This article contains spoilers for Lovecraft Country episode 10.
In the end, Lovecraft Country was all about legacy. The show follows Atticus “Tic” Freeman from estranged son and war vet to literal Magic Negro, and heir to a magical birthright. Tic, his father Montrose, friend-then-lover Letitia “Leti” Lewis, and her sister Ruby Baptiste become entangled with magic and the racist white folks who wield it. Tic seeks to understand and utilize the power inherent in his blood, and in doing so, is forced to face horror after horror in pursuit of his goal.
The Lovecraft Country finale, “Full Circle” packs a lot of information into its runtime. And while a lot of that doesn’t ultimately serve the central narrative, there is still plenty to explore. Here is how Lovecraft Country ends.
Christina’s Plan
Christina Braithwite spends the entire season doing chicanery hoping to secure all of the ingredients she’ll need, including Tic’s magically-imbued blood, for her own attempt at gaining immortality. What separates Christina from her father, Samuel, and their distant ancestor Titus, is that she isn’t relying on opening the gates of Eden to achieve her aims of living forever. The particulars of either spell are never made clear, but her insistence on obtaining Hiram’s Orrery with the key to his multi-dimensional machine, suggests she may have found a shortcut.
The Adamite Order of the Ancient Dawn is a cult that believes there is a gateway to the Garden of Eden. The Sons of Adam are alchemist zealots dedicated to opening that gate, returning to Eden, and achieving immortality. Titus Braithwhite founded the Sons of Adam when he discovered the Book of Names, which is essentially a cypher for the Language of Adam, and functionally a book of spells. Horatio Winthrop co-founded the Sons, but was banished after stealing pages from the Book of Names.
After obtaining images of Horatio’s stolen pages, Hiram’s key, and Tic’s cooperation (willing participation seems to be a major component in these spells, but there is no investigation of this fact) Christina performs her spell in Ardham, on the autumnal equinox. Tic is completely drained of his blood, the spell is successful, and Christina succeeds where the male Braitwhites failed, bringing the story, you guessed it…”Full Circle.”
The Ancestral Plane
Family looms large in Lovecraft Country. Samuel Braithwhite was a distant cousin to Titus and most-recent head of the Sons of Adam. Christina Braithwhite is Samuel’s daughter, and was excluded from participation in the order by virtue of being a woman, which made her feel oppressed. Samuel wanted to use Tic and his magic-imbued blood as a conduit for his own Eden spell. So he and Christina lured Tic to Ardham using Montrose as bait in the series’ first two episodes. Leti and George got caught in the crossfire, and Tic had to agree to the ritual in order to save their lives. When Samuel and the Sons of Adam performed the ritual, Tic—spurred on by Hanna— tapped into the power instead, and the spell failed spectacularly, turning the Sons to dust and collapsing the lodge. Tic, Leti, and Montrose survived, as did Christina, but George did not.
Titus attempted a spell to open the gates to Eden and it failed, destroying the original Ardham Lodge in a fire that killed almost everyone. The lone survivor was a slave Titus had impregnated named Hanna, who escaped the fire with the Book of Names. The book remained in her family for generations until it was presumably lost during the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. Hanna is Tic’s ancestor, which makes Tic a direct descendent of Titus Braithwhite, and the son among sons, a high-ranking member of the order.
In the finale, Tic, Leti, and Montrose recover the Book of Names from the past. When Tic opens the book, he and Leti are pulled into his family’s ancestral realm, where they learn the history of Tic’s family and the book, and are taught a spell that will inexplicably strip magic from all white folks. Tic, Leti, Montrose, Hippolyta, Dee, Ruby, and Ji-ah travel to Ardham together to cast Hanna’s spell.
Death of a Freeman
Tic already knows that he’s marching to his death, and the writers make zero attempts to circumvent that fate. When Tic surrenders to Christina, he does so with the belief that sacrificing his life will allow his family to complete a spell that will strip his enemies of power. It is never explicitly stated that this will strip magic from all white people, but Hanna tells Tic he’ll “save them all,” which speaks to something bigger than just stopping Christina. Tic doesn’t appear to be in on this larger plan, but Leti seems to be.
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Hanna’s spell requires a connection to Titus and a living Braithwhite. Tic and Leti summon Titus and take a piece of his flesh before returning him to hell, and Ruby supplies bits of Christina. Tic consumes these before he gives himself over to Christina. Except… Ruby was actually Christina under a metamorphosis, so the potion she gave Tic was useless. When Leti does the incantation it doesn’t work, so deus ex Ji-ah steps in, uses her tails (which she has sudden mastery over) to connect Tic and Christina together, and Leti continues to chant until the whole area explodes with magical energy. Christina, who was immortal mere moments before, is left under a pile of rubble. And when she realizes she can’t use magic, Leti tells her it’s not just her, it’s all white people. “Magic is ours now.” Cool.
What Happened to Ruby?
Leti asks for Ruby’s help in obtaining some Christina essence to use for Hanna’s spell, which Ruby firmly refuses. But, when we see Ruby with Christina later, she’s seemingly plotting how she can get what Leti needs. When the gang are in Ardham, setting up their spell, Ruby is revealed to be Christina, and she and Leti have an all-out brawl.
Christina says that Ruby is dead, but alternatively could be in a coma in Christina’s basement, given how the latter needs to keep her transformation targets alive. Not only does real Ruby decide to help Leti, which feels counter to her motivations this season, but whatever confrontation she has with Christina happens off-screen. She doesn’t even get the benefit of a hero moment— though we do get a small flash of her possibly giving Leti another Mark of Cain for protection.
The Six Million Dollar Diana
Dee is saved when Tic, Leti, and the ancestors chant a spell from the ancestral space. But the damage to her arm is permanent. Hippolyta draws Orynthia Blue (herself) and Asteri (Diana), which she says she’s able to do because she was taught by an artist Afua—a nod to artist Afua Richardson, who created Dee’s drawings for the show. She then shows Dee a machine that we aren’t shown, but can hear. The next time we see Dee’s arm, it is mechanical, and she uses it to crush Christina’s throat.
What did any of this have to do with Lovecraft?
Not much, really. Like the book the show is based on, Lovecraft Country is more concerned with flipping Lovecraft’s racism on its head. The heroes of the story are Black, and the monsters are white people and racism. Samuel, in a way, is Lovecraft’s avatar on the show. Samuel’s beliefs about the natural hierarchy echo the sentiments Lovecraft spews in his vile poem. Lovecraft is to Lovecraft Country what Norse Mythology is to Marvel’s Thor.
The first two episodes of the season, and the finale of Lovecraft Country are adapted from one short story, “Lovecraft Country” in the book of the same name, by Matt Ruff. The rest of the episodes are loosely-connected anthologies, each employing a different horror trope.
“Full Circle” is a mostly coherent conclusion to the season that does not require most of the middle to get there. There is almost nothing in episodes 5-8 that are necessary to reach this final confrontation. And a lot of the real trauma that is evoked in the name of realism feels callous with the hindsight that it will have meant nothing to the story overall. Lovecraft Country does a lot, and rewards a rewatch, but this is a story that’s best left to a single season.