It’s always interesting to see what choices and changes are made when a book gets adapted into a visual medium, especially when both the book and the show are pulled off with such skill and insight. I’ve been largely impressed with the changes Lovecraft Country the show has made, but “I Am” has a steeper curve for me personally, since Hippolyta was my favourite character from the book. This episode makes changes to both the narrative and the character, and I’m not as convinced by the result as I have been previously.
Hippolyta, twisted up from grief and secrets, finally finds the proof she wanted in a tense but ultimately uneventful trip back to the now-ruined Braithwhite mansion. And when she does a bit more searching, she finds a key hidden in the orrery, as well as a location for its use, without us seeing what her skill with astronomy and mathematics really is. In the book it’s clear that she’s a whiz with calculations and with a telescope; here, she kind of…bends some rods? Aunjanue Ellis gamely tries to make it work by muttering about the angle of tilt for the axes, but it’s not really effective because we don’t have very much context for what she’s talking about. For a show that’s done an excellent job in laying everyone else’s groundwork, I’m not sure the offhand comments and visit to the planetarium really convey Hippolyta’s expertise.
But speaking of groundwork, we get back to all the other characters before we see where Hippolyta’s going. Ruby gets to have a brief confrontation with Christina about last week’s shocker, and her fury is potent. Christina’s info-dumping explanation isn’t nearly as convincing, though. Abbey Lee seems to be trying to play the spooky little girl from every horror movie ever, with her wide eyes and even tone, but she’s also trying to play the femme fatale, and it just never quite works for me. We’re spared further explanation by checking in on Leti and Atticus, whose dreams have been pointing them in a new direction, and on Montrose and Sam.
Montrose and Sam are having an awkward morning after—Montrose raising a big stink about the cook on breakfast and whether anyone caught Sam coming in or out of his apartment. It’s painful to watch the dazzlement of last episode fade into a few sad sequins on the side of the road. And it’s even sadder when Atticus and Leti catch them mid-quarrel.
Atticus spews some vile words, and Montrose once again falls back on the abuser’s crutch: violence and bombast. Demanding that Atticus respect him—a man half-dressed in the hall, too ashamed to stand up for his lover, several inches shorter and definitely not in as good shape as his just-discharged son—is pathetic even as it’s still frightening. But it still works, at least partially. Atticus doesn’t laugh or give up on his father—he flees, overcome by yet more revelations.
Lovecraft Country is very smart in the way that it parallels the magical and the mundane. Atticus thought the world was one way. Now he realises it’s another, and he can’t fully wrap his mind around it. All that power is down to words and secrets. Majors gives another achingly intense performance that really drives home how both sides of his family wield some hefty powers over him, powers to which he could be heir depending on how much violence he wants to embrace.
But this is still technically Hippolyta’s episode, despite all the other characters’ time encroaching on hers. And when she finally sets off on that trip she’s always wanted to take, she takes that key and has a nice little drive to a deserted planetarium, where she finds a mysterious machine. We briefly see complex equations flashing beside her as she’s deep in thought. But she ultimately gets the machine started by whacking it like a cheap TV, and it only opens its portals when sufficiently messed up by a brawl and gunfight. It doesn’t actually have anything to do with Hippolyta’s cleverness at all.
This brings me to the crux of my issues with the episode: book-Hippolyta is a puzzle-solver, an ace mathematician. Her story is a tragic reminder of the insights, the inventions, and the wonders we lost as a society because a person like Hippolyta had to research which cafes wouldn’t get Black people killed instead of how to travel to the stars. Yet it’s also a small triumph: it’s a Black woman who sets off to explore alien shores, who outwits aliens and police officers alike.
Here, her triumph is an emotional journey for sure, but all her cleverness is truncated by the narrative. Sure, we see her taking apart the room she’s in and reconfiguring the wires to open the door…only to be caught immediately. She’s tossed dramatically across a room, pinned down, and generally forced to match wills instead of wits. In the ensuing struggle, Hippolyta near-hysterically laughs that she wants to be on stage in Paris with Josephine Baker.
And then she is.
On stage and in the wings with Josephine, Hippolyta gets to live out a fantasy of being known, a longing she’s had ever since someone else got the credit for naming a comet. She gets to dazzle, gets the world to come to her instead of waiting at home or picking through ruins. But she follows up her star turn with the first of three excellent monologues about what freedom means
Hippolyta gets to give a poignant speech about hate and the nature of freedom—true freedom versus the freedom of invisible bonds, all the social pressures of race and gender that have been holding her down. The limelight is not enough—it has no place, after all, for her anger.
Hippolyta jumps again, and to train as a warrior instead of a dance, and wear a helm instead of a jewelled collar. In her second monologue, a speech to her fellow warriors, she declares that rage is ladylike, and hatred is godlike. But to give vent to her rage and hate is also not enough. She wants her love to be more than victory drawn from conflict.
She wants her marriage back. And so she names herself again, and gets back to George…only to realise she was angry with him most of all. He didn’t support her dreams, and he asked her to stay home and wait and support him instead.. And the message is clear: it’s not Hippolyta who needs to change. She’s been herself through every iteration and timeline. What needs to change are the people and systems around her, starting with George. His acknowledgement of his failings is a balm and counterpoint to all of Montrose’s earlier failings, and to all the secrets all the other characters are still hiding from their loved ones.
George and Hippolyta renew their commitment to each other by renewing their passion for discovery. What follows is a romantic, rosy-hued montage of space exploration as it looked in the 50s: friendly aliens, bubble helmets, and lots of silver foil. And Hippolyta gets to contain those multitudes. She gets to encompass selves and galaxies, a full spectrum of emotions and successes. Her whole self is luminous, enormous. And that’s a beautiful message, especially with its emphasis on embracing anger and sexuality as part of that incandescent whole.
But, in the book, Hippolyta and George already were discoverers. Together and apart, they both worked on the Guide. They took trips, did research, and supported one another equally. It wasn’t George who limited Hippolyta’s research, it was systemic racism.
Look, the show and the book ultimately both champion a mutually supportive, mutually creative relationship of equals. This wasn’t a bad episode by any means, and adaptations are allowed to be different. But I found myself wishing for more of Hippolyta’s impassioned, enraptured monologue about the multiple worlds theory and her calculations than yet another throat-slitting closeup. Ironically, her passion takes a backseat to her passions in “I Am” for the majority of the episode.
Next week: Dee’s episode and possibly a return to Horror, complete with Horror Pregnancy!
