The Terror Episode 5
It’s commendable that The Terror takes its time to get to its horror moments when other series are content with jump scares and cheap thrills, but “First Shot a Winner, Lads” is a bit too slow. Things get going near the end with an entertaining action sequence that provides our best look yet at Tuunbaq, but that can’t quite make up for all the time the episode spends on Captain Francis’ alcoholism. I found the “whiskey war” between both ships a bit silly. Too much time is spent on Francis trying to get Lieutenant Little (Matthew McNulty) to steal bottles of whiskey from Captain James’ stores on the Erebus. When things come to a head, it results in another yelling match between the two men. As per usual, they don’t really arrive at anything except that Tobias Menzies’ character has too little to do on this show at the moment besides confronting Francis about one thing or other. Hopefully, James will get a bit more to do now that he’s the new commander. James doesn’t push Francis to confront his alcoholism, although their confrontation does feel like an intervention of sorts. It’s the monstrous Tuunbaq who convinces Francis that he needs to get his shit together for the sake of his remaining men. Tuunbaq continues to show an impressive intelligence as it picks off the men one by one. This week, it even separates the men inside the ship from those poor souls outside. Lady Silence reveals that she’s not controlling the beast and that it’s acting of its own accord, which makes Tuunbaq all the more frightening. The Terror is sort of taking the form of a slasher creature feature, isn’t it? A monster shows up every night to claim a few more victims, as the men inside the ships slowly go mad. Certainly, the paranoia has hit both Francis and Mr. Hickey, who watches closely as Lady Silence is brought back aboard the Terror. But there also seems to be something more sinister to Tuunbaq’s plan. It’s pretty clear that there’s not much that could stop the monster. Not even a cannonball is enough to bring it down, so why not kill everyone on both ships in one swift stroke? Is its plan actually to divide the remaining crew so that they kill themselves? Either way, Francis’ interrogation certainly doesn’t help gain Lady Silence’s trust. By the end of the episode, she’s run off to Goodsir’s dismay. Perhaps that was what Tuunbaq was up to all along: distracting the men so that Lady Silence could escape. Many of the smaller details shine through in this episode, too. The Terror has done an absolutely excellent job showing us the effect of the cold on the men. From a spyglass getting stuck to a man’s eyelid to frostbitten toes and fingers being snipped off nonchalantly by the unbearable Dr. Stanley, this show really knows how to use its setting as another source of fear. And there’s something even more frightening afoo inside the mouths of the men – a disease that might slowly be making its way through the crew. Goodsir’s on the case as one of the few sane men left on this doomed expedition, but as we all know from the history books, he’s already too late. John Saavedra is an associate editor at Den of Geek US. Find more of his work on here. Or just follow him on Twitter.
