The Terror: Infamy (2×06) Taizo Review

Furuya is seen with Yuko in a flashback where it is revealed that they were engaged to be married. She tells him that she is pregnant and pleads with him that she will pretend that this is his child, but he throws her out onto the streets. A year later she lives homeless with her baby, Taizo, and decides to give her child to a convent to save them. Yuko believes herself to be worthless as she cannot even mother her own child and thus she plans to commit suicide. That is until she is faced by Chiyo (Natsuki Kunimoto), a woman who felt the same weight on her shoulders. However, after she leaves Yuko throws herself into the water and sinks to the bottom of the river. Here’s what went down in “Taizo.”

Yuko awakes at a Japanese sanctuary where she is greeted by Chiyo again. Chiyo brings her around the compound and talks about saving her while keeping her away from the sand pits around the garden. However, the longer she is there things become increasingly sinister. She starts to see bodies in the water until finally a corpse grabs her through the sand and begins to drag her underneath.

She awakens the next to realize that she’s dead and this is some weird afterlife created by one of her ancestors. It is a place for her bloodline to visit. She learns that Chiyo killed her own daughter who now lives as the corpse in the sand, and she sees Yuko as a replacement daughter. Yuko gets out of this Groundhog Day hell by tricking Chiyo into falling into the sand as she runs off. Unfortunately she runs right into her own grave where she comes face-to-face with her rotted corpse and a reveal that it has been two decades in reality.

Back to the present, Chester returns to the camp after being discharged, but not everyone wants him to return. Mrs. Yoshida calls him a curse as a spirit tries to hurt those around him including her late husband who had originally set up Furuya and Yuko. It is known that the truth is revealed. Chester’s mom, Asako, explains that Chester is actually their adopted son and that her sister Yuko was his mother. After her suicide, Asako arrived from Japan and adopted her nephew in order to care for him.

Chester manages to find the body of the yurei, which is holding a stolen baby she tried to bring with her to the family’s afterlife home. He brings the body to his parents and Yamata who decide it is best to burn the body and destroy the spirit. In the afterlife, Yuko runs through the grave door where she sees the burning cabin where they are performing the ritual. However, she manages to resume control of her body once again and escape her fiery death.

The season’s big reveal manages to create the creepiest storyline yet, but unfortunately it rushes through its narrative with exposition-heavy scenes. The two halves to this episode could have easily been expanded into two separate episodes about the supernatural and natural horrors at the centre of this story.

• • • How does the setting of WWII enhance the story?
    • Who is Chester’s father?
    • What is Yuko’s plan?

What did you think of “Taizo”? Let me know in the comments below!

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Dylan Phillips