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The Freemans
Atticus
Atticus "Tic" Freeman
Portrayed By: Jonathan Majors & Chase Brown
Atticus is a young Korean War veteran who adores sci-fi and fantasy books. His search for his missing father, Montrose, takes him on a personal journey as he uncovers a dark, secret family legacy.
- Abusive Parents: His father, Montrose, was emotionally and physically abusive to him, to the point where Tic joins the army just to get away from him.
- Ascended Fanboy: He loves pulp fiction, and somewhat enjoys H. P. Lovecraft’s stories, though it is tempered by his knowledge of Lovecraft’s racism. When he finds himself fighting against monsters straight out of a Lovecraft story, he understandably isn’t very happy.
- Bad Liar: Given a perfect cover story to explain George's death by Montrose, Tic still manages to screw it up and set off Hippolyta's suspicions.
- Badass Bookworm: He's an avid reader of science-fiction and fantasy books and, due to his experiences in the Korean War, is capable of fighting off both mundane and supernatural threats.
- Berserk Button: Montrose destroying anything that can be used to protect their friends and family. He nearly beats Montrose to death for killing Yahima and burning Hiram's pages. He admits he envisioned killing Montrose several times before after being abused.
- Calling the Old Man Out: In the first episode he does this to his uncle George, who was not personally abusive to Tic, but at the same time did nothing to stop Tic's abuse at the hands of George's brother, Montrose. Might be an unwitting straight example as of the second episode reveal that George may be his father.
- The Call Knows Where You Live: Postmarked to his address in Florida.
- Childhood Friends: He and Leti were friends when they were younger with both being members of the Southside Futurists Science Fiction Club.
- Dark and Troubled Past: In addition to his abusive upbringing, he also engaged in war crimes during his time in the Korean War; this included executing innocent non-combatants, and torturing potential enemy informants.
- The Determinator: Once he makes his mind up to pursue a goal, neither racists, monsters, booby traps, magic, nor the undead will deter him.
- Fatal Flaw: Impulsiveness. While Genre Savvy and quick on the uptake, he does not think his actions through fully. This leads to the crew being caught by a racist sheriff minutes before nightfall in a sundown county
, gets Leti and George shot and killed (the latter permanently), and leaves him completely at the mercy of Christina with a loaded gun in hand. - Foil: To Montrose. Firmly believes that they need magic to defend themselves.
- The Hero: The series' protagonist, who sets off on a journey across White America in search of his missing father.
- The Hero Dies: Christina successfully sacrifices him to achieve immortality in “Full Circle.” It’s only through a last minute attempt by Ji-Ah that she doesn’t get away with it.
- He's All Grown Up: Leti has this reaction upon being informed that the shirtless hunk she's watching was her scrawny childhood friend, Tic.
- Hidden Depths: He was right when he said that the war changed him from the bookish nerd he was as a kid. As seen in episode 6, he executed an innocent Korean nurse simply because she might be a communist spy without blinking and was prepared to execute another before the actual spy spoke up. Later on we see that he was involved with her torture before she was killed. One probably wouldn't think Atticus capable of such things from what we've seen of him before that.
- Immune to Mind Control: He's the only one who keeps his memories of the monster attacks while the memory-erasing spell is active.
- In-Series Nickname: Most people refer to him as Tic rather than Atticus.
- Jumped at the Call: He runs headlong into a situation he has no knowledge of in unfamiliar territory during pre-Civil Rights America to chase after an estranged father he hasn't spoken to in five years.
- Killed Off for Real: In "Full Circle", courtesy of Christina.
- Leeroy Jenkins: While he can spot threads with the best of them, he doesn't take the time to fully process the information, something Montrose calls him out on. Time will tell if Character Development corrects this.
- Mr. Fanservice: The writers in the companion podcast for the show admit multiple times that they find Tic's actor very attractive and enjoy the scenes where he's shirtless or in the nude.
- Nice Guy: Atticus is a considerate, polite and good-natured young man.
- Nerves of Steel: He keeps his head no matter how terrifying the situation is, probably a holdover from his time in the Korean War. When Letitia asks him how he could be so calm, he simply replies "Fear won't save us now."
- Pet the Dog:
- While he initially shuts Ji-Ah out of his life and callously claims that the love they had wasn't real, Tic eventually does genuinely apologize for the way he treated her, reaffirms that her grief is proof that she can experience human emotion, and even cordially invites her into his family.
- He also finally overcomes all of the bad blood between him and Montrose after seeing first hand how trauma shaped the man into the abuser he was all throughout his childhood. In his last written message to Montrose, Tic encourages him to both find eternal happiness for himself and to finally break the cycle of abuse by becoming a proper father figure to Tic's future son George.
- Returning War Vet: He starts off the series returning home from the Korean War.
- Secret Legacy: It's hearing about this on his mother's side that prompts his journeys to Ardham, where he finds out he's the last living direct descendant of Titus Braithwhite.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: He's a veteran of the Korean War, and relives his experiences in fantastical dreams.
- Trojan Horse: Used by Christina to assassinate her father in Whitey On The Moon.
George
George Freeman
Portrayed By: Courtney B. Vance
George is Atticus’s uncle, Montrose’s brother, and Hippolyta’s husband. He is the editor of the Safe Negro Travel Guide, for which he travels across the country marking locations that are safe for Black people to visit.
