70 new york | august 19–september 1, 2019
amc’sthe terror: infamy,a horror fantasy set against the backdrop of
Japanese-American internment, is the kind of story in which metaphors turn
literal. Among the most unnerving images is that of a Japanese-American man trapped
on a frozen lake, the ice cracking all around him. This character is believed to have named
fellow Japanese-Americans as spies to the U.S. Department of Justice, knowing they were
innocent, for fear that if he’d told his bosses the truth—he didn’t know any spies—he would
have lost his job and the trust of the Establishment. His accusers have cracked just enough
of the ice to make it impossible for him to move without imperiling himself further. The
sight of a man marooned on a sheet of ice, paralyzed by the fear that any move he makes
will be the wrong one, sums up the predicament of many of this anthology series’ charac-
ters, who remain estranged from the place they’ve adopted as their
homeland and can’t seem to win for losing: If they learn English,
adopt local customs, and otherwise attempt to assimilate into the
white-dominated mainstream, they’re viewed with suspicion, and if
they keep to themselves and try to preserve some semblance of their
culture, they’re viewed with even more suspicion.
Fans of the first season ofTheTerror,which told the story of two
tv / pop / architecturedoomed British ships exploring the North-
west Passage in the mid-19th century, will
be struck by how different Infamy is, not
just in subject matter, location, and period
but in its horror aesthetic. Season one had
a historical-political dimension—it was a
story of imperial hubris disguised as scien-
tific curiosity, about Englishmen losing
their sense of invincibility one hideous
death at a time—but for the most part, it
was content to be an exercise in spooky
atmosphere and a handsomely annotated
list of all the ways the human body can be
damaged and destroyed: by disease,
drowning, a fall, fire, animal attack, and so
on. Season two was co-created by Max
Borenstein (the 2014 Godzilla and its
sequel) and Alexander Woo (True Blood)—
Jewish-American and Chinese-American
writers, respectively—and written by a staff
that includes Naomi Iizuka, an American
playwright of Japanese-Latinx ancestry,
and Tony Tost, a Scots-Irish poet from the
Ozarks. Its first hour, set in the aftermath
of Pearl Harbor, feels more like a dry run
for a new season of American Horror Story PHOTOGRAPH: ED ARAQUEL/AMCThe CULTURE PAGESCRITICS
Matt Zoller Seitz on The Terror: Infamy ... Craig Jenkins on Bon Iver’s i,i ...
Justin Davidson on gentrification.THE TERROR:
INFAMY
AMC.
MONDAYS.
9 P.M.History As Horror Show
ThesecondseasonofThe Terror
looks at one of the darkest
periods in America’s past.
TV / MATT ZOLLER SEITZ