Sacrifice was for the next generation was laced throughout the story though. The grandmother could have escaped the house and gave her the book but didn't so George Jr. would be guaranteed safe. George Sr. died trying to get them out of Ardham. For Tic to escape and walk out as different would undercut what they were building.
Bullshyt.
At some point sacrifice has to END or all we’re doing as black people is suffering and dying. It becomes an endless loop of unrealized black potential. The sacrifices should have STOPPED with Tic. Tic was not the “Jor-El” of the story the great grandmother was. Tic was set up as the hero of this story. The one who was “special”. The one who carried the “chosen bloodline”. The only one who could understand the language of Adam. The one who survived a Korean Sex Monster. The one who was whisked into the future and given a book as a guide the one who saved his OWN future by protecting his young father against Crackers during a slaughter. The one who Uncle George died for. Tic should have found a way to win (beat white supremacy) and also raise HIS son alongside Leti as his wife (creating a new future of hope for a unified black family.) As it stands Tic dying just leaves another black boy to grow up without his father and gives a “second” chance to a character who didn’t earn it (Montrose).
Montrose sexuality kind of undercut the story. I understand it how it was generation trauma passed down about how a "man should act" but the writers kind of messed up when he slit Yimena's throat and was acting a jerk to his boyfriend. He never actually came to terms with his queerness and didn't justify his violence to others.
They did an “Ok” job explaining Montrose’s trauma, actually i’ll go ahead and say they did a GOOD job explaining it in episode 9. But as you said he didn’t do enough to earn redemption. I’m not against gay characters at all, I just don’t like when it feels like its tacked on to meet some pandering quota. Montrose (in my opinion) wasn’t quite a pandering character, but his arc didn’t warrant Tic dying as a sacrifice and him being granted surrogate father/grandmother to George Jr. there should have been a stronger reconciliation between Tic and Montrose in episode 10 and maybe even a REAL moment of emotional honesty between him and his lover. But as it stands it wasn’t enough. Not for Tic to die.
Ruby didn't turn on Leti. She made the request to not hurt her if she was going to sacrifice Tic cause she knew she would be there.
What i’m speaking of was Ruby turning on Leti by proxy of turning on Tic earlier (episode 8 was it?) while knowing Tic was Leti’s child’s father. By all accounts, Tic, Leti, and Ruby all grew up together and have known each other for YEARS prior to the events of the series. Ruby should have a sense of kinship and understanding of Tic to know that essentially this is a good man. Tic is who Emmet Till (Who she was oh so devastated about a few episodes earlier) could have grown up to be. She also knows that a strange gender shaping white woman has it out for him. And she was so quick to take the WHITE WOMAN’S side at first, even having experienced life as a white woman and rejecting it. That makes no sense given that the black people she was turning her back on were of her DIRECT community, people she knew personally, and the father of her SISTER’S unborn child.
The truth is their dynamic never changed. That's what she was complaining about at the cemetery. Leti ask something of her and she acquiesced.
I understand the dynamic angle. But again, it just seems like weak writing that Ruby would even consider sticking with the evil white woman over her family. No matter how manipulative Leti may have been, she never transformed into a man, fukked her, and then threatened the life of the her child’s father. Thats some all time sick shyt. And Christina’s whole “Women in a Man’s World” shtick never rang as authentic to me, so I didn’t see how that philosophy could have been used to so easily seduce Ruby.
Christina all in all was weak written character. And maybe the actress sucked too but I never found her convincing as this grand manipulator nor did I ever think that SHE herself believed that “Us Girls Are In It Together” bullshyt.