- Action Survivor: Despite his gentle nature, George is something of a badass. Even prior to his journey with Atticus and Leti, he made a career out of venturing into a very hostile America and managing to escape with his life due to his cunning and resourcefulness. In an era of "sundown towns", this is no small feat.
- Actor Allusion: This isn't the first time Courtney B. Vance has played a black man white cops pulled over and attempted to arrest for racial reasons.
- Agonizing Stomach Wound: Samuel Braithwhite shoots George in the stomach to punish Atticus for defying him, resulting in a slow, painful death for George.
- Cool Old Guy: He's more a "cool middle-aged guy," but he's well-versed in literature.
- Dark and Troubled Past: He and his brother Montrose faced physical abuse from their father, and George still wrestles with the guilt of not protecting the younger, smaller Montrose the way he feels he should have. Of course, he was a child at the time, so the blame really falls on the father and not him.
- Death by Adaptation: Survives the events of the book, but dies in the second episode of the series.
- Genre Savvy: He wastes zero time thinking about the supposed impossibility of the Shoggoths existing at all; he analyzes them and correctly predicts their vampiric nature, enabling Atticus, Leti and himself to survive the night. By contrast, Hunt and his deputy can only blather on about monsters not existing, resulting in their transformation and death, respectively.
- Good Parents: He's a supportive, loving father to his daughter, Diana.
- Happily Married: To Hippolyta. From their first scene together it's clear that they're deeply in love with each other. Her focus episode "I Am" complicates this a bit. On the one hand, Hippolyta feels that becoming a wife and mother repressed her even more, and George admits to himself that he allowed it to happen for the sake of a happy family. On the other, it's more of a miscommunication than a marriage-ending flaw, and in her ideal reality they are exploring together, equals at last.
- Luke, I Might Be Your Father: The second episode reveals George slept with Atticus's mother while she was with Montrose and shortly before Tic's conception. Montrose claims "they cleared that up" a long time ago but George still has his doubts.
- Nice Guy: Even as an ongoing victim of racism, George still keeps his head up and a friendly demeanor.
- Retirony: A happy, well-adjusted family man heading into Lovecraft Country AND making a deal to spend a romantic trip with his wife? He's a dead man.
- Sacrificial Lion : He dies of a gunshot wound at the end of the second episode.
- This Is Gonna Suck: When he realizes Shoggoths work on vampire rules, he just calls Atticus over and flatly points out that it's best to shoot the Zombie Infectee.
Hippolyta
Hippolyta Freeman
Portrayed By: Aunjanue Ellis
Hippolyta is Atticus’s aunt and George’s wife. She has a deep appreciation for astronomy, but routinely has to set aside her vision of who she wants to be.
- Ascended Fangirl: She was an aspiring astronomer but the biases of the era kept her from achieving her dreams. The Orrery gives her the chance to explore time and space, have an encounter with a benevolent alien, dance with a woman she idolizes, become a warrior woman, and eventually become an extradimensional astronaut.
- Didn't Think This Through: Her female intuition pinging from being Locked Out of the Loop leads to her making a beeline for Ardham with her preteen daughter in tow.
- Foil: To Christina and Ruby, subtly. All three have been denied the life they want due to discrimination, gain supernatural powers, and wish to lash out at those they blame for their woes. But while Christina and Ruby hoard their magic and let their cynicism drive them to villainous acts in an attempt to get back what was stolen from them, Hippolyta received a sort of therapy from Seraphina that allowed her to come to terms with what she's lost and regain her own self-worth without the need for revenge, and willingly shares her new abilities and knowledge with others to uplift them.
- Happily Married: She and her husband George are deeply in love with each other, with her wanting to join George on the road. Her focus episode has her coming to terms with the fact that she's not certain if the married lifestyle is what she truly wanted.
- Idiot Ball: Heading towards a destination designated on a map by a black-robed klansman might not be the smartest idea, being black in pre-Civil Rights America. Especially not with her preteen daughter.
- Locked into Strangeness: After holding open a portal to 1921 with the time machine for an extended period of time, her hair changes color to an unnatural blue.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Atticus, Montrose and Leti lied to her about the circumstances of George's death, particularly all the supernatural elements surrounding it. They just told her George was murdered by the local sheriff, whom they killed in revenge. However, Hippolyta knows they're lying to her, just not why or what about.
- Renaissance Man: Having spent about 200 years traveling between different worlds and times, she has learned a lot. When she returns, her mathematical genius has been extended into not only mathematics but robotics and biology enough to create a futuristic mechanical arm to her daughter and is an accomplished artist, being able to create quality comics (a skill she learned with the intention to pass it down to her daughter).
- Spanner in the Works: She's doing every petty thing she can to interfere with Montrose, Leti, and Tic, to include accompanying the crew and inviting Tree to Boston last minute.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Her investigation of the Orrery causes her to leave the comic her daughter drew and signed behind where she'd killed a police officer in self defense. This leads a certain racist police chief with magic powers right to her daughter.
Montrose
Montrose Freeman
Portrayed By: Michael K. Williams
Montrose is Atticus’s father who recently went missing. The secrets he harbors have taken a toll on his life and his relationship with Atticus.
- Abusive Parents: Tic doesn't paint a particularly glowing picture of Montrose's parenting skills with Tic's stories of him involving Montrose regularly putting down Tic's interests and acting physically abusive towards him. George says that Montrose himself was abused by their father with Montrose bearing the brunt of it because he was younger and weaker.
