'The Terror: Infamy' episode 3 mixes the political and supernatural horrors with Chester and Amy's conflict
This article contains spoilers for episode 3 'Gaman.'
The second episode of 'The Terror: Infamy' ended with Wilson Yoshida's family accusing Chester (Derek Mio) of bearing evils that took their precious father and husband, Wilson from them. While more and more people are starting to see the yurei, or vengeful spirit Yuko now, there's no denying that her connection to Chester is something beyond ordinary. Also, the added tension of Wilson asking Chester to leave their camps right before he died tells something of Chester's journey to come, but for now, in episode 3 we see him trying to be both an ideal son and a provider for Luz and their soon-to-be arriving baby, all the while battling the evil spirits plaguing their community.
Life in the Japanese internment camps seems to have reached a pretty stable balance, with the women busying themselves in gardening while the younger men focus on building a fence to keep them from outside harm. But in all of this, as Chester and Luz (Cristina Rodlo) come closer than ever as well, the young boy can't stop hearing Wilson's final warning right before the older man passed. For Luz, however, it's a whole other horror: she is getting judged both because of being an outsider, and more so because of the pregnancy. Neither Chester's mom Asako, nor Amy's want to accept her, the former even peaking double standards and gender bias by accusing Luz of ruining Chester's life, but Amy is the only one taking Luz's side.
However, as these slices of lives pan out with the usual bickering and chit-chat little bits of evil come back to haunt the Nakayamas, the Yoshidas, and the rest of the community at their internment camps. What is randomly spotting Yuko at odd moments for Chester, turns into biting into fruit and finding a worm inside, for his mother. Omens aside, the real horror of these internment camps and their mistreatment of the Japanese-American community during the Second World War is once again highlighted as Chester's father, Henry, their community guardian, Yamato-san (George Takei), and the duo's third comrade, Hideo Furuya - all three of whom had been taken away from their family in the middle of the night - finally return home.
It is Henry who has been visibly scarred - both figuratively, and literally, but what was done to them by the Americans? His eyes are cold and are set deep inside with dark circles under them, his toes covered in frostbite so severe, that the man screams as his wife tries to pull his boots out. Asako's tenderness and devotion to her husband's recovery help the episode strike the much-needed balance to save it from being too dark. The fact that Chester's parents are able to look beyond the real horrors and focus on their son's indiscretion - aka having a child out of wedlock with a woman outside their community - is the only thing normal about this storehouse of acutely realistic terror.
Episode 3 is also where the rage building up amidst those afflicted by the horrors of the internment camps also comes out. In Chester's case, it is breaking the floodlights that keep panning across the camps at night, while for his father it's an unabashed suspicion and distaste for Luz, the girl who left her cushy life to be with Chester and his family because she was carrying their child. But Luz isn't the only young woman being unjustly treated; poor Amy hasn't even suffered the loss of her father a week ago, and she is already being shipped and pimped off by her mother into a job within the American regiment. Not literally, but Amy's mother brags about her daughter's patriotism and typing skills to get her a job with the soldier who pretty much owns the camps.
While Henry reels under the trauma of his imprisonment, we see Chester finding something common with Hideo, especially in terms of the older men's violent outburst on the day of his imprisonment. Hideo just like Wilson, asks Chester to flee from the area, while the boy is sneaking in what looks like alcohol to him. And Hideo wasn't wrong, as the very next morning, Chester finds Luz had 'slipped' off the stairs. Meanwhile, an American soldier takes the blinded Hideo into the very middle of the local forest and leaves him there all alone, and this is where Yuko steps in. For all the anticipation leading up to exactly this moment, the slight revelation of why Yuko's spirit is haunting them doesn't disappoint at all.
Yuko reminds Hideo on a particular night where he had called her "exquisite" and the terrified man with his stuttering and fumbling, sort of makes it clear that he was directly responsible for whatever bad had happened to Yuko. She tells him there is "only one" she wants when he asks her to leave him and his son, Toshiro, alone, and there comes in the aspect of gore at its finest with Yuko biting down on Hideo's bottom lip before violently ripping it out and letting him bleed to death.
The real darkness in all of this is however little children playing ball finding Hideo's body. Chester's entangling relationships with his father's judgmental mistrust in him running away for a cushy translator's job to fend for his baby on the way is just as grim. The only other silver lining in the otherwise dark cloud of gloom for an episode is the little dance Chester and Luz share just the night before he leaves, and suddenly he is Asako's son through and through, as she too spends time dreaming about dancing with Henry the very night he returns. But don't let the subtle charm and romance of this episode fool you; Luz begins bleeding in the end and the attending midwife turns out to be... you guessed it right, Yuko.
'The Terror: Infamy' episode 3 'Gaman' airs on Monday, August 27 at 9pm, only on AMC.