(Warning: This post contains spoilers for Episode 105 of “Lovecraft Country,” titled “Strange Case.”)
Sunday’s “Lovecraft Country” was a day-in-the-limelight episode for Wunmi Mosaku’s Ruby Baptiste that exposed a new side to Leti’s (Jurnee Smollett) half-sister and a new side of the wealthy and mysterious Christina Braithwhite (Abbey Lee). Well, actually, Christina’s other half is a character we’ve seen since Episode 1, but only now learned is actually Christina transformed: William (played by Jordan Patrick Smith).
The big Christina/William reveal comes at the end of the hour “Strange Case,” which is all about Ruby and the choices she makes after William gives her a potion with the ability to change her from a Black woman into a white woman, so that she can see what her life would be like in a very different pair of shoes.
But when Ruby spends her time getting the job at a department store she could never land in her own skin — which she violently slips in and out of, because the process to change from herself into her alter-ego isn’t exactly a smooth one — Christina reveals her own secret identity and encourages her to think bigger in terms of what she can achieve in another body.
“Yeah, that was the chapter of the book that I went, OK. I was like, ‘Here we go. Here’s something dangerous. I like dangerous. I like exploring things that are dangerous.’ So that was from the start. I was like, ‘We’re going there,’” “Lovecraft Country” showrunner Misha Green, who created the series based on Matt Ruff’s novel of the same name, told TheWrap.
“And I think in adapting the book and again, using it as a platform, it didn’t just– once we changed Caleb to Christina, it just became natural because– you know, I always look for those things where you go, ‘Oh, of course, Ruby can turn into a white woman, of course Christina is turning into a man,’” she continued. “And then that just makes Christina so much more, this alive thing of like, you can now move through the world as both sexes, what does that then make you? You get to choose, you get to– and that’s that idea of being out of bounds. Which is what she’s saying to Ruby, that magic is a gift to do whatever the f–k you want, stop living in this bottle that they’ve put you in. Like, all you can imagine is being white and working at a department store? Like, go bigger.”
Green says that the relationship between Christina and Ruby is “really exciting” and will be unpacked more throughout “Lovecraft Country’s” final five first-season episodes.
“That idea of what is being uninterrupted? And what does that look like? And it looks really fucking gross, which is what I love with all our transformations and stuff because I’m a huge gore fan as well. So that was really important to see how hard it was for Ruby to transform into a white woman.”
“Lovecraft Country” airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.
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