- Alcoholic Parent: To Atticus; he's a regular at a local bar and when he goes missing, everyone assumes he's working off a drunken bender.
- Anti-Hero: A drunken, abusive man who regularly screws up and requires help, only to berate those who come to his aid. He's also eventually a murderer. Despite his Freudian Excuse, he's never truly forgiven by Atticus, though the two men do reach an understanding. Montrose is frequently called out for his failings, but never quite gets himself together enough to rise above them. For all that, though, he does his best to protect his family.
- Apologetic Attacker: Apologizes right before slitting Yahima, the Magical Native American's throat.
- Armoured Closet Gay: Montrose was quite in denial about gay as a teen, telling Thomas (who was also gay) they couldn't stay friends because he "wasn't like that" (using an anti-gay slur).
- The Chain of Harm: Montrose was abused by his father as a child and became an abusive father himself to his own son, Tic.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Finally on the receiving end of one from Tic, due to mashing his Berserk Button one too many times.
- The Determinator: He spent all his time imprisoned in Ardham's tower digging a massive tunnel in secret allowing him to escape on his own.
- Distressed Dude: He spends most of the first two episodes a captive of Samuel Braithwhite, when he's finally seen in person, it's just after he's dug himself an escape tunnel to freedom.
- Establishing Character Moment: The first thing we see Montrose do is emerge from an escape tunnel he's been digging while imprisoned by the Braithwhites, getting the idea from his favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo. Then upon on seeing Atticus, George, and Leti, he yells at them for coming, and, upon hearing they were trying to save him, he acts completely ungrateful, flippantly proclaiming he saved himself. The second thing we see him do is comfort and tend to an injured George, who had been shot by Samuel. This all serves to establish Montrose's positive traits—his intelligence, resourcefulness, and determination—and his negative traits—his stubbornness, pride, and tendency to push away the people he loves.
- Foil: To Atticus. Believes that ignorance is the best defense against becoming casualties in the power struggle between lodges.
- Freudian Excuse:
- As Atticus bitterly notes in episode 7 after finding out that his father is a homosexual, Montrose always said he beat Atticus to make sure he wouldn't be soft, but that was all likely overcompensating for his own insecurities about being gay.
- This is compounded with the fact that his own father was physically abusive, and the trauma he carries as a survivor of the Tulsa Massacre. These factors leading him to become an abuser is sadly a case of Truth in Television.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: Tic mentions how Montrose used to abuse him as a child and has never written him in the all the years Tic has been in the army. George responds by telling him how, during Tic's first year in the army, Montrose would come over to George's place and never bring Tic up, but just wait, never leaving the house until George brought up Tic's wellbeing on his own. When Montrose is seen for the first time, he's just yelled at his brother and son for coming to rescue him, only to then tend to George after he's been shot, and be devastated by his subsequent death.
- Moral Pragmatist: He has zero issues with killing to protect his family.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Is trying his damnedest to stay as far away from all the strange events happening around him. Leti calls him out.
- Pet the Dog:
- Sure it took being reminded of who he truly was, his brother's death, being scared shitless, and being saved by Tic, but he finally remembers that he does care for Tic. He offers Tic relationship advice, talks with him about his mother, and even compliments his bravery.
- Similarly, his behavior around his boyfriend is the only time we see him being gentle and loving towards anyone.
- Straight Gay: He turns out to be a closeted gay man, with a boyfriend who's also a drag queen. At no time does he appear any different from the straight men in the show, even privately (well, aside from the act of having sex with a man).
- Survivor Guilt: Montrose clearly still blames himself for surviving while Thomas died in the Tulsa Massacre, insisting he should have done something to save him.
- Troubled Abuser: Montrose emotionally and physically abused Atticus as a child but is still portrayed sympathetically, with Montrose's turn to alcoholism and abusive behavior stemming from the abuse he suffered at the hands of his own father. The second episode introduces another possible factor for his behavior, his brother George slept with his wife, meaning Atticus might not even be Montrose's son. And later on Atticus theorizes that the abuse was because Montrose was overcompensating for his insecurities about being gay when Tic finds out after seeing Montrose's boyfriend leaving his appartment.
- The Unfettered: Absolutely nothing is beneath him if it means protecting his family and honoring George's last wishes.
- Ungrateful Bastard: After seeing that his estranged son and older brother have risked their lives to save his own, Montrose reacts only with anger, claiming he already saved himself with his escape tunnel. When they mention the letter he wrote to Tic, Montrose counters that he and Tic haven't spoken for years and he never expected his son to answer a letter that was obviously written under duress.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: George laments that, as a child, Montrose used to be brimming with love despite receiving so little in return. In the present day, as a result of his father's abuse, Montrose became bitter, angry, and abusive himself.
Diana
Diana Freeman
Portrayed By: Jada Harris
Diana is Atticus’s younger cousin and George and Hippolyta’s daughter. She enjoys reading sci-fi and fantasy books and expressing herself by drawing and writing comics.
- An Arm and a Leg: She loses her left arm as a result of the curse placed on her by Lancaster. It’s replaced with a mechanical arm by Hippolyta.
- The Beastmaster: Atticus passes control of his Shoggoth to her in the season 1 finale.
- Daddy's Girl: She shares her father's love of sci-fi and fantasy and creates original comics for him to read while he's on the road.
- Gender Flip: Her counterpart in the source material is boy named Horace.
