'The Terror: Infamy' episode 4 weaves a tragic love story of grief and loss as the Yurei wreaks havoc
This article contains spoilers for episode four of 'The Terror: Infamy'
Until the third episode of AMC's anthology horror 'The Terror: Infamy', we saw Luz (Cristina Rudlo) facing hostility from those around her in the internment camps, but this week we get deep into the horrors Chester (Derek Mio) is facing at his new employment.
Employed by the American soldiers trying to figure out what's haunting their regiment, Chester works as a translator looking for a possible Yurei when he comes face to face with one. Luz's horrors take a whole new shape after her repeated visits to the local Yurei haunting their camp, Yuko. Amidst all that essence of fear and loss, the fourth episode of the series also manages to establish itself as the gorefest that the trailer had indicated it to be.
Titled 'The Weak are Meat', episode four is set on the premises of the Japanese festival Obon, where the living honor their ancestors by commemorating their spirits. It is slightly uplifting to see the community come together for the festival with their lanterns adorning the internment camp for whatever joy it can spread. However, deep within lurks the ominous ghost of Yuko, who claims not one, but two lives this episode, including yet another soldier from among those stationed at the internment camps.
The episode opens with very poetic letters from both Chester and Luz to each other. Chester talks about the horrors of the tent he is lodged in the cold, while Luz talks about a warmth back in his family which she seems to be shut out from. Despite carrying the Nakayamas' heir, she is still alienated by both them and the Yoshida family. George Takei's all-wise community guardian, Yamato-san, is the only person who invites her.
However, Luz is smart and resilient. She manages to finally break through to Chester's dad Henry and expresses the couple's wish in naming one of their twins Enrique — the Spanish version of Henry. Chester's father is pleased, and so is his mother in those lighter moments of the episode, where Luz takes her hand and places it on her baby bump. The happiness, sadly, is shortlived. While we find out that Chester is being hounded by his employers to solve the mystery of a group of soldiers mysteriously dying from what looks like a sudden plague, Luz goes into labor.
Chester is attacked by the American soldiers for possible contribution to one of the generals going missing. The general is retrieved but he seems to have been possessed by a Yurei, as Chester deduces. The others don't believe him and the possessed general ends up attacking him and two other soldiers with a flamethrower.
Chester is rescued just in time and is the only one who mysteriously survives. His twins, unfortunately, don't, after a difficult delivery for Luz. The heartbreak of Luz's stillbirth is amplified tenfold by her most recent letter, where she talks about how ready she is to give birth, reaching Chester right after Luz's delivery. At that moment, her despair, paralleled with Chester's utmost joy upon realizing he is about to become a dad soon, is a beautifully written tragedy.
However, it turns out Luz's babies might not have been stillborn after all, making the story even darker, with its outcome even more satisfying. Right when Luz is taken to the hospital, we see Henry establish questionable concern about their local doctor's skills in deliveries. He seems to have never delivered twins before, and as suggested by the delivery scene playing out, there was some issue with Luz's umbilical cord and her babies. But after everything is done, we see what could be a Bakemono, finally, on the show.
On the day of Obon, a mysterious looking creature with a creepy mask arrives at the doctor's chamber, before calling him a "murderer" and making him slash his own abdomen to bleed to death. Or was it just Yuko playing the cards, by pretending to be a midwife and possessing the nurses?
'The Terror: Infamy' airs on Mondays at 9 pm only on AMC.