Finally watched the season finale of Terror. It’s an anthology where each season deals with different kinds of horror. This season followed a family through their wrongful imprisonment in an American concentration camp during WWII. I’m taking a page out of George Takei’s playbook, he refuses to call it Japanese internment camp because it’s not the Japanese who made them. He also was a consultant on this.

What’s fascinating to me is that there are people out there that don’t think that this season is as scary as the first season. I don’t really want to see or need to see the first season because scarier isn’t that important to me. The story is so beautifully intertwined between history and myth that it doesn't matter that it isn't true.

[spoiler alert]

Throughout the series, there’s a yūrei haunting this man, Chester, and his family around the start of the war. Everything that’s happening seems to revolve around him. It turns out, his parents… Aren’t really his parents. The yūrei following him around is his real mother and she wants to bring him home. Except home is the afterlife where she’s trying to build a paradise for her lost children.

Of course, this gets further complicated when he gets his girlfriend, Luz, pregnant and he chooses to prove his loyalty to America by decoding Japanese poems/tankas. They babies (twins!) are stillbirths, and the pair go through some horrible stuff. Then, as they try to protect the new baby the yūrei tries to take it again.

The second big twist is revealed at this point. The wonderful life that Chester’s mother had in America was meant for the yūrei, her sister Yuko. Yuko was pregnant when she arrived to America, and the man she was meant for no longer wanted her. She was living on the street and couldn’t support her children so she gave them up to be adopted. Of course, this incites new rage.

Chester’s father ends up sacrificing himself to save Chester and the new child from death. Chester, in turn, helps Yuko find peace in the afterlife. He tells that by taking his child, she’s robbing herself of the future. In that future, they could honor the choices she made so that he could survive.

Duty and sacrifice

Looking back at the series now, duty and sacrifice two overarching themes throughout the series. Chester clashes with his father because he so often takes the easy way out. He wanted Luz to have an abortion, left Luz at the concentration camp when he served the US, and ran away to find Luz when he returned. His father wanted Chester to be a man and embrace his responsibilities, but not at the cost of his duty to his family.

Yuko tried to fulfill her duties, to her promised husband and her children. When her husband beat her and turned her away, she made a huge sacrifice. She gave up her children to ensure they had a life better than the one she could provide them. In her death, she unleashed her rage at the circumstances that made her unable to provide for her family.

In the final conflict, duty and sacrifice converge. When Chester and his child are put at his, his father protects them at the cost of his life. While he never would hear his kid say I'm sorry for the things I've said, he did what he needed to do he could save him. Chester is finally realizes his duty and promises Yuko that he'll honor the sacrifices she made. He also names his son Henry, in honor of his father.

At a talk I attended, George Takei said that this is a love story… And it was in the way I didn’t expect. These parents' journeys were stories of love. When Yuko found peace in the afterlife, it was before she left for America. In this moment in time, she was full of hopes and dreams for her children… And that's when she was happiest. Chester's father was similar. In a flashback and a visit, his father shares that he named his boat taro, for his firstborn son. He chose that name because holding Chester gave him the same feeling as the ocean: peace.

The real terror

The conflict was catalyzed long before Chester was born. His adopted mother chose to sacrifice her sister to avoid an awful situation. She knew how awful the man was and sent her sister to that hell anyway. She could have chosen any number of things, but she chose that. This is only a micro example of the real terror; what we're willing to do with each other. We saw it repeated in how Yuko was beaten by her husband, how the nuns treated her when she gave up her children, the heartless supervisor at the camp, the murder of one girl's brother… The list is endless. A particularly poignant scene is when George Takei's character dreams of a friend from childhood… But his friend is accompanied by his entire family, all of them killed in the Hiroshima bombing.

The story of Chester and his family is horrifying, but is only one story set against the backdrop of the concentration camps in America. How Americans were willing to treat other loyal Americans was horrifying, and even more so when you consider that it's being repeated today. The stories in our own lives may overshadow what's happening in the background, but that doesn't mean you should look away. Our actions have consequences, and we have a duty to do right by each other and be kind. Chester's adopted mother had to live with the consequences of her choice, and while she wasn't evil by any means, it just underscores the tragic realities for many at the time. While her loved ones found peace, she was haunted by her own choices for many years after.

This season was so clearly an immigrant story, and how willing we are to commit atrocities to people who aren’t like us. People who seem different, but aspire for the same things as we do. It was also one where we saw Chester embrace his own heritage and others that exist around his, like Luz’s own Mexican traditions. Though Yuko was terrifying and powerful, her desires were as human as the real horrors committed through the years of the show.

Redemption and remembrance

Despite the horrors our characters faced, there were small kindnesses too. Chester's teacher watched the family's car while they were interred, his commanding trusted in his abilities, Luz's family took him in despite his illegal presence in their house. Chester's forgiveness of his mothers' crimes, and even the conversation with his father, helped him find peace. It doesn't change the past, but it gives us a chance to learn and move forward.

The last scene ends with the Obon and a lantern floating to honor the dead. It's similar to setting up an ofrenda, and it's a beautiful way to see how cultures honor their ancestors. While we live with the consequences of the people before us, we're not doomed to their mistakes. Terror: Infamy was so much about the things we do to each other, but also a story of loss, redemption, and how our stories weave together in the past and future.