- Genre Savvy: When a curse prevents her from directly telling other people she's been cursed, she draws pictures of the demons haunting her to help everyone figure out what's going on.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After rejecting Lancaster's deal to remove her curse she insutls him and his men, spits on him, and fights the demons haunting her.
Dora
Dora Freeman
Portrayed By: Erica Tazel
- Posthumous Character: She's long-dead by the time the series itself begins.
The Baptistes
In General
The Baptistes
- Adaptation Name Change: The family's surname is changed from Dandridge in the book to Baptiste (for Ruby and Marvin) and Lewis (for Letitia) in the TV series.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: A Downplayed example. The TV series re-imagines Letitia as Ruby and Marvin's half-sister, while they were full siblings in the book. This helps to emphasise her estrangement from her siblings at the beginning of the series (but was probably done to Handwave the fact that Letitia's actress is biracial, unlike Ruby and Marvin's actors).
Leti
Letitia "Leti" Lewis
Portrayed By: Jurnee Smollett
Leti is an old high school friend of Atticus and Ruby’s younger half-sister. She has hustled her way across the country as a photographer and civil rights activist.
- Action Girl: In the first episode alone she outraces armed racists, then outruns monsters through the forest before running one down with the car.
- Back from the Dead: Samuel Braithwhite shoots Leti dead as punishment for Tic defying him, then resurrects her to force Tic to take part in his ritual. Leti's traumatized reaction upon coming back indicates the experience was any but pleasant.
- Batter Up!: Her weapon-of-choice. From busting out car windows to preparing to rein in Tic during his Unstoppable Rage, she clearly isn't afraid to swing for the fences when she needs to.
- Beware the Nice Ones: A sweet, friendly girl who's doing all she can to endure racism...and who rams the car right into a Shoggoth-transformed Sheriff Hunt.
- Camera Fiend: She's a photographer and is frequently seen snapping pictures while on the road.
- Childhood Friend: She and Tic were friends when they were younger with both being members of the Southside Futurists Science Fiction Club.
- Culturally Religious: Leti frequently struggles with the fact she was raised to be Christian but can't quite seem to make herself fully believe in it. She does seem scared that the magic they are dealing with could be Satanic, but doesn't seem sure if that's just a knee jerk reaction to what she was taught or not.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Leti's a civil rights activist but her brother and sister consider her to be the irresponsible sibling due to her habit of disappearing for long periods of time and seemingly only showing up to ask for money or a place to stay. In particular, both of them make a point to bring up Letitia missing their mother's funeral, even if Leti's comments imply their mother wasn't exactly a saint.
- Ms. Fanservice: Leti is quite beautiful, and the series shows her figure off frequently in revealing clothing, particularly her long legs. She also has a couple sex scenes.
- Nice Girl: She's very nice, despite having to deal with constant racism as a young black woman in the '50s.
- No Periods, Period: Leti says her "monthly" came early when she's bleeding slightly after having sex with Atticus. However, it was actually because she'd lost her virginity to him.
- Parental Neglect: Leti relates that when she was a little girl, not old enough to take care of herself, her mother left her alone all the time, lying that she was going to church only to show up with a new man on her arm. It got to the point where her mom left her alone for a week by herself, and Leti would wait at the window of their boardinghouse every day, reciting the only prayer she could remember, for her mother to come back.
- Precision F-Strike: Say it out loud: she's Letitia fucking Lewis!
- Pulling the Thread: Figures out Montrose knows a hell of a lot more than he's letting on.
- Smarter Than They Look: She pieces together extremely obscure information to figure out who and what is behind her house being haunted.
- Street Smart: She's no scholar, but she can suss out when people know more than they're letting on.
Ruby
Ruby Baptiste
Portrayed By: Wunmi Mosaku
Ruby is Leti's older half-sister who has grinded her way through life. Her relationship with Leti is strained because Leti missed their mother’s funeral and only pops by when she needs money.
- Anti-Villain: She becomes taken by what Christina offers to the point that she is willing to support Christina's immortality spell which will kill Atticus as long as Leti isn't harmed. And she turns the life support off on the woman whose blood she was using for the skin change potion stating that when she pictured herself being white, she always imagined being a red head, with all that implies. On the other hand, she does genuinely care about her sister despite their fights and everything she finds herself doing is all to regain control of her life that she was denied due to her skin color.
- Ass Shove: She delivers an absolutely brutal one to her racist and misogynistic supervisor. With a four-inch high heel.
- Big Beautiful Woman: She's full figured but has a lot of focus put on her as she's dancing. During her sex scenes as well, Ruby's large breasts get lots of attention from the camera. William, her lover, certainly finds her attractive too of course. Also her white, shapeshifted self, although not as large, is also quite voluptuous and portrayed in the same way.
- Black Gal on White Guy Drama: She enters a fling with William.
- Character Development: She goes on a small rant about white people music such as "Life Could Be a Dream" in the first ep, but starts singing it during the road trip in the last one, out of good humor. Horrifyingly subverted. This is actually a clue that Christina has replaced Ruby, but everyone else thinks it's to ease tensions.
- Drunk with Power: When she uses the body changing potion to get a manager position at the department store she had wanted to get a job at earlier and learns that the black woman who had gotten the job she had been wanting to get was largely uneducated (didn't even have a high school degree), she becomes rather cruel towards her and pressures her into taking Ruby (as a white woman) and the other employees at the store to a black bar, despite the fact the woman had done nothing wrong other than get the job Ruby wanted (Ruby had better credentials but hadn't applied in time due to getting caught up in Leti's house project.)
