When I started this season, I liked the slow pace of the show. I liked how it seemed to ramp up to something meaningful, something congruent in its storytelling. When episode 4 rolled its credits, I was completely on board with the show, it felt like a natural evolution of the story, a mid-season-stinger to set up the progression of the show. Episodes 5 and 6 deepened the mythology and while they made some very apparent logistical and narrative shortcuts, it still felt like this story was going somewhere, be it with its main and its secondary characters. Alas, it never did. Now, after three frustratingly paced and narratively jumbled episodes in a row, Terror: Infamy simply cannot make up for all its squandered potential with just one final episode.
The season´s demise lies within the incomprehensible descision to constantly change location while the B-stories get resolved like marks on a checklist. The whole camp-storyline, beautifully set up over the first four episodes, gets treated like an afterhtought and is never allowed after episode 5 to even build something akin to atmosphere again. It degenerates to a cardboard-background. Same with the characters´ stories there: Amy, Bowen, Ken and their struggle? Resolved in a rush without thought and clear narrative motives and logic. No stop is made to even take the time to look at what the characters are feeling, a severe violation of the premise of a character-driven horror-drama.
Chester´s war-story? Same thing. Storlylines get introduced and discontinued as the show pleases, without any sensible pacing. It´s so plot- instead of character-driven it begs the question if the writers had to finish the last stretch of the series under severe timeconstraints. Stopping and slowing down to see a transition of the lives of the Nakayamas and how they react to their new-old surroundings? Nope, there has to be an excruciating timejump. Setting up Yuko´s powers resonably well enough to just flip everything on its head in three episodes so that no clear rule is discernable anymore? Sure thing. Introducing a whole new swath of characters the viewer isn´t having time to care about? That as well.
Why Infamy started to rush so much in its last episodes is beyond me. The strength of the more than solid setup, a very enjoyable middle, interesting characters -even though their stories get woefully undercooked endings, it seems- and the strength of the performances still make it a decent watch, despite the narrrative cohesion completely going all over the place.
In the end, it´s still not bad, never will be. It has too many qualities to show for, too many memorable moments to remember . Yet in its final stretch, it has become clear that the beautiful mess of The Terror: Infamy is more mess than beauty.
