The stranded sailors on AMC’s Gothic horror series The Terror are haunted by a monster called a tuunbaq, an Inuit combination of beast and spirit that can kill in a variety of ways, such as decapitation, dismemberment, skull-splitting and stuffing people down fire holes. Yet in the latest episode, “A Mercy,” the creature takes a back seat to the less fantastical but equally terrifying dangers endemic to being icebound in the Arctic: scurvy, frostbite, lead poisoning and madness.
After last week’s explosive brush with the monster, this quieter, dread-filled episode burns slow but hot. Some less-developed characters are given more screentime, adding texture to the sense of near-certain doom creeping over the crew. The monster may be quiet, but the characters have no trouble scaring themselves.
BEWARE, MATEYS! STORY SPOILERS FOR “A MERCY” LIE BELOW
“A Mercy” opens in January, 1848, with the ships’ officers taking measure of their remaining supplies. First Mate Thomas Blankey (Ian Hart) has survived his maiming by the tuunbaq two weeks prior, and now ambles around on a handcrafted wooden leg. After months of total darkness in the Arctic winter, the first sunrise is only a week away.
The officers’ meeting is run by Captain Fitzjames (Tobias Menzies) who is the expedition’s acting commander until Captain Crozier (Jared Harris) emerges from his alcohol detoxification. Though something of a martinet, Fitzjames is proving himself a realistic and capable commander, attentive to his crew and preparing his commanders to face the dire prospect of having to save themselves by walking 800 miles across the ice to the closest Hudson’s Bay Company outpost.
When the meeting breaks up, Fitzjames asks Blankey to remain. Fitzjames asks Blankey for the truth of what happened on a previous failed expedition with Captain John Ross at Fury Beach. Fitzjames is skeptical of Ross’ official glowing memoirs recounting his crew’s three winters in icebound conditions and their 300-mile march to safety. Blankey serves up a harrowing tale of starvation, cannibalism and mutinous brain-madness, telling Fitzjames that their biggest mistake was leaving the ships far too late.
Fitzjames is concerned about Blankey’s hints that the deranged crew were close to murdering Ross just before they were rescued, and reminds Blankey that most of the crew did survive. Blankey responds with words of wisdom born of experience:
"If we’re going to walk out here ourselves almost three times as far, you need to understand it wasn’t sickness or hunger that mattered most to our chances. It was what mattered up here (taps head). Notions. Darkness. With no fair man to stem it. If those men hadn’t of found us … Sir John never knew how close he came."
Fitzjames asks Blankey if he sees this ‘darkness’ among the men aboard the Terror and the Erebus. “I don’t need to see it to know it’s here,” he replies. Blankey tells Fitzjames that he needs to find a way to occupy the men, to give them an outlet to “vent” their bottled-up anxieties before they set out on the long walk home. Fitzjames later opens one of the late Franklin’s trunks and finds a stash of masquerade masks and gear. He decides to have the men throw a wild sunrise party, and also discovers that the skin on his head is bleeding for no apparent reason.
Crozier remains helpless and bedridden as he escapes the clutch of alcoholism, tended to with great care by his steward Thomas Jopson (Liam Garrigan). Jopson tells Crozier the story of when he cared for his injured and laudanum-addicted mother, but avoids revealing how she fared once he broke her of her addiction. Meanwhile, assistant surgeon Harry Goodsir (Paul Ready) continues to feed the ship’s mascot monkey tins of canned meat, studying his reaction.
The paranoid caulker’s mate Cornelius Hickey (Adam Nagatis) continues to pester William Gibson (Edward Ashley) on tidbits of news he overhears among the officers. The men are cheered when it is announced they are to plan and prepare the sunrise party. Out on the ice, Lady Silence (Nive Nielsen) begins a shamanistic ceremony, gutting a circle of seals and waiting for the monster to come to her.
Enthused by the prospect of a wild celebration, the crewmen erect a large tent made of sails on a nearby section of the ice field, and begin lugging out supplies and materials to build an elaborate party hall that includes a hot tub cauldron and a maze. Aboard ship, Henry Collins (Trystan Gravelle), looking unsettled, visits Dr. Stanley (Alstair Petrie), complaining of growing feelings of paranoia and confusion. The unimaginative and perhaps incompetent Dr. Stanley brushes the obviously troubled Collins off, telling him he’ll feel better after the party.