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The responsible to Leti's foolish, and all too willing to remind her of such.
- If It's You, It's Okay: Ruby returns Christina's attraction while the latter is in female form, implying this (or maybe she's bisexual).
- Killed Offscreen: Christina kills her offscreen when she catches Ruby trying to take her blood so it can be used to prevent Christina's ritual from being completed.
- Trojan Horse: In "Strange Case", Christina used her to plant a cursed token in Lancaster's office, same as when she gave Tic the ring in "Whitey's on the Moon". In the season finale, Christina metamorphoses into her likeness to capture Tic.
- White Like Me: Played for Drama. She takes on a white appearance and name thanks to William's magic, enjoying how much easier life is for her in that guise.
Marvin
Marvin Baptiste
Portrayed By: Demetrius Grosse
Leti's estranged brother.
- Mr. Exposition: He researches and provides a lot of information on Bideford County, including its history of being founded by witch hunters, the crimes of its current sheriff, Eustace Hunt, and reports of people being killed by mysterious "animal attacks" in the woods.
Chicago
Bobo
Emmett Till
'Portrayed By:Rhyan Hill
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Averted. Aside from a brush with the supernatural using a ouijia board, Bobo appears to have a mundane life.
- Cassandra Truth: Asks the Ouijia Board if he's going to have a good time on his vacation, and doesn't take the resulting "No" seriously.
- Historical Domain Character: Not revealed until he's a Posthumous Character though.
- Platonic Life-Partners: With Dee. Though both are in puberty, they show no signs of being anything but friends.
- Small Role, Big Impact: As his real name implies.
Tree
Seymour "Tree"
Portrayed By: Deron J. Powell
- Karma: He tries to get between Tic and Leti by mentioning falsely they slept together in high school. This bites him later when he tries to pull Bigger Is Better in Bed with Leti later.
- I Shall Taunt You: Averted. He tries this on Tic by questioning both his on Montrose's sexuality. Tic merely offers an offhand denial and mostly ignores him.
- Small Name, Big Ego: He acts like he's calling the shots, but whenever he and Tic are in the same room, there's no question who's in charge.
- Troll: He's a shit-stirrer by nature, spreading rumors and lies just for the sake of it.
Lancaster
Capt. Seamus Lancaster
Portrayed By: Mac Brandt
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Putting Zenone through this.
- Evil Versus Evil: He does not like Christina being in town, and has her followed.
- Jerkass: He's an aggressive bully at the best of times.
- Laser-Guided Karma: He's torn apart by a Shoggoth and his cohorts are unable to properly heal him thanks to the cursed token Christina had placed in his office. The botched healing process leaves him extremely sick and in pain and slowly dying.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He's a racist and sexist.
- Human Resources/Powered by a Forsaken Child: His healing magic works by sacrificing the body parts of healthy people to restore the body parts of his that were injured. He uses his position to kidnap African Americans to act as raw material and can do so with near-impunity. Christina makes it so that he finally faces some consequences for his actions.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: For Sheriff Hunt, another high-ranking and bigoted police officer who abuses any black people he sees For the Evulz. Ironically, in spite of Lancaster being an evil cultist, Hunt still comes off as the worse of the two.
- Torture Technician: As evidenced by Zenone being handcuffed in his office closet with his tongue cut out.
Bideford County
Hunt
Sheriff Eustace Hunt
Portrayed By: Jamie Harris
The racist, corrupt sheriff of Bideford County.
- Asshole Victim: He’s such a cruel, sadistic, racist jackass that him turning into a Shoggoth is a relief.
- Hope Crusher: He tells Tic, George and Leti that if they're not out of his county by sundown, he'll lynch them all. Once they're on the road with only a few minutes left to escape, Hunt chases after them, ramming their car with his own, trying to goad them into speeding so he can have cause to pull them over. The trio barely manages to make it out of Bideford County, and Hunt stops chasing them... only for the group to see upon cresting the hill that Hunt called in a blockade so he could kill them anyway.
- Jerkass: On top of being a racist asshole, he enjoys toying with the protagonists and chases them over the county line, knowing full well that they are heading into a roadblock he set up, just so he can pin phony charges on them For the Evulz.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He's the sheriff and very racist.
- Small-Town Tyrant: He’s a racist bastard who enforces “sundown town” rules on the entire county of Bideford and tries to frame George, Leti, and Atticus for burglary because they were black and because he thinks Atticus is a smartass. He’s clearly done something like this before, and has racked up a Long List of violations of the law.
- Zombie Infectee: After being bitten by a Shoggoth, he slowly turns into one. He winds up killing one of his own deputies before Leti rams him with Atticus’s car.
Ardham
The Braithwhites
Samuel
Samuel Braithwhite
Portrayed By: Tony Goldwyn
The head of the Sons of Adam, one of the lodges of the Order of Ancient Dawn.
- Abusive Parent: To Christina, whom he treats as a tool to be used but not an actual person in her own right to be taken seriously.
- Big Bad Wannabe: He's a cult leader with magical powers who orchestrates Montrose's kidnapping and Atticus's arrival in Ardham, all as part of a plan to ritually sacrifice Atticus and gain immortality by opening a portal to the Garden of Eden. This all builds him up as a major threat, only for Tic to sabotage his ritual and result in Samuel dying before the end of the second episode.
- Complete Immortality: It isn't demonstrated beyond one of his organs being taken out with no ill effects on him, but he made himself invulnerable. It was only during his own ritual that he became vulnerable, allowing him to be killed.
