The Terror puts the match to the powder keg in “Terror Camp Clear”

If you’ve been following The Terror, AMC’s deliberately paced Victorian horror series, you’ve probably been wondering when the story, so packed with tension up until now, was going to blow open. Well, wait no longer: the burning fuse meets the powder keg in “Terror Camp Clear.” This episode is a detective story, a tale of mutiny and a monster flick; it marks the return of the Inuit man-monster tuunbaq, who shows up in the chaotic finale. We’ve been thoroughly impressed and entertained by The Terror so far; it seems to improve the longer it goes on, tracing the arcs of its characters toward grim fates.

BEWARE, MATEYS! SPOILERS FOR “TERROR CAMP CLEAR” LIE BELOW!

“Terror Camp Clear” opens on the same day as the previous episode, with Captains Francis Crozier (Jared Harris) and James Fitzjames (Tobias Menzies) strolling across the barrens to a stone cairn on King William Island. Fitzjames tells Crozier that he is now suffering from advanced lead poisoning; he’s tired all the time and bleeding out of the sockets of his teeth. Crozier himself isn’t sure how the lead is affecting his own body and mind. The two captains share a laugh, their former enmities forgotten under the extremely difficult circumstances.

It even inspires Fitzjames to bare his soul a bit, as he reveals to Crozier that he was appointed to the expedition because he saved the son of Sir John Barrow (John Laurenson) from a scandal “by chance” in Singapore. “I paid to have a very base matter settled that would have blackened the Barrow’s name, and the Admiralty’s by association. As soon as I returned to London I was promoted to Commander … I am a fake, brother.”

Crozier, stepping up, comforts his friend. “I challenge any biographer to tally up your acts of valor and then call you a fake.” Fitzjames then reveals that he is the product of an affair between his English father and an unknown Brazilian woman, a cardinal sin at this time in Great Britain, when people put a lot of stock in heredity. Crozier, remaining consistent, doesn’t care, and offers Fitzjames his brotherhood.

Crozier and Fitzjames return to the camp to find the alarm being sounded and sailors running.

Caulker’s Mate Cornelius Hickey (Adam Nagaitis) has returned to camp with a wild tale of being attacked by the Inuit, saying that officer Lt. Irving (Ronin Raferty) and crewman Thomas Farr (Mate Haumann) were felled by their knives. The sailors and marines have already responded, with Lt. Hodgson (Christos Lawton) leading an armed party that located the bodies of Irving and Farr and also ran down the Inuit group, killing five of them (one escaped on foot). Hodgson reports that the bodies of Irving and Farr were severely butchered. Being familiar with the Inuit, and with Hickey, Crozier is immediately suspicious of Hickey’s story. He tells his First Mate Thomas Blanky (Ian Hart) to bring Lady Silence (Nive Nielsen) to him.

Crozier inspects the carved-up bodies of Irving and Farr alongside acting surgeon Harry Goodsir (Paul Ready), Fitzjames and Lady Silence. Crozier asks Lady Silence if this kind of corpse disfigurement is something the Inuit do, and she shakes her head. Meanwhile, Hickey tells the paranoid crew his murdering-Inuit version of the story, but is interrupted by Lt. Jopson (Liam Garrigan), who tells him to gather his kit, because he’s going back to the scene of the killings.

Lt. Jopson is frantic to arm more sailors and set up a defensive perimeter in case more Inuit attack the camp, but Crozier and Fitzjames tell him to hold off. An unnatural fog starts to roll in on the barrens. Crozier, Blanky, Lady Silence, Goodsir and a handful of marines head out of camp as the panicked sailors stare menacingly at Lady Silence. As Hickey joins the excursion, he whispers into the ear of fellow conspirator Marine Sergeant Tozier (David Walmsley). “Today may be the day,” he says, and “guns.”

Sailor John Bridgens (John Lynch), acting medical assistant to Goodsir, tends to the frostbite on Henry Collins‘ (Trystan Gravelle) hands and multiple large ‘bruises’ appearing on his close friend Henry Peglar’s (Kevin Guthrie) arms. After tending to the sailor, Bridgens discovers that Collins has slipped away.

Out on the barrens, Crozier inspects the bodies of the five dead Inuit, including a child. Lady Silence is heartbroken.

The fog continues to sweep over the camp, and the fearful sailors around Sgt. Tozier start to ask for weapons. In his tent, the suffering Fitzjames strips to view the slow deterioration of his lesion-covered body. Lt. Jopson sees the sailors carrying guns out of the armory tent and dashes in to confront Sgt. Tozier, who says that a force of Inuit warriors are preparing to attack them from the fog. Jopson retreats from the confrontation, telling armory ward Thomas Armitage (Charlie Kelly) to record the issue of every weapon.

