'The Terror: Infamy' episode 1 seamlessly infuses horror with the tensions plaguing the Japanese-American community in World War II (spoilers ahead)
This article contains spoilers for episode 1
AMC's latest installment of 'The Terror' had a lot to live up to following the anthology horror's debut season. In season two 'Infamy's first episode, things are off to a great start. Coming from Alexander Woo and Max Borenstein, the horror sprinkled throughout the second season's debut episode manages to do a brilliant job at creeping the viewer out without jump scares. Clearly, that's how you tell a decent horror apart from the several releases in the genre.
However, the second season also layers the horror quotient with the ongoing tension within the Japanese-American internment during World War II, played out from the perspective of the Nakayama family.
At the center of the action is Derek Mio's Chester Nakayama, son of immigrants Henry (Shingo Usami) and Asako (Naoko Mori). The restless Chester has grown up seeing his father work his entire life as a fisherman for the Americans and feels the burning need to escape the confinement of the profession and explore the world. Chester's mode of exploring is through his chosen platform of art — photography — something his conservative father and protective mother don't necessarily approve of.
And while he is trying to convince them to let him pursue his dreams, the not-so-prodigal-son also falters and disappoints them when he gets a girl pregnant. Suddenly, the mysterious deaths plaguing their community at Terminal Island, California, somehow get linked to him.
Through Chester's dilemma between pursuing his dreams and being a good son, the second season also explores the troubles of diaspora children. Chester is the embodiment of not belonging to either of the places he grew up in, thus leading to a constant ongoing battle within himself.
Things just keep getting worse for him and his family, once the Executive Order 9066 completely disrupts their lives. Suddenly the struggle is about sticking together and staying alive. The impeccably articulated horrors of the socio-political environment are also balanced quite delicately with emerging deaths every now and then, starting with the death of Masayo Furuya, whom Chester had reached out to get an abortion potion from.
Chester's girlfriend, Luz (Cristina Rodlo), tells him that by formulating the potion, Masayo, and by extension, they are going against God's plans, thereby insinuating that they are the root cause behind her mysterious death. And that makes sense given the time, setting, and political tension rife at the time.
Masayo can be seen killing herself in the very opening scene of season two's first episode by stabbing herself in the ear with a hairpin. Pretty much everybody else finds a reason to blame Masayo's abusive husband, Hideo Furuya (Eiji Inoue), because of how openly he used to beat up his wife, but things change in the very same episode when Hideo ends up turning blind in broad daylight, with agonizing pain in his eyes.
This is where the primary element of horror gets infused into the plot. Hideo's painful blindness strikes the moment he passes by a mysteriously beautiful woman n the street, who turns out to be a new girl at the local brothel called Yuko (Kiki Sukezane). That something is off about Yuko is established from the very beginning with her eerie tea-leaf reading habits where she warns Chester of the darkness and light lying ahead in his path.
But it is only in the final scene of the episode that Yuko's full sinister aura is let out, as we see her skin peeling off to reveal dark, decaying matter underneath when she tries wiping makeup off her cheek. Wait! It gets better. As a total treat for fans of all things horrifying, Yuko bends a needle to the right amount of curve and starts sewing up her own skin like it's just another day of contouring.
There's a lot going on in the very first episode of 'The Terror: Infamy', titled 'A Sparrow in A Swallow's Nest'. Just the name of the episode suffices to lay down the debilitating turmoil Chester goes through trying to balance both his passion and duties. There's also the visible divide between his father, Henry's visualization of the signature American Dream, and the alienated feeling he gets from Anglo-American soldiers treating their longstanding community as dirt.
When it comes to the characters, Chester isn't compelling as the lead in such a tension-driven thriller. However, he also doesn't have a lot to work with — a scenario that is common with most characters on the show. We have George Takei's all-wise and solemn Yamato-san to look forward to, with his expository words of wisdom having an alarming, yet soothing effect on a bystander's perspective. The show also does a pretty neat job portraying the various ways each of the characters internalizes their trauma, something that we have Mio, Takei, and director Lily Marie's experience and connections with real-life internment camps to credit for.
'The Terror: Infamy' premieres with its first episode on Monday, August 12, at 9 pm, only on AMC.