Lovecraft Country: Ending Explained

At the end of the day, Lovecraft Country will be remembered for the moments where it blended real life with fiction, and how it shone a spotlight on the more shameful, forgotten corners of our history. Thanks to this show, there's more people who know about sundown towns, the Tulsa Massacre, Emmett Till and the exploitation of Black bodies for scientific research, than before.

The horror in this show has never been about the monsters, or the ghosts and ghouls, or the uncovering of dark rituals. The horror is in the lived, cross-generational trauma of being Black in America. Despite its inconsistency and occasional impenetrability, the series will live on, due to what it represents and how it addressed discomforts and traumas that are seldom addressed, especially by a Black writer and showrunner like Misha Green.

Here's a breakdown of the ending for Lovecraft Country, for those of you who may have missed some episodes and are confused by what they just saw. You can also read our numerous reference guides to each episode, if you're just getting started.

• Episode 1: "Sundown"
• Episode 2: "Whitey's on the Moon"
• Episode 3: "Holy Ghost"
• Episode 4: "A History of Violence"
• Episode 5: "Strange Case"
• Episode 6: "Meet Me In Daegu"
• Episode 7: "I Am"
• Episode 8: "Jig-A-Bobo"
• Episode 9: "Rewind 1921"
• Episode 10: "Full Circle"

The Ritual

The season finale revolves around the completion of a blood ritual at the Autumnal Equinox in Ardham. Done properly, it will re-open the Garden of Eden and grant Christina Brathwaite immortality. It's never quite explained why Christina Braithwaite desires immortality (especially when she can already survive being strangled with barbed wire and thrown into a river). But the aspiration definitely requires Biblical levels of hubris. That a man or woman would try to regain access to Eden, after being cast out, is surely an affront to God.

This ritual is not Christina's originally. It is a ritual of the Order of the Ancient Dawn, a global cult dedicated to the prospect of immortality. We don't see the entire Order in the show; Lovecraft Country focuses exclusively on the Sons of Adam, a "Lodge" based out of America.

This is not the first time that the Lodge has attempted the ritual. Titus Braithwaite, who founded the Sons of Adam, attempted the ritual and burned the Lodge to the ground in 1833. His distant relative Samuel Braithwaite (Christina's father), attempted the ritual again. It also went pear-shaped, and resulted in the Sons of Adam (Samuel included) turning to stone.

The Family History

The reason why Tic and the rest of our heroes are dragged into this mess is because Tic is the direct blood descendant of Titus Braithwaite. Titus raped and impregnated his slave Hanna; she is Tic's great-great-great-great grandmother. For the magic to work, Christina needs to drain him of his blood during the ceremony.

That Christina sees such a thing as nothing personal, and views Tic's life as a means to an end, is a commentary on the way white people who are "not racist" are complicit in upholding the current order, and can often put their own needs and desires above what's right or equitable. In Christina's case, the hypocrisy is even greater. As a woman, she knows the struggle of being treated like a second-class citizen--that the Sons of Adam would not let her into the order is proof of her station. But she would rather aspire to white male privilege than strive for equality amongst all. And she doesn't care who dies in the process of doing so.

Our heroes decide that the best way to stop Christina is to use magic against her. And so they begin their own ritual at Ardham, which requires Christina's blood, Titus' flesh, and Tic himself to be connected. They get Titus' flesh through a ritual they perform in his underground vault; Tic and his ancestors summon his physical being, and Tic cuts off a piece of his flesh. They get Christina's blood from Ruby, who is Christina's lover and the only person close enough to acquire it. Tic later eats the flesh and drinks the blood. Gross.

The Turn

The twist: Christina disguises herself as Ruby (by drinking a potion with her blood) in order to infiltrate Tic's ceremony. So the blood that "Ruby" gave to Leti, which Tic drank? That wasn't really Christina's. So Christina throws Leti off the tower to her death. Montrose, Hippolyta, Ji-Ah, and Tic get captured by the villagers. Dee, who's waiting in the car, gets attacked by a monster. Tic's ceremony fails. And Christina begins her own ritual. She slits Tic's arms and bleeds him out. It's all looking pretty grim.

Success

But then Leti arrives on the scene. She's not dead after all (invulnerability spell--more on that later). And she begins chanting incantations to stop Christina, but she might be too late. But then, Ji-Ah steps in. Her entire narrative arc has been about finding her humanity, and realizing that just because she is a kumiho does not mean she is an irredeemable monster. Her fox tails come out of her eyes and grab both Tic and Christina. Thus, the three components--Christina's blood, Titus' flesh, and Tic himself--are all linked. And Leti casts the spell that will stop Christina. Meanwhile Dee's safe; the shoggoth that Tic and Montrose summoned in Episode 8 kills the monster that attacked her.

Fallout

The spell works. Christina is defeated; she's mortal and buried under a pile of rubble. Magic is now the providence of the Freeman family. But to secure this future, Tic dies from his blood loss. It gives Montrose a shot at redemption; he was a terrible father to Tic, but he could be a wonderful grandfather to Tic's son, who Leti is currently pregnant with.

The show ends with Dee going up to Christina, who's still trapped under the rubble, and crushing her throat with her massive robot arm. A shoggoth roars at the moon, and the credits roll.

Loose Ends

When Ji-Ah is holding onto Tic and Christina with her tails, she can see their entire life histories. And so, we get some quick details and explanations from her visions, which clear up most of the plot holes.

Leti survived her fall, because Christina incanted a protection spell after she pushed her. Presumably, she did this because she had promised Ruby not to harm her sister; Christina still had feelings for Ruby in her own, limited way.

Ruby is most likely not dead, despite Christina's claims. She's lying on a slab in Christina's home, and she looks and appears unconscious. Changing into Ruby only required her blood; it did not require her life.

The shoggoth protected Dee, because Tic had already introduced them to each other, and was teaching her to care for it.

Christina's robot arm confirms that she's the mysterious hooded figure who pushed Tic back into his current timeline in Episode 7.

Leti says to Christina that white people can no longer use magic. Is this a hard, literal rule, or is it a more figurative statement, where magic has been taken away from this specific cult of white people who meant harm? I would assume the latter, since the concept of "white" is a social construct, rather than something measurable with blood.

The Point

Lovecraft Country is a mash-up of genre and competing plots. It is difficult to parse, and the more one examines it, the less cohesive it seems. But the takeaways are strong, and have remained consistent since the first episode:

• Trauma endures for generations, and it can be passed down through family. Just because something doesn't happen to someone directly, does not mean they will escape its effects.
• Being Black in America can be horrifying. It can also be beautiful, especially in the ways that one can subvert the tools of oppression to find happiness, wholeness, and family.
• Black women are the witnesses, storytellers and keepers of America's unvarnished, uncensored history. Our country owes them an unpayable debt, for suffering but enduring against the odds, and for leading some of America's most important social advances. They move our country forward. Black women are the unsung heroes and co-founders of the Civil Rights Movement. They're behind the #MeToo movement, and they founded the Black Lives Matter movement as well. Do your research. Lovecraft Country is an excellent jump-off point for important discussions.