The crazed, apparently elated Collins wanders through the camp, hugging men and putting on their hats. Crozier and the retrieval party return and, after ducking the shot of a frightened sentry in the fog, learn from Fitzjames that the armory had been opened up on the orders of Lt. Little (Matthew McNulty), and that 20 men obtained firearms before he was able to stop it. Fitzjames worries that the frightened men will kill Lady Silence if she enters the camp. “We have to get this matchstick away from the tinderbox.” Fitzjames gives Lady Silence her personal items and Crozier sends her away, telling her to return to her people. Goodsir wants her to stay, but she leaves, disappearing into the fog.

Meanwhile, Hickey has hurried ahead to the camp, where he attempts to organize his mutineers. His plan is not to kill the officers, but to take one sledge filled with food, guns and a map and to escape on their own. In the command tent, Crozier berates Lt. Jopson for allowing the spooked men to arms themselves against ghosts in the fog. “You traded an imaginary invasion from without for a real invasion from within!” he says.

"If Mr. Hickey killed Lt. Irving and Mr. Farr as I suspect he did, it was not for the joy of it. We do not know yet who is in his coven but make no mistake about what they want."

Seeking more evidence against Hickey, Crozier has Goodsir cut open the dead Irving’s stomach in the presence of the officers. Goodsir discovers fresh, barely digested seal meat, showing that the Inuit had fed Irving. The way Crozier sees it, Hickey has been caught in a lie, a lie that resulted in seven deaths, including those of a naval officer and a child.

Crozier decides to act, telling the lieutenants to gather all the men loyal to them and immediately disarm both the sailors and the marines, and to arrest Hickey and Sgt. Tozier. He also calls to have the carpenters brought in to construct a gallows. The camp is soon ringing with the shout of “Terror camp clear,” meaning the guns have been retrieved and the conspiracy leaders detained. Hickey lies in his tent under the watchful eye and gun barrel of Lt. Jopson. In the medical tent, Goodsir and Bridgens discover that a full vial of a powerful medical cocaine mixture has been emptied.

The courts martial (and execution) proceed on the barrens, in the shadow of the recently constructed gallows. Mr. Hickey and Sgt. Tozier are convicted of sedition and “mutinous designs,” among other things, and sentenced to death by hanging in front of the assembled crew. Crozier presents the evidence of Hickey’s crimes to the men. With his last words, Hickey spews a stream of falsehoods and lies in an attempt to discredit Crozier.

But we don’t get to see if the crew bought them, but right then, Collins staggers into the proceedings laughing like a madmen. Then the tuunbaq attacks from the fog and the men scatter in horror. Hands still tied, Hickey races off. Crozier and Jopson run to the armory, believing that’s the first place Hickey and his conspirators will go.

Chaos reigns as the tuunbaq rages through the foggy camp, tearing any men it catches to pieces. Crozier catches Hickey at the armory, firing a shot that forces him to drop his armload of weapons and run. The conspirators attempt to gather food to load a sledge and escape. Fitzjames manages to drive the tuunbaq off by firing flares at it, but it rips the wandering Collins to shreds on the way out. Crozier, Blanky, Jopson and Fitzjames are left in the fogbound camp with massive casualties, while Hickey and his men have managed into escape to the barrens with their sledge.

In “Terror Camp Clear,” The Terror holds fast to its strengths, opening not with a monster-driven action sequence but with a slow, thoughtful journey into the soul of the ailing Captain James Fitzjames. Rest assured if action is what you’re looking for, however, because the closing act gets more wild and woolly than anything the show has produced so far.

Even in the quieter moments, the narrative drives like a locomotive, unfolding fast and smooth, starting with the insane Hickey’s false report of the Inuit attack all the way through Crozier’s investigation to the undoing of Hickey and his mutineers. In many ways, “Terror Camp Clear” is a detective story, with Captain Crozier gathering evidence and drawing conclusions about Hickey’s actions on the barrens. But the episode also focuses on the physical deterioration of the lead-poisoned men, and punches home the true story meaning of the tuunbaq: as the monster-spirit of the indigenous people, he is outrage over colonial exploitation personified.

The order and discipline of the British naval hierarchy has collapsed in “Terror Camp Clear,” and Crozier and his loyal men are now decimated, with a good chunk of the survivors being Hickey and the mutineers, who have vanished into the fog. The slaughter of the Inuit family has most certainly set the tuunbaq on them and the local population against them, and Lady Silence is gone, at least for now. The question isn’t whether Crozier, Fitzjames and the sailors survive or not: the question is how horrible it will get for them before the end.

EPISODE GRADE — A

Here’s the preview for Episode 9, “The C, The C, the Open C.”

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 8:00 p.m. CST.

Next: The Terror pits man’s noble heart against the monster in “The C, the C, the Open C”

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