S02.E05: Shatter Like A Pearl

[jewel21]

Airdate: 2019.09.09

The Japanese Americans are forced to undertake a humiliating exercise that divides the community; Chester comes face to face with a man who forces him to question his very nature; Luz, stricken by grief, is forced to make an important choice.

[Mr. Sparkle]

 

[Bruinsfan]

What the hell are the military authorities at Guadalcanal going to make of that moldering corpse sprawled out at the wreck? It's actually physically there, right? Yukio possessed that soldier to smuggle it to the Solomon Islands?

[foxfreakinmulder]

3 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

What the hell are the military authorities at Guadalcanal going to make of that moldering corpse sprawled out at the wreck? It's actually physically there, right? Yukio possessed that soldier to smuggle it to the Solomon Islands?

Also, what about the duffel bag, it had blood or yuck seeping out of the bottom and no one saw that? I'm sure soldiers don't hold their bag on their laps when flying or on a ship while being transported and if it's leaking does it smell like a rotting corpse too?

This season is moving really slow and nothing is happening, I would like some answers.

I don't know if the writers were trying to make me feel sorry for the Japanese prisoner but I didn't and as far as I'm concern Chester was wrong in letting him kill himself.  

[Claire Voyant]

11 minutes ago, foxfreakinmulder said:

Also, what about the duffel bag, it had blood or yuck seeping out of the bottom and no one saw that? I'm sure soldiers don't hold their bag on their laps when flying or on a ship while being transported and if it's leaking does it smell like a rotting corpse too?

This season is moving really slow and nothing is happening, I would like some answers.

I don't know if the writers were trying to make me feel sorry for the Japanese prisoner but I didn't and as far as I'm concern Chester was wrong in letting him kill himself.  

As if that mess of a corpse wouldn't stink to high heaven.  I hate when "writers" insult people's intelligence. 

Also didn't like when Chester pounded on the prisoner, made him bleed from the mouth and a few screen shots late the prisoner had no more blood anywhere and not even a split lip to show for his beating.  Annoying.  Takes a lot of so-called reality away from the story, imvho.  Not very scary or even believable, anymore. 

So, I think the old men did something shameful to the yurei when they were all young and she's out for revenge.  I think she was probably a favorite concubine for them. 

I wonder if Chester is her kid?  She sure wants him for herself for some reason.  She seemed to have a rather caring interest in his unborn babies the way she was petting poor Luz's belly when she pretended to be a midwife. 

[tennisgurl]

Poor Luz, she just loses her babies, she is wandering around like the local la llorona, and then finds out that her brother died. At least she had a nice moment with Chester's dad, and her dad has stopped being a prick and welcomed her back home. 

So how exactly did no one notice that rotting corpse? Didn't smell at all? Is it because she is a ghost? Ghost corpse? Sometimes she is a ghost, sometimes she is a zombie, I dont know at this point. At least she adds some creep factor and gets the plot moving. 

[Dowel Jones]

Shouldn't the soldiers have been right on top of the wrecked jeep?  They would have seen the duffel bag zombie, and likely have shot it.  Maybe next episode.

Does anyone remember the movie Fallen, with Denzel Washington?  I'm sort of getting the feeling that this plot is similar, in that the yurei can move freely from person to person, and there's nothing to stop it.

[iMonrey]

Quote

 Is it because she is a ghost? Ghost corpse? Sometimes she is a ghost, sometimes she is a zombie, I dont know at this point. 

Yeah I'm not sure I'm following this. First she was just some ghostly being able to appear to people and possess people and now she's some weird zombie thing that needs a soldier to pack her away and take her overseas? Wha? Why'd she stop using makeup to cover her complexion problem? 

[Tyro49]

Did I miss something? WHY is this thing following Chester?

[Mr. Sparkle]

4 hours ago, Tyro49 said:

Did I miss something? WHY is this thing following Chester?

They didn't get to that yet. We can only speculate at this point. 

[foxfreakinmulder]

6 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Yeah I'm not sure I'm following this. First she was just some ghostly being able to appear to people and possess people and now she's some weird zombie thing that needs a soldier to pack her away and take her overseas? Wha? Why'd she stop using makeup to cover her complexion problem? 

