Lovecraft Country Teases A Big Apocalyptic Event Is Coming

This week’s episode of Lovecraft Country added some very interesting wrinkles to the show’s mythology and plenty of clues about where it could be headed by the time the first season wrapped up. At the forefront of the new episode was the fact that it was a flashback, showing Atticus’ time in Korea as a member of the United States Army and how he befriended and fell in love with the character of Ji-Ah (played by Gotham and Big Hero 6 star Jamie Chung), a nursing student in South Korea who is caught up in the war effort as she works to help wounded soldiers. The episode not only revealed the Ji-Ah isn’t who she seems, but that she has some supernatural powers of her own, which could play into the show’s big finale.

As the episode revealed, Ji-Ah isn’t just a young woman in South Korea, but is in fact inhabited by a Kumiho spirit. The traditional myth of the Kumiho in Korean folklore is that the fox-like monster has the ability to transform into a beautiful woman and seduces men to eat their hearts. Lovecraft Country does things a little differently by converting her into an almost vengeance demon who must absorb the souls of 100 men before Ji-Ah will return. Part of this process involves Ji-ah luring them into having sex with her, where she then deploys her Kumiho tentacles and rips them apart, this causes her to absorb not only their souls but their memories.

After Ji-ah begins to fall for Atticus, she’s able to keep her powers at bay after they begin to sleep with each other. One night though they take over when she’s not expecting, and though she restrains them from tearing into Atticus’ flesh, she still absorbs some of his memories and freaks him out to the point that he leaves. Atticus’ memories aren’t the only thing she saw though as a vision of his future also came to her, one where he’s strapped to a machine and dies.

At the end of the episode Ji-ah and her mother Soon Hee visit the shaman that summoned the Kumiho spirit to inquire about a compromise in her 100 soul mission. While there Ji-ah asks about the vision she had since it’s something she’s never seen before, but the shaman brushes her concerns away. “The reason you ask that question is the same reason you call this woman your mother,” she says to the spirit. “Your mortal concerns are meaningless….You have not even become one with the darkness yet. You will see countless deaths before your journey is done.”

As we know from the episode prior, Atticus actually called Ji-ah from America, and with this episode setting up their story a reunion between the two and even more deaths no doubt appear to be on the horizon. The next episode of the series, the seventh of ten, is titled “I Am.” and airs on Sunday, September 27th.

Lovecraft Country airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and is available to stream on HBO Max.