'The Terror: Infamy' episode 5 turns Chester and Luz's romance into a tragedy with bitter consequences
This article contains spoilers for episode 5.
This week on AMC's anthology horror 'The Terror: Infamy's episode 5 we see everyone bound by the common thread of pain before some very severe consequences. Titled 'Shattered like a Pearl', the episode highlights the pain of losing a child, the pain of losing a partner, but most importantly, the pain of losing one's own self. Last week saw the tragic stillbirth of Chester (Derek Mio) and Luz's (Cristina Rodlo) twins and this week sees them parting ways for a time period more indefinite and unpredictable than their current predicament.
The episode opens with Chester's grief: as he goes about photographing young boys playing around with their mother, he hallucinates Luz as the mother before catching himself in the act. Meanwhile, the yurei is on the prowl. Even though the spirit doesn't arrive as Yuko this time, it possesses one of the soldiers at the internment camps, set to travel to the point where Chester is stationed for his new job, soon. As Chester goes about trying his hardest to hunt down the yurei plaguing his community, unbeknownst to him, the yurei is making its way towards him.
But the cracking and snapping accompanying the show's spiritual element of horror are soon rivaled by the horrors of the camps that Chester's family, along with every other family from the Japanese-American community is lodged at is facing. The Americans are now trying to segregate the community amongst their own based on humiliating classes and a mild protest of sorts ensues as the young men refuse to cooperate. One of those young men happen to be Amy's boyfriend, Ken, who refuses to bow to the American law but as the two of them spend intimate moments later, there's an eerie feeling to the whole scene, as if the two are being watched.
The scene singlehandedly amplifies the tone of horror in this episode, along with the new development on Chester's side, where a Japanese soldier has been captured, and he's reeking of being possessed by a supernatural entity. Chester, being one of the only two Japanese speaking men onboard that site, is called to try and communicate with the prisoner, and soon they can sense that the prisoner is trying to engage Chester with personal digs. The possessed prisoner talks about his Onnen, which means the spirit seeking vengeance in Japanese folklore, and threatens Chester further with the death of his family when left to be interrogated alone. But Chester proves to be quite efficient as a detective, as he takes a photo of the prisoner and proves he is only pretending to be possessed. The prisoner eventually budges and tells Chester it is because of the horrors of being tortured by the white men that he is putting up the farce - just the way Luz's mind is tricking her into believing a farce as a reflection in the water.
Back in the internment camps, Luz is spending hours out in the freezing cold, knee-deep in murky waters as she sees the reflection of her babies in them. But the moment she dips her hands in the dirty water to pick them up, they disappear leaving her tormented. The only solace in her tragedy is her father's arrival, even though it brings more bad news. Luz's father, though compassionate and considerate towards his daughter's misfortune - informs her that his son and her brother has died in the war too. But the biggest thing her father accomplishes is to convince her to go home with him. The unexpected pain in the parent's eyes wasn't something we were expecting since Luz had spoken of him murdering her if he ever found out she was dating a Japanese. The tenderness in his concern is evident, but so is the heartfelt love in Chester's dad when the frigid man jostles towards Luz to hug her tight right before she departs.
As Luz leaves the camps claiming she has written to Chester all about it, we see Amy suffering the loss of a lover too, as she goes behind Ken to change certain answers of his on the forms to save him from being further deported. Ken doesn't take this well, and it is apparent that there's a breach in the bond of the young lovers. Speaking of bonds, however, Chester seems to be building quite the connection with the prisoner, but there's no blaming the boy as he is relieved to find another familiar face away from home. Chester and the prisoner bond over their love for baseball - once again establishing Chester's dilemma between his roots and his upbringing, as he talks about nothing being more American than baseball.
But this lighthearted camaraderie is shortlived, as news hits that the prisoner is to be taken to another camp for interrogation by white men. Before any of that can happen, Chester unties the man from his binds and watches him stab himself using the knife he carried on himself. He just gives Chester inconsequential, but enough information to build a lie before dying in his arms, while the yurei gets closer and closer to Chester, having now transferred from the random soldier to Chester's partner. The guy knocks Chester out before forcing him at gunpoint to drive away from the camp, in the same jeep the former possessed soldier had arrived.
The jeep meets with an accident and falls into a ditch before a massive duffel bag falls off and out crawls what we can guess is Yuko's dead, decayed form. Bloody, gory, and every bit disturbing, the Yurei approaches Chester as he screams under the weight of the upturned vehicle, telling him it's time to go - the most effective cliffhanger to end the episode on. With both Luz and his babies gone, the episode poses the biggest question: If leaving wasn't the solution for Chester, what bigger prices must he pay?
'The Terror: Infamy' airs on Mondays at 9pm only on Showtime.