'Lovecraft Country': Season 1 Episode 6 "Meet Me in Daegu" Recap & Review
Within episode six of ‘Lovecraft Country’, we take a trip to the past to meet new characters and get answers to many lingering questions.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
It’s 1949 in Daegue, South Korea, and we zoom in the local movie theater. A young woman sits in the theater, fascinated by the images she sees on the silver screen. As people exit during the middle of the screening, she has the place to herself, and we see her dancing and singing along with Judy Garland’s “Meet Me in St. Louis.” In the middle of her song, we flash to her finishing the movie and her stoic face dominates our frame.
The next morning, we see this young woman wake up to help her mother. We find out her name, Ji-Ah (Jamie Chung), and that she is a nursing student working in the small town. Her mother, Soon Hee (Cindy Chang), is very tough on her, especially when they talk about Ji-Ah’s father. Their family has been shut out by most of the community and all they have are each other. Soon Hee tells her daughter that the only way their family will have honor again is for her to keep bringing men home. An intriguing statement that we will know more about very soon.
Meanwhile, Ji-Ah goes to school and tries to acclimate with her fellow school mates but can’t seem to get in on the conversation. One of the girls, Young-Ja (Jennifer Yun), goes on to tell the group about how she hooks men around her finger. But while she is talking, her eyes are focus on Ji-Ah. There is something there between them but both shutter their eyes away before they linger too long. We flash to Ji-Ah going to a speed dating night, but no one chooses her for a second date. As she is leaving, Young-Ja is there with a guy she picked up and invites Ji-Ah to go out with them for a drink. Hesitant at first, she says yes to her new friend’s offer.
But, as we head to the local bar, we don’t see Ji-Ah with Young-Ja. She is alone and eyes a man to bring home. Fancying him, she takes him back to her house, and they begin to have sex. As the young man she is with finishes, she freezes, and his life flashes before her own eyes. As this is happening, furry tentacles come out of her body and destroy the man she is with, leaving the room a bloody mess. When it’s all over, Soon Hee walks in the room and tells her, “ten more.”
Moving forward in time, it’s the summer of 1950, and American soldiers have come to Ji-Ah’s town for the Korean War. As the soldiers move in, we go back to her house, where her mother tells her this is a great excuse to get more men to the house. This is when we learn about what is wrong with Ji-Ah. When Ji-Ah was a young girl, her father rapped her continuously. To end this for her daughter, Soon Hee made a deal with a shaman to end this once and for all. But there are consequences to this; therefore, this spirit has consumed Ji-Ah, and she can only break this bond by having sex and killing a hundred men. With this, Soon Hee tells her she can’t feel real emotions and that she will only be a human again once this task is complete.
Later that night, Young-Ja and Ji-Ah are walking home. They both confess that they are different, with Young-Ja revealing she is a communist sympathizer. This is a beautiful conversation that many people need to have today, talking about how they feel different and need someone to confine this information to. Young-Ja tells her to embrace who she is and don’t let her mother put her in a box.
Back at her house, Ji-Ah has finished another one of her victims, leaving the number at one left. As her and Soon Hee start to clean up, she starts talking about her father, which infuriates her mother. Soon Hee tells her daughter that she will never feel love and that all her memories as a child are still in her. Ji-Ah tells her mother that the little girl she once knew is long gone, and was gone after everything her father did to her. They don’t speak to each other for some time.
Going to the hospital, American soldiers pull all the nurses aside. They believe a communist spy is working on Ji-Ah shift, and they want to know who it is. When they don’t give them an immediate answer, the soldier shoots one of the girls. After more silence, another girl is about to be shot till the gun jams. The soldier asks another soldier to come over and shoot the nurse, and it’s within this moment we realize, the other solider is Tic (Jonathan Majors). With two dead nurses, and Ji-Ah, the next one up, Young-Ja confesses to being the spy, and the soldiers take her away, presumably to kill.
A couple of days pass, Ji-Ah is still shaken by the loss of her friend. When more soldiers come in, and she sees that one of the patients is Tic. This is her chance to get revenge, and she informs her mother that Tic will be her final victim. Over the next couple of days, Ji-Ah tends to Tic’s wounds. Standoffish at first, Ji-Ah and Tic form a connection and bond together. They even go on a date, where Tic shows her another Judy Garland movie he had sent from home to impress her. She takes Tic back to her house, but right before they make love, he confesses he is a virgin and has fallen for her. As they begin, Ji-Ah starts to have feelings too and throws him off, telling him to run.
As Tic runs away, Soon Hee comes out of her room to see her daughter emotional. Ji-Ah confesses her love for Tic to her mother, but she doesn’t want to hear anything about it. Since she loves him, Ji-Ah can’t and won’t kill him and thus will try and see if she can control her demons. Her mother calls her a monster and storms off.
Winter comes, and Ji-Ah and Tic have become closer than ever. They have had sex, but nothing terrible has happened. As they come inside from a day together, Ji-Ah starts to tell Tic her secret. Right as she is about to tell him, he reveals to her that he’s going back home. He asks if she will come with him, and she seems to be excited by the idea of going to America. They make love again, but her emotions get the best of her, and her tentacles come out. They latch onto Tic, and we see his future, and that his death will be coming soon in the season.
Ji-Ah tells him not to go home; otherwise, he will die. Tic, scared of what just happened to him, runs away and leaves her high and dry. When he leaves, Soon Hee comes to the aid of her daughter, whose heart is broken. Ji-Ah doesn’t want Tic to be harmed. So the next day, Soon Hee takes her to the same shaman who put the curse on Ji-Ah. The shaman tells her that she didn’t complete her task, and if she’s come for answers, a considerable punishment will come with what she asks for. But it doesn’t matter to Ji-Ah; she just wants to know if Tic will not perish. Before we find out if he will or won’t, the shaman tells the bright young girl that if she thinks she’s experienced darkness before, you haven’t seen anything yet.