Parents' Guide to Lovecraft Country

While it certainly includes its fair share of macabre mysteries and things that go bump in the night, HBO's pulpy serial is so much more than a gore-soaked frightfest. Given its title, you could be excused for expecting Lovecraft Country to be a straight-up horror series inspired by author H.P. Lovecraft's macabre tales. For starters, the show subverts expectations at nearly every turn, frequently nudging you to the edge of your seat ... only to pull the rug out from beneath your chair. Most notably, it thoughtfully explores the hate in the notoriously racist author's heart as much as the monsters that spawned from his mind. Its 1950s setting pulls no punches in laying bare the bigotry that plagued the era, unflinchingly portraying the ugliness that Black people faced just for existing, including the Tulsa race massacre and the murder of Emmett Till.

Of course, it's the layered, nuanced performances delivered by Lovecraft Country's cast that make these injustices feel far scarier than any creatures or spirits their characters encounter. Atticus, Letitia, and Montrose are the main characters, but supporting characters like Ruby, Hippolyta, Ji-Ah, and Dee are fleshed out more in one episode than most characters are in some series' entire runs. Viewers spend so much time getting to know these core characters, cringing at every hate-filled human encounter they endure along their journey, that it's easy to forget about the slow-burn genre scares building in the background. By the time multi-eyed beasts or wronged spirits begin tearing limbs off the villains/racist cops, you might be questioning what you signed up for ... before eagerly queuing up the next episode.