet however detached, Ruby’s actions mirror those of Montrose, as he is similarly maneuvering to protect Atticus and his grandson—Leti ain’t nothing more than an incubator to him, where Tic and the (future) George are concerned. This does not bode well, for the Black Scoobies will have to come together, fully, to defeat Christina.
Though the Scooby Gang is in disarray, they must gather their resources to save Dee from Lancaster’s Topsy twins. They must return to the afternoon of May 31, 1921, the start of the 24-hour period that saw the destruction of the affluent Black community of Greenwood by white terrorism. The massacre seemingly begins with the suspicious arrest and jailing of teenager Dick Rowland, who shined shoes and was falsely accused by of some sort of assault on elevator operator Sarah Page, who was, at the very least, a platonic friend who never even pressed charges against Rowland.
Mechelle Brown, program coordinator at the Greenwood Cultural Center, explains that thousands of whites began to riot outside of the Tulsa courthouse, compelling 100 armed Black men to approach the courthouse, intent on protecting Rowland (returning after a smaller contingent was initially rebuffed by the sheriff). When one Black man was confronted about the gun he was carrying, a struggle ensued and the chaos exploded.
Source: The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country: ‘Rewind 1921’
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