Lovecraft Country Episode 6 ‘Meet Me in Daegu’ Recap and Review

There are lots of references to musicals it seems in this show particularly this episode. Check out some of the other episodes and and their references here.

The musical today is Meet Me in Saint Louis. A young women has the movie theatre to herself and she perfectly sings and dances with Judy Garland. They camera pans out and we see it’s all taken place in the young women’s mind. Kumiho loves musicals.

It is Daegu, South Korea in 1949. The same young women is helping her mother make Kimchi (my favorite recipe by the way). We learn the young women is about to graduate and the family’s patriarch has passed away leaving family without money or respect. Graduation will hopefully restore both.

Later we see the women is studying nursing. The other nurses are all gossiping about finding men. It is something our featured women is not great at as evidenced by how she fails many times at speed dating. They all pair up and no one wants to be with her but a nurse asks her to tag along with her date. She says no thanks and there is a sweet interaction between the two about the pressures of having overbearing mothers. Later while they are all dancing our Kumiho drinks a beer while listening to music, and watching the dancers. She makes eyes at a man who she brings back to her house. She seems to light up all of the candles magically. Kumiho removes her dress and her date removes his clothes as well. They get down to the business. She doesn’t seem to be into it. A monster of sorts seems to come out of her and is now devouring him. This would be the squiddly diddly portion of the show. Eventually the tentacles allow our women to see all of the man’s past right before it makes him explode. Her mother comes and says “now, ten more”.

The next day our girl is at a screening of another musical when the United States Army roles in and passes out pamphlets telling them all not to be afraid of them. Later the girl and her mother are discussing the latest victim and how she can see their past before she consumes them. She is not thrilled about killing people. Her mother tells her that the demon inside of her will leave her alone if she gets one hundred souls and that she should focus on getting soldiers. Later at the hospital our girl’s friend and Kumiho are treating wounded soldiers. Seems like its taxing work. Young Jung Unni is the name of our friend. They walk home and again discuss how Kumiho’s mother sucks. Their conversation is cut short when the town’s people hang a communist from a street sign. Jung tells her how angry she is because they need to be more tolerant of all human beings. I think Jung might be in love with our girl. Specifically Jung calls out the GI’s. We see Kumiho flirt with a GI and immediately we cut to a bloody room.

While cleaning up we get more backstory on the curse. Mom summoned a demon by making a deal with a shaman. Now killing men is the only way to get the demon out of her daughter. But the Kumiho tells mom that her husband prayed on her daughter and raped her repeatedly because her mom let him. Mom runs away.

American GI’s line up all the nurses and claim one of them is is a communist spy. They execute two of them. By they, I mean Atticus. Jung stops our girl from getting executed only by claiming that she is the spy.

A year later the movie theatre has been shut down and our girl is trying to help a ton of different patients when Atticus shows up and is hurt pretty bad. He tries to read and ends up crying. She goes home and tells her mom she has found her last soul.

Sometime later she is changing Atticus’s bedlinen and he is trying to help her despite being injured pretty bad. He asks her to read The Count of Monte Cristo. She tells him the plot. He tells her that is the plot of the movie not the plot of the book and tells her she needs to read the book for sure. Later outside Atticus and our girl discuss movies along with another GI. The GI is Korean and they discuss how difficult he has it. Atticus discusses why he joined the army. Books took him away, the army took him further.

Later one evening she finishes the novel and they discuss why he picked it. They share a moment. I mean we are glossing over he is war criminal right? He tells her about his dad, and she quotes her best friend. You can see her rage.

She is supposed to meet Atticus but the GI we met earlier greets her at the gates. She is supposed to go out with Atticus but the GI is supposed to take her into the base. It looks like its getting real shady but its really Atticus who has created a movie theatre at the base and procured a copy of Judy Garlands newest musical. The two are smoochy smoochy and she invites him back to her place and we are back in the candle room. In the candle room he tells her to slow down because he is a virgin. He then admits to her that he has done terrible things but that she makes him think he can be a good person. She sees the good in him. They starting going at it. She can feel the tentacles coming and she yells at Atticus to get out. He runs away and mom just stands there. Once Atticus is gone mom screams at the daughter and tells her not to call her mother anymore and spits on her.

The next day our girl is waiting at the gates. Atticus tells her to leave. She tells him that he killed her best friend. She tells him even if they did monstrous things they don’t have to be monsters. They share a moment of reconciliation. Later in their makeshift movie theatre they finally do it. She gets on top and tells him to relax that she doesn’t want to hurt him. They finish and no tentacles make him explode.

Kumiho returns home and finally tells her mother off. Mom says if you haven’t told him about being demon you can never know if he loves you. Its later in 1950 and Atticus and Kumiho are playing in the snow and reading about the demon. He tells her he can go home. He can also choose to stay. She tells him he cannot stay just for her. He asks if she will go back with him. They do it but as they are having sex her inner demon comes out. Kumiho see’s what he has done (including torturing her best friend). She also gets a glimpse at his future and we see him die. She holds back her demon long enough to free Atticus. Finally, she screams at him not to go home or he will die. He runs away scared.

Mom and Kumiho make their way back to the shamans hut where mom tries to negotiate early release at 99 souls instead of 100. What they really want the shaman to do is to tell Kumiho if Atticus will die. The shaman burns a piece of paper and tells her that she will see countless people die which if I am being honest is not really a yes or no. The episode ends on that dour note.