Yeah and what about the skin she was sewing? If she's just a spirit that possess people then why do we keep seeing the same girl all the time? I thought it was the girl from the first episode that killed herself on the dock but what did the spirit do dig her up so she could walk around in her body? They've lost me now that she carries her zombie body everywhere she goes.

[Bruinsfan]

My impression is that the spirit is somehow rooted in/dependent on that corpse, and had to transport it across the ocean physically to be able to get to Chester. Which might mean that it wasn't attracted from halfway around the world to start haunting the community, but has a closer origin.

[jewel21]

I liked this episode and was nicely creeped out in certain scenes. I'm still confused about some things but as long as the show brings the creepy I will be happy, heh. 

I felt really bad for Luz, though. It was heartbreaking to watch her. I just hope she'll start to heal now that she's back home and away from the camp. 

[BusyOctober]

This season of The Terror has me confused.  I am liking the historical info about WWII, and the Japanese Internment Prisons Camps.  The actors are good, their individual story lines (limited as they are) are good.  If this were just a drama about what happened to Japanese-Americans, I'd give it a 'B-'.  But the yurei plot is just not coming together for me.  There hasn't been enough explanation of who/what/how for me.  I don't need to be spoon fed all the details, but a little more exposition would be beneficial.  I've just been watching this show as if it has a split personality disorder; there's the human drama about the families and their predicament during the war, then there's the "spooky" spirit plot that just makes me kind of zone out. The presence of Yuko takes the show down to a 'C-'.

So the spirit/ghost inhabited the body of the new young Japanese translator to get her rotting remains closer to Chester.  What happened to him once he landed at Chester's camp??  Next thing I know is Chester's translator buddy is forcing him to hijack the jeep and go AWOL.  So, the spirit took over this guy and he's now dead in the ditch???  Yuko the yurei needs to stop body jumping more than once per episode. 

I sure hope we all get the big reveal of why the spirit is there (in the camp and traveling across the Pacific) & why Chester is so important to her.

[iMonrey]

I'm not sure they ever intend to explain the supernatural element. They didn't really do that last season so there's nothing to say they'll do it this season. 

[BusyOctober]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I'm not sure they ever intend to explain the supernatural element. They didn't really do that last season so there's nothing to say they'll do it this season. 

That could be...But whether I read it somewhere or just created my own answer for what Tuunbaq was, I could infer the creature was a warning to the white man.  That spirit wanted to keep the Europeans/Americans out of the territory to hopefully avoid a collapse of their culture and resources. 

But the yurei in this series just seems to be haunting people for the sake of getting close to one character (so far).  I hope there is some kind of payoff as the series ends...what ties the ghost/spirit to Chester?  Why did Yuko choose to kill off Chester's elder family members & friends? I just hope nothing bad happens to Yamoto-san! George Takei better make it til the end!

[raven]

I binged the first five episodes and I think that helped.  My biggest problem right now is that Chester isn't that interesting.

This was the best episode for him - using the camera to determine the prisoner was just a prisoner, and then bonding with the guy enough to allow him to choose his own end. 

Unfortunately in the previous episodes, Chester is just kind of there, with things happening to/around him.  His family seem to know something about the yurei (or maybe the acting is better) and so I prefer to spend time with them.  As has been said, the camp is a better setting than the war zone - claustrophobic and despairing, though we do have glimpses of people trying to have a life.

Things like Luz making a dress from the sack (which of course CT Howell then took away); the family hiding the sake - are good touches.

Overall though I am liking it.  For instance, I am fine with what we've seen of the yurei so far and am content to watch that unfold.

I still think season one was better - more gripping, and the sense of horror and doom was greater, IMO.  I think if I hadn't binged I may not have liked these episodes as much. 

[Lamima]

I still think this revenge ghost is Luz's mom and not one of the Japanese spirits. Didn't Luz have a necklace with something inside, like ashes or sand? It was from her mom? I think it's her mom and she wanted happiness for her daughter and tried but failed. She killed folks who she may have deemed to be harming her daughter. Now maybe she wants to hurt Chester or get his behind back to her daughter. 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Lamima

[foxfreakinmulder]

2 hours ago, Lamima said:

I still think this revenge ghost is Luz's mom and not one of the Japanese spirits.

I like this theory, that would be a good twist and it does make sense why the spirit was playing midwife. I hope we start getting answers soon on whatever type of spirit it is and why it's killing these people.