- Evil Sorcerer: He's a wizard capable of casting illusions, creating magical barriers, erasing memories, resurrecting people and even tearing open a portal to the Garden of Eden. This last one doesn't go well for him, though.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He's an evil man but he only wears glasses occasionally. When he puts them on, it's usually a character tic that he's being dead serious.
- Heir Club for Men: While he doesn't express a desire for an heir, per se, he is sexist and doesn't treat his daughter with any respect or give her any official role in his cult.
- I Gave My Word: According to Christina, he always keeps his word, and indeed, he does revive Leti after Atticus agrees to be sacrificed.
- Immortality Seeker: His main goal is to open a portal to the Garden of Eden and step inside to gain immortality.
- It's All About Me: His actor describes him as someone with major entitlement issues, who thinks he is entitled to whatever he wants due to his wealth, privilege, and position.
- Jerkass: A prejudiced, cold, snobbish jackass.
- Karmic Death: Samuel lured Atticus and his family to Ardham so he could sacrifice Atticus in a ritual that would grant Samuel immortality by stepping through a portal to the Garden of Eden. Instead, the daughter he's overlooked for her gender gives the man he planned on sacrificing a ring that allows him to disrupt Samuel's ritual and result in Samuel's death. There's also something nicely karmic about his desire to live forever leading to his own premature death, even though he was invulnerable to physical damage beforehand thanks to his magical abilities.
- Literally Shattered Lives: Tic sabotages his ritual, causing Samuel to turn to stone. Not even a minute later he's shattered by the debris of his collapsing manor.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He’s sexist and racist, refusing to give his own daughter a higher position and talking down to Atticus and dismissing him as a lesser species for being black.
- Sadistic Choice: He forces one on Atticus as vengeance for humiliating him in front of his followers. He asks Tic whether he should kill George or Montrose, and when Tic glances at George, Samuel takes this as a sign to shoot him. He only promises to heal him once Tic has participated in Samuel's ritual, which would result in Tic's own death.
- Taken for Granite: He’s turned into stone when the ritual goes wrong, and is crushed by falling debris.
Christina
Christina Braithwhite
Portrayed By: Abbey Lee
Christina is the daughter of a leader of a cult-like secret organization, who has mysterious abilities and a fixation on achieving unmitigated power.
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: Christina spends much of the time transformed into a male body (William) and seems to enjoy it more than being herself, even having an affair with Ruby in this form. However, it's unclear whether she is transgender or enjoys the power of being male in The '50s.
- Ambiguously Gay: She definitely had sex with Ruby and seemed to enjoy it, albeit under false pretenses, but that opens up it's own can of worms as she was William at the time. Such as whether she identifies as male, thereby making her straight and trans or only did so to gain her trust with no investment in her own personal enjoyment or something else entirely.
- Ambiguously Evil:
- It's hard to pin down where she stands in relation to the others. She's very ominous and willing to manipulate the main characters to get what she wants. But she's also clearly chafing under society's (specifically the cultist society she belongs to) gender restrictions and seems to just want to make her own way in the world. She helped out Atticus and Ruby, but she also used Ruby to get back at the head of the Chicago PD and rubbed Atticus's blackness in his face when he attempted to kill her, noting that a black man should know better than trying to kill a white woman.
- The Ambiguous part immediately gets dropped once it becomes clear she intends to gain immortality at the expense of Atticus's life. While she's being truthful when she says that she has no malice against Atticus and is only going to kill him because it's the only way for her to become immortal, she doesn't get that no one has any right to perform human sacrifice to become immortal.
- Big Bad: Christina shapes up to be this for the entire first season. She was the one who kidnapped Montrose to lure Atticus to Ardham for her father's immortality ritual, and then provided Atticus the means to sabotage said ritual, resulting in her father's death. The end of the third episode reveals she orchestrated Leti moving into the haunted house and that she has further designs on using Atticus to acquire all the pages of the Book of Names to gain the entirety of its power. Her role as the main villain finally solidifies once it becomes clear that she intends to sacrifice Atticus in cold blood in order to obtain immortality.
- Daddy's Little Villain: She serves her father despite his sexist beliefs denying her a higher place in his cult. She has enough awareness to lament how, despite how badly he treats her, she still helps him. Immediately after she says this, she gives Tic a Sons of Adam ring and cryptic advice, both of which help him thwart Samuel's ritual, which is implied to have been what she wanted all along.
- Deadpan Snarker: She does lay into a lot of snark when talking with Atticus and even her father, dryly mocking the latter's beliefs by saying religious literalism is for the simple.
- Decomposite Character: She and William share the role of Caleb from the book. Christina takes on the aspects of Caleb's character centered around being Samuel's heir and his thirst for personal power, while William gets Caleb's sexual relationship with Ruby. Played with in that William is still secretly Christina, who's using a disguise potion.
- The Dragon: She acts as her father's right-hand woman despite not being able to rise in the cult because she's a woman. She's revealed to not be as loyal to her father as she first appeared.
- Drives Like Crazy: She drives her Silver Bentley through the streets of Chicago with all the speed and recklessness of someone who knows she's magically invulnerable.
- Enigmatic Minion: At first she seems like a faithful enforcer for her father, but just how villainous she is and what her exact goals are come into serious question by the end of the second episode. She gives Atticus a ring and some cryptic advice that helps him stop her father's ritual, but it's ambiguous whether she intended for Atticus to survive and her father to die, and if thwarting the ritual was her end goal or just a single part of a bigger plan.
