The Terror - The C, the C, the Open C


The C, the C, the Open C lays on the bleak something fierce as officers die from malnutrition and lead poisoning from the canned food they’ve been ingesting during their time in the Arctic, including Fitzjames who even succumbs to a bullet wound (from six years prior) worsened by his lack of health. Trying to drag a boat with supplies while each officer grows more ill and starving while knowing that their whole reason for the mission appears a failure, Hickey and mutineers could be anywhere with guns drawn ready to fire, and a monster that took a cannonball to its body (and was responsible for a rampage that also took many lives) is still out there somewhere destined to return; this whole situation is quite dire for Crozier and what little men are still available to him. Gangrene-legged Mr. Blankey volunteering, much to Crozier’s further gut-wrenching dismay, to be bait for the monster and locating the Northwest Passage, too, takes yet another dear friend and confidante from the Captain while the mission they so hoped to succeed was indeed just a bit ahead. Crozier, however, was put in a precarious position of surrendering himself (so his remaining officers could venture ahead without conflict, but removed of their guns) to Hickey.

I guess it can’t be overstated that Hickey is as much a monster (if not worst) as the Tuunbaq. What differentiates them is that the Tuunbaq seems to have chosen these men as its prey due to their violence towards its Eskimo population while Hickey kills men either to keep secrets or eat them. Hickey taking delight in not only forcing Dr. Goodsir to use his anatomical skills to cut from an officer he murdered in cold blood (the officer would have died anyway, actually given a mercy killing due to the anguish his coming days would have inflicted him) but encouraging him to join them in a cannibalistic feast certainly paints him as especially insidious. Hickey, also, uses manipulation and the trust of those in his entourage to remain at the lead and in control, reinforcing his stature with Goodsir who considers the death, dismemberment, and feeding of/from a human body atrocious. That Goodsir relents (using an officer’s danger as provocation) proves Hickey holds all the cards. With Crozier soon to be in his possession, Hickey’s narcissism and power trip will certainly just inflate.

I have noticed that “prestige horror” has been a buzz-phrase used to describe The Terror, a note of praise for the show in bringing “class” and “extravagance” back to the genre, as if for a long time horror wasn’t fit to be considered anything close to that. I don’t particularly care whether or not the genre receives accolades from those not all that considerate of horror. Rewarding the show with congrats for being of substantive quality (and being equipped with grandeur thanks to period detail and recreation) could turn a certain type of horror fan away. But The Terror sure has granted us access into the dreaded conditions of a deteriorating crew’s decline, entrapped in an inhospitable climate, lost to fear, madness, sickness, crippling hunger/health, and desperation. A conversation about an officer’s memories regarding aunts, a mass, taking the Lord’s supper, a day of perfect peace, afterward reflecting on a life badly lived, full of regret, admitting to the sins brought on by his hunger to Goodsir (restless, sleep-deprived, and mortified of Hickey’s actions, and the crew’s), Crozier’s tending to both Fitzjames and another officer slowly succumbing to similar sickness (talking about an immovable cow he tried to ride as a kid, including kicking it just to see if it would move…), Crozier’s frustrating dialogue with Blankey who admits to concealing his gangrene, and Hickey’s comforting a dying officer he later stabs in the back as plans to eat him are underway are key dialogue-heavy character pieces to emphasize that these are human beings suffering the effects of their environment and rotten luck. The title of the episode refers to a diary poem read by the emotionally wounded John Bridges (John Lynch, who I thought was especially fantastic) as he tends to his dying friend and comrade, later lying on the stone ground at the end in total duress.  

4.5/5

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