Goodsir is called to a storage closet where the crew has contained the ship’s monkey, which has now gone violently mad in the act of dying. Upon inspection of the body, Goodsir discovers the monkey’s gums have gone black, a condition he’s observed among members of the crew. Goodsir rushes to tell the desperate news to Dr. Stanley: all of the tinned meats are contaminated with lead and they’ve been ingesting it for years. It’s going to get worse. Goodsir wants to inform the commanders immediately, but Dr. Stanley orders him to shut up so he can deal with it.
Out on the ice, the tuunbaq comes to Lady Silence. She tells the creature that it must accept her as its shaman in the place of her father, then proceeds to cut out her own tongue. We get our first really good look at the tuunbaq here, and it appears as a previously described: a weird physical combination of man and polar bear.
When the day comes, Crozier is feeling good enough to venture out and attend the sunrise party, so Jopson escorts him out onto the ice. Crozier is at first stunned by the crazy festivities with the wild setting, music, costumes, drunken sailors and Captain Fitzjames being carried around in the costume of a Roman general. When Fitzjames explains it was his idea, designed to get the men ready to walk out, Crozier understands. Crozier calls the the crew to him, announcing the plan to walk home and what it will take to accomplish something so daunting.
As Crozier is talking, Lady Silence staggers in unnoticed, her mouth running with blood, and collapses in a corner. Hickey wanders outside to urinate. Meanwhile, Dr. Stanley appears, splashing rum and lantern oil over the grog barrels before tying all of the tent flaps shut. He then douses himself with rum and sets himself on fire in front of Crozier and the entire assembled crew. The flames rush in every direction from the immolating Dr. Stanley, and the men suddenly find themselves trapped in their burning tent.
As the only man outside, Hickey realizes the predicament and draws his knife to cut a hole in the tent wall — but he hesitates — men’s bodies are pressed up against every inch of the opaque canvas. With no time and no other options, Hickey plunges his blade into the sail and slashes an opening that the panicked men rip open and use to escape. Unfortunately, Hickey’s knife has also killed the man unlucky enough to be squeezed up against the spot he chose to cut: Dr. McDonald (Charles Edwards).
Hours later, the sunrise appears, lighting up the smoldering ruins of the party tent and the many bodies of those who died in the fire. Crozier and the men turn to let the brief moment of sunlight touch their faces, and the sun vanishes into darkness once again.
It’s difficult to keep the narrative flow from dragging at the midpoint on any series, but The Terror isn’t suffering from that problem. “A Mercy” ends with a cliffhanger, with the sunrise party ending in an act of murderous and fiery insanity that kills both doctors and leaves the assistant surgeon Goodsir alone to face the terrifying effects of lead poisoning among the men.
Not everything is doom and gloom: the much-needed Crozier has overcome his detox, Fitzjames has proven a more capable commander than expected, the crew’s spirit can still be raised and perhaps they’re walking out before it’s too late to try. (It’s also fun to see Tobias Menzies get some healthy screen time.) It even appears that a healthy respect is growing between the two captains. But “A Mercy” leaves the viewer in no doubt that this is all going to come to disaster; as this episode unfolds, you can almost hear the nails being pounded into the collective coffin of every man still breathing.
The tuunbaq’s appearance continues to underwhelm, but it’s also believable, and both it and Lady Silence provide a welcome element of unpredictability to a tale where everything feels so grimly fated. One of the great things about The Terror is it’s unwillingness to hang its hat on the Inuit monster. Certainly the tuunbaq looms large over the proceedings, but the real story is about the hubris and frailty of man; The Terror digs deep into the personal arcs of its characters and their human struggle. That’s what keeps us hooked.
If you’ve enjoyed the The Terror so far, “A Mercy” does not disappoint. EPISODE GRADE — A
Here’s AMC’s sneak peek at episode 7, “Horrible from Supper:”
AMC’s The Terror is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by author Dan Simmons, who based his historical fiction on the true story of the Franklin Expedition. It currently airs Monday nights at 8 p.m. CST.
Next: AMC’s The Terror plumbs the depths of madness in “Horrible from Supper”
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