elcome back to Hippolyta (Aunjanue Ellis) and Dee (Jada Harris), our first reunion of this big reunion episode. They were last seen driving off in the direction of Ardham’s burnt out ruins, to discover what really happened to their husband and father, George. There Hippolyta found a piece of wood with a symbol matching one on the orrery. (Have you been noting all these symbols and hieroglyphs?) Using her knowledge of astronomy she gets it working, revealing a key and inscription: “Every beginning is in time and every limit of extension in space,” plus a set of geographical coordinates. Back in Chicago, it’s time Christina came up with some answers re all that body-swapping she does. In short, she didn’t kill William or the woman (Jamie Neumann), “I just transformed their blood into a potion.” Well, that’s OK then! Her motive? To get revenge on Captain Lancaster for killing William (he’s not fully avenged yet, is he?), but also to prove to her sexist ol’ pops that girls rule and boys drool. Or something. The real revelation here is that Christina began by asking politely for Ruby to listen. She even said “please”. Usually, she just launches straight into her Order of the Ancient Dawn exposition speeches, regardless of how bored or captive her audience. Nice to see she’s learned some manners. Christina also says something else interesting: “The whole truth involves lost pages from the Book of Names … and your family.” Not Tic’s family note, but Ruby’s. (I have a whole theory about this, but I’ll lay it out in Additional Notes below to avoid any inadvertent spoilers.) The next few scenes involved Leti’s dream – very similar to Tic’s recurring one about escaping the burning Braithwhite mansion – and its analysis. After some discussion Tic and Leti concluded that Tic’s ancestor Hannah is trying to psychically communicate that she escaped with the entire Book of Names – not just a few pages – and that, therefore, it may still be out there somewhere. But where? According to Tic, his mother was “the only one who survived the riots in Tulsa”, but Montrose later revealed there was also another cousin in St Louis. (Remember Montrose’s drunken mumbling in episode four? It seems increasingly likely he was actually witness to the Tulsa Massacre.) Sadly, obtaining that information was a rather more troubled endeavour than my brief outline suggests. After Montrose’s disco-dancing joy in episode five, things seemed to be going well for him and Sammy. Here they were waking up together at Montrose’s apartment, Sammy making breakfast. But their sunny mood of postcoital bliss soon descended into a lovers tiff, when Montrose started taking his internalised homophobia out on Sammy. Sammy has too much self-respect to put up with that nonsense (good for him!) and walked out. But not before Tic and Leti walked in, causing Montrose’s two flimsily divided worlds collide. For one naive moment, I thought Tic might walk towards his father (uncle?) and offer him an embrace of acceptance. But, of course, that could not be. Not in this place and time. I am still hoping this truth will be the beginning of a reconciliation though. And Lovecraft Country does seem to reward such sentimental hopes … eventually. Look at Ruby and Leti. The sisters managed to patch things up and all it took was some time together babysitting Dee. They’re still keeping secrets from each other, however. Most significantly Leti’s possible pregnancy and Ruby’s living arrangements with Christina/William. That left Tic and Hippolyta travelling alone and in different directions, with Hippolyta’s journey easily the most adventurous. It’s not every day you shoot a police officer, get sucked into an interdimensional portal and land in what looks like a Janelle Monáe music video from her Afrofuturist period. That was the first time I screamed out loud with astonishment and exhilaration during this episode. But, reader, it was not the last. What a ride! Taking in dancing on stage in Paris with Josephine Baker, leading the Dahomey Amazons into battle (this is a guess based on a Lupita N’yongo doc about the real-life inspiration for Black Panther’s Dora Milaje) and – at last! – a reunion with George. That scene was something special, wasn’t it. We’ve spent some time on here speculating about if and how Uncle George (Courtney B Vance) might make his return. As a ghostly apparition? Or a reanimated corpse? But did any of you have “newly woke feminist ally” in the office sweepstake? Congratulations, if so. He told her: “You’re right. I let you – helped you – shrink, so that we could have a family; so that I could do what I had to do and know that you were safe at home waiting for me.” How many middle-aged married men could wholeheartedly say the same to their wives? (The great Courtney B Vance has been married to the great Angela Bassett for nearly 23 years, so let’s assume he’s one of the good’uns). When Hippolyta took George’s hand and led him into that groovy space garden, it was as a partnership of true equals. Ultimately, Hippolyta decided to return to her 1950s planet Earth existence, for Dee’s sake. (So, there is at least one healthy parent-child relationship in Lovecraft Country.) But did she make it back? And if so, in which time and which place? The final scene featured Tic, calling her name into the porthole, before grabbing a copy of what looked like a pulp fiction by George Freeman, titled “Lovecraft Country” and running out, leaving Dee’s comic book Orithyia Blue, under the bloodied body of the police officer. Additional notes Yes, I did put the Orrery coordinates into Google Maps (of course, I did). It lands us somewhere in rural Kansas, about a five-hour drive from Tulsa. So, I guess, Toto, we’re not in Oz any more ? As for the inscription itself? It’s a quotation from German philosopher Immanuel Kant. (1724-1804) The following line, which you might find relevant reads: “Space and time, however, exist in the world of sense only.” Are Christina and Ruby going to … continue their relationship?! As a pair of magical, inter-racial, love-hate lesbians in 1950s Chicago? It’s a terrible idea for Ruby’s peace of mind, of course, but I love love love it for us! Wild Fan Theory Time: Samuel Braithwhite is Leti’s biological father. This would make Leti also part of that cursed bloodline. I’m basing this on Leti’s dream, Christina’s strange comments and also an episode-two scene in which one of Samuel’s Sons of Adam pals asks “Why is his daughter here?”. We assume he’s referring to Christina, but he’s looking through a magical window at Leti when he says it … Hippolyta waves to a black female motorcyclist who passes her on the road. This can only be Bessie Stringfield, a total trailblazer who, among many incredible feats, crossed the US alone on her bike in 1930, when most roads were dirt tracks, and she was just 19. She was also known to enjoy inventing stories about her past. Or, to put it another way, she often asserted the right to say “I am …” “Gustav Mie … he warned of gravity shifts in the future.” Hippolyta has been reading the work of the German physicist Gustav Mie (1868 – 1957). He has a Martian crater named in his honour. Which is cool, but not as cool as naming a comet, as Hippolyta once did. Since we’re dealing in time travel, it seems churlish to point out that Hugh Everett first proposed his “many-worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics in 1957, at least three years after Hippolyta claims to have read an article about it. So instead I’ll point out that Everett always believed in the literal reality of quantum worlds. That’s according to his son Mark Oliver Everett otherwise known as E from the rock band Eels. Listening guide It’s Piel Canela that Hippolyta sings along to on her drive, a love song dedicated to someone with “black eyes” and “cinnamon skin” (the literal translation of the title). It was written in Spanish by the Puerto Rican Bobby Capó, but sung in French by Josephine Baker. Patti LaBelle’s memorably saucy 1974 hit, Lady Marmalade, is the soundtrack choice for Hippolyta’s Parisian cavorts. Legend has it that LaBelle spoke no French and had no idea what she was singing about. “You’re not real. If you were, you’d have some status among the nations of the world. So we’re both myths.” — This week’s spoken word section is dialogue spoken by Sun Ra, the Afrofuturist visionary and natural jazz pioneer in his 1974 film Space is the Place. Quote of the Week “Me, I feel like the stars in the black of space: magnificent, ancient and already extinguished.” – Josephine Baker (Carra Patterson) there, elevating the standard drunken deep ’n’ meaningful to a whole new level.