Leti is more interested in the home's previous owner, Dr. Winthrop's role in all of this becomes evident in the final scenes of this episode as Christina Braithwhite reveals the house has connections to the Order. It's revealed the name "Winthrop" refers to Horatio Winthrop, whose name we saw back in Episode 2 on the painting of Adam in Paradise in Samuel Braithwhite's laboratory. Leti's research yields intriguing results. This only spurs her on and she dives headlong into researching the house. The photos reveal scratches which, when put together, allow a ghostly head to emerge and attempt to menace Leti out of her own home. Once back at home, Leti decides to develop the photos taken from the move-in day and the party. Leti's encounter with the cops her housewarming party opens the door to a pound-for-pound riveting second and third act. What begins as a typical haunted house set-up, including a malfunctioning furnace, bedsheets moving mysteriously, and an innocent game of Ouija yielding terrifying messages (Hi, Uncle George!), is revealed to be much more disturbing upon closer inspection. White villainy is still very much the focus of "Holy Ghost," but it goes much deeper than menacing mortals.
Leti soon finds out that while white people remain brutally and openly evil, she has no idea just how far that evil has seeped into the foundation of her new neighborhood. One cop sits in the back of a van, letting his unabashed racism flow as he questions Leti about the particulars of her ability to afford the house before sneering that she has no idea what went on in her new home and hinting at the dead bodies of Black residents being found before she moved in.
Sirens in the distance immediately signal the boys in blue, who rear their ugly heads as they take Leti to the station to get booked. She smashes out the cars and whacks the bricks off of the steering wheels. While the men, led by Atticus, grab shotguns for protection, Leti grabs a bat and takes the lead. "Leti Fuckin' Lewis" returns to show her white neighbors this is not how things are going to go. She pulls back the blinds to reveal a burning cross on the lawn. After hooking up in the bathroom, the two come downstairs and get back to partying before Ruby spots something outside. Atticus and Leti move around each other, the buzz of attraction palpable and hard to ignore. Everyone is letting loose, having fun, and trying not to focus on anything negative. Ruby's band plays extra loud in the living room to drown out the incessant honking still going on outside. Leti is having a housewarming now that the mansion has been cleaned up and made livable. The racist bullshit of Leti's white neighbors escalates during the first true blue night in the new place. It's an intimidation tactic, but very effective. Leti, Ruby, Atticus, and some of the new boarders head outside and see three young white men leaning on three parked cars which have bricks tied to the steering wheel. After Atticus turns up at the house to take a room and help Leti and Ruby, the entire house is alerted to trouble when the endless honking of car horns is heard outside. The move-in process is the first sign of trouble and the viewers' first sign the big bads of this episode are not some otherworldly beings, but rather Leti's white neighbors. Leti is thrilled with the opportunity to turn the old mansion into a boarding house and safe space for Black Chicagoans and wants to make its renovation a project she and Ruby can bond over. Also, the curbside appeal is, uh, lacking. Leti is ready to lay down some roots, so what better way to do that than buying a decrepit mansion with 13 bedrooms in Chicago's extremely white North Side? I have to applaud Leti's decision on this because the house is a steal but the hidden costs on this one are a bit atypical, as we soon find out. What results is an incredible episode that helps dull the less effective notes of last week's episode while leaving us thoroughly invigorated for what's to come in Season 1. "Holy Ghost" also reminds us the path to healing is hardly smooth, but it can most certainly be cathartic.
Bodies and houses alike are the sites of deep-rooted pain, both past and present everyone in tonight's episode is confronting ghosts. After two episodes dedicated to the horrors away from home, Lovecraft Country spends its latest hour focusing on the troubles at the homefront. Is it too early to say the latest episode of Lovecraft Country, "Holy Ghost," is one of the strongest of the season? Perhaps, but it doesn't detract from the fact Episode 3 delivers despite the slight shift in focus away from the supernatural (although there is plenty of that to go around) and more toward earthly troubles.