Moving The Pieces Around
Last week’s episode was arguably the best of the season so far. With a clever blend of horror and imaginative visuals, The Terror finally delivered a compelling slab of tension, whilst progressing the plot in a meaningful way through to its climactic final scenes. Returning this week, The Terror slows down and delivers a more methodical slice of drama, one lacking in horror and tension whilst playing out much closer to a standard historical fiction. We begin with a prologue involving a man stitching up a body, which comes to life and begins applying lipstick in a mirror. As it happens, this disfigured woman happens to be Yuko who’s now well and truly alive. After learning the truth about his parents, Chester contemplates his true heritage after the lies his Mother and Father hid from him over who he really is. Luz isn’t having things much easier, as her Father tries setting her up with another man, much to her disdain. Unfortunately she hasn’t been receiving any of Chester’s letters either as he receives a package with all the letters he wrote to her from before wrapped up. Walking purposefully out the camp, he’s eventually stopped by the guards who knock him out with the butt of their gun and take him away in a transport to Tule Lake. Unfortunately his absence prompts a new wave of viral infections to spread across the camp as people start to become sick, including the only two doctors on site. In the middle of the night, Yuko arrives and takes a picture from the men’s barracks before taking control of the Major and forcing him to contort his way through camp. As night turns to day, the Major is not himself and refuses to grant any medical help until he gets to the bottom of what happened to him. Midway through being transported away, Chester tells the guards he needs a toilet break, prompting them to stop the truck. As they stop by the side of the road, he manages to get away, throwing himself off a bridge and into the turbulent waters below. As news gets back to camp, Ken tries to talk sense into the Major, only to have him ask just what Yuko wants. Not understanding what he means, they wind up fighting, leading to Ken getting the upper-hand and pointing a gun at the Major. Chester, meanwhile, decides to visit Luz where they talk about his letters. This eventually leads him into the orphanage he was raised, where he learns he has a twin brother. As he sifts through the paperwork, Amy takes control of the situation back at the camp and manages to use the Major’s clearance to bring in medical supplies for the sick. Ken antagonizes the Major who squares up to him, telling him he’s not afraid. Just before he shoots however, Amy arrives with Gimbel and tells the Major she’s in the wrong, but Ken covers for her telling the soldiers it was all his doing. As the Major is let go and promises that he’ll take his co-operation into consideration, the soldiers shoot Ken in cold blood. Meanwhile Luz and Chester head off to see her family while her Father reads the letter she left him. Hearing a knock at the door, he goes and investigates only to find Yuko sitting on his bed. Backing away from her, she confronts him before possessing his body and making him open a map and circle Aguayo, the exact place Luz and Chester are currently residing before killing him in cold blood with a fountain pen where we leave the episode. After last week’s episode, The Terror delivers a straight forward, almost formulaic slice of drama this time around, sorely lacking in any sort of tension or horror. Infamy is infamously lacking in anything exciting or substantial this episode and aside from Luz and Chester heading off in search of their past while the Yurei hunts him down, there really isn’t a whole lot else going on here. Hopefully things pick up next week but for now, The Terror delivers a pretty forgettable episode that feels like it’s here to move our characters around and not a whole lot else.