- Gender Flip: She is the show’s counterpart for Caleb, Samuel's son and sole heir from the source material.
- Heir Club for Men: She can't rise to any position of authority in the Sons of Adam because she was born a woman. She seems both saddened and angry about this, and it's probably why she helps arrange the downfall of her father and the cult.
- Hidden Depths: She puts on a tough act, but even she breaks down when faced with the true horror of Emmett Till's murder. She literally endured the same pain to gain this understanding, and this came after her insisting that she didn't truly care about it.
- Immortality Seeker: Of the Immortality Immorality variety. Christina's main goal above all else is to become immortal so she can freely experience all of the things she was denied growing up as a woman in a male dominated cultist society. The problem is that she is fully willing to sacrifice Atticus and jeopardize the safety of his entire family in order to achieve that goal.
- Killed Off for Real: She's killed by Diana at the end of "Full Circle".
- Lack of Empathy: She admits she doesn't care about anyone, save for perhaps Ruby, and her only concern is getting what she wants in the end. She encourages the same in Ruby.
- Leonine Contract: Every time Christina offers her direct assistance to Atticus and his family, it's always when they're conveniently in dire straits, leaving them desperate enough to fork over what little supernatural advantages they have directly to her just so they can keep the more immediate danger at bay. This dynamic is finally subverted in the season finale when Atticus and his family refuse to give Christina the Book of Names in exchange for her finally leaving them alone. Leading to Christina rescinding the Mark of Cain she put on Leti out of spite.
- "Not So Different" Remark:
- During a conversation with Atticus she obliquely reflects on the fact that they both came running to aid fathers that treat them like shit, just because they are "family".
- She believes that, like her, Ruby truly doesn't care about others either. Considering how excited Ruby is to learn more magic from her, she might have a point.
- Patricide: She arranges her father's death but doesn't personally pull the trigger. The ring she gives Atticus is instrumental in disrupting her father's ritual, resulting in the magical backlash that causes Samuel's death by petrification.
- Pet the Dog:
- When Atticus demands she remove the enchantment preventing George and Leti from remembering the Shoggoths as proof of "friendship," Christina does so, albeit, after all three of them are trapped in their rooms by magic and Tic is incapable of going to them. She also takes the time to assure Tic that her father is a man of his word and will heal George's mortal wound once Tic has played his part in her father's ritual by being sacrificed. With the reveal that she planned for Tic to thwart the ritual and kill her father, it's ambiguous how much of this stemmed from kindness versus pragmatism. The ending of "Holy Ghost" heavily leans towards pragmatism.
- A weird example happens when a cow goes into labor and Christina helps deliver the baby, which she then treats tenderly. The weird part comes from the fact that the cow isn't giving birth to a calf but a baby Shoggoth.
- Another rather twisted version happens when she decides that she wants to understand the suffering Emmett Till must have endured when he was murdered, and arranges for men to kill her in the same way. She breaks down right after her magic revives her.
- In the finale, she gives Leti invulnerability thus saving her, in spite of the two being now enemies at that point. Tellingly, this is one of the first times she has done something without getting anything in return.
- Spanner in the Works: By giving Atticus a Sons of Adam ring before the ritual, she ensures that it will go wrong, killing her father and the assembled cultists.
- Villainous Crush: She appears to have this for Ruby. Time will tell whether this remains true, or whether Ruby remains heroic. Christina eventually kills and replaces Ruby, but it's unclear if it's out of pragmatism or because she's hurt at Ruby's betrayal.
- Villainous Rescue: In the first episode she saves the heroes twice. First by crashing the truck of the lynch mob who were chasing after Tic, Leti and George, and the second time by calling off the Shoggoths that were swarming them.
- Womanchild: Downplayed. Most of the time she acts mature, sophisticated and erudite, but it's clear that she's been impacted by an emotionally deprived upbringing as she immerses herself playing hide-and-seek with a group of children in the street, and has never played it before.
William
William
Portrayed By: Jordan Patrick Smith
Christina’s henchman and lover.
- Ambiguously Evil: Time will tell his true nature, but he's the only kind white person in the first episode and he's associated with sinister, supernatural going-ons.
- Black Gal on White Guy Drama: He starts a fling with Ruby, despite the time period and her own misgivings.
- The Charmer: He's disarmingly polite and possesses an easy charm. He manages to talk a very cautious Ruby into bed with him.
- Chick Magnet: When he shows up to pick "Ruby" up from work, it's clear he has this effect on her three colleagues.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: He beats the living hell out of a Dirty Cop before he even knows he's in a fight.
- Death by Adaptation: He was killed by cultists in the Chicago PD, causing Christina to use his blood to pretend to be him.
- Decomposite Character: He shares this with Christina. Elements of their characters were taken from Caleb Braithewhite, a major character in the book. Namely, he takes on the fact that Caleb has a relationship with Ruby and genuinely seems to be attracted to her, though that was Christina masquerading as him.
- The Dragon: To Christina; they're yet to share a scene together but he does seem to be operating on her instruction.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: He's VERY handy with his dukes, effortlessly taking down a pair of cops.
- Never Bring a Gun to a Knife Fight: A fist fight, in this case. The second Dirty Cop he fights barely clears leather before he's taken out.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: He pulls off some absolutely epic ones. Though eagle-eyed viewers may catch him behind the hedges before he curbstomps the surveillance detail.
Korea
Ji-Ah
Ji-Ah
Portrayed By: Jamie Chung
A South Korean nurse Atticus had a relationship with during the war.
- Ambiguously Human: Ji-Ah herself voices doubt on whether she is the original Ji-Ah possessed by a Kumiho spirit, or a Kumiho spirit that has merely taken on the appearance of Ji-Ah. What complicates matters is she has absorbed all the memories of Ji-Ah's stepfather, which includes enough memories of how Ji-Ah was that she can convincingly pass as her.
- Asian Fox Spirit: She's a kumiho (well the host of one), the Korean version of the fox spirit. She doesn't show things like the fox-bead but she's called as such in ancillary materials and interviews.
- Ass Shove: One of her tails is clearly seen going up Byung Ho's anus, if only via silhouette.
- Black Widow: Byung Ho was killed by Ji-Ah right after he had sex with her (and all the other men like him were too).
- Dark and Troubled Past: Ji-Ah was sexually abused by her mother's husband, and then possessed by a fox spirit her mother summoned to kill him.
- Demonic Possession: Ji-Ah was possessed by a kumiho, a fox spirit from Korean folklore due to her mother's deal with a shaman. She has to kill one hundred men and take their souls before she'll become human again.
- Disappeared Dad: Ji-Ah was born out of wedlock, with her birth father not being mentioned, but as her mother married another man later he's clearly absent.
- Honey Trap: Ji-Ah, being a gorgeous young woman, easily leads men to their doom by simply offering them sex, which they quickly accept and then are not just murdered but have their souls devoured too.
- Hospital Hottie: She works as a nurse in a hospital, and is also very attractive. This makes it easy for her to seduce men for their souls.
- Lovecraft Lite: Ji-Ah only kills men at the behest of her mother, who wants her to become human and truly be her daughter again. She only had a shaman summon a fox spirit into her daughter's body as a means to get rid of her abusive husband who was also sexually abusing Ji-ah before she was possessed.
- Ludicrous Gibs Ji-Ah's tails entering Byung Ho cause him to burst apart in a shower of blood.
- Ms. Fanservice: Ji-Ah is gorgeous, and has multiple sex scenes the first episode where she's introduced, in which she shows her breasts along with shots from the back and side.
- Orifice Invasion: She's a nine-tailed fox that feeds with her tails, one for each orifice on her and her partner's bodies. She usually opens with an Ass Shove.
- Out with a Bang: Sex with her usually entails having your soul ripped out and your body exploding.
- Rape as Backstory: Soon-Hee summoned the kumiho to kill her husband because he'd been sexually abusing Ji-Ah.
- Reluctant Monster: She really doesn't want to kill all those men. It is her "mother" who pressures her into claiming the souls so she will become the real Ji-Ah.
- Soul Eating: Ji-Ah devours men's souls after having sex with them through inserting her tails into all of their orifices. Due to this, she also absorbs their memories. She must devour one hundred to become human again.
- Spanner in the Works: Christina would’ve won if Ji-Ah hadn’t used her kumiho tails to form a physical and spiritual connection between her and Atticus, allowing Leti to cast a spell to bind Christina’s magic.
- Walking Spoiler: There is very little that can be said about her without revealing some truly massive spoilers.
Monsters
Shoggoths
The Shoggoths
Portrayed By: Brian A. Prince (motion capture)
A race of carnivorous blob-like creatures covered in eyes living around the woods outside Ardham and Bideford.
- Blob Monster: Atticus describes them as such based on what he's read in Lovecraft's work. Leti jokes that just means they'd be easier to outrun. Unfortunately, when the Shoggoths turn out to actually be real, they more resemble a cross between gorillas and mole-rats, and are much more nimble.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The shoggoths dwelling around Ardham are pale, like curdled milk. The one created by Montrose and Tic's protection spell is black colored.
- Extra Eyes: Their bodies are covered in eyes.
- Lightning Bruiser: In addition to being gigantic monsters capable of effortlessly ripping a person apart, they're also really fast and nimble.
- Our Vampires Are Different: George associates them with vampires due to their weakness to light and their bite resulting in the victim's transformation into another Shoggoth.
- Perception Filter: The Braithwhites have put a spell on the creatures so that anyone who encounters them will lose their memories of the event.
- Was Once a Man: It's revealed that their bite can turn people into other Shoggoths, as Sheriff Hunt finds out the hard way.
- Weakened by the Light: They only come out at night because light hurts them.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Sunlight isn't the only light that hurts them. Any kind of light will do, including flashlights, flares and headlights.
Topsy and Bopsy
Topsy and Bopsy
Portrayed By: Kaelynn Harris (as Topsy) & Bianca Brewton (as Bopsy)
Two demons with the likeness of Topsy from Uncle Tom's Cabin.
- Blackface: Played for Horror. Their resemblance is based on the pickanniny stereotype of blackface minstrel shows. It serves to make them quite disturbing indeed.
- Creepy Twins: They give of this vibe despite being portrayed by two different actresses and one even being lighter-skinned compared to the other.
- Glasgow Grin: Their mouths. Made more evident by their red lipstick.
- Humanoid Abomination: They seem human except for their talons and enlarged mouths with deformed teeth.
- Invisible to Normals: Only Diana can see them.
- Super-Persistent Predator: Once summoned to haunt someone they calmly chase down their prey.
