REVIEW: The Terror, Season 1 Episode Seven 'Horrible From Supper'

 REVIEW: The Terror, Season 1 Episode Seven 'Horrible From Supper'


Seven episodes into this show, and it seems fair to say that this voyage to find the northwest passage is the trip from hell. So far, the crew have been terrorised by a supernatural bear, and have experienced so many deaths within the crew that it's starting to feel less like a dream imbued with a sense of hope and glory, and more like somebody's deepest and darkest nightmare.
It doesn't help that the captain Francis Crozier (Jared Harris) is so utterly useless. He's back in charge in this episode, and you have got to feel sorry for the crew. Francis has to be the world's most ineffective ship captain, and it only adds to the sense of dread that has been present throughout this season. When you have somebody like Francis as the captain of a major expedition, it's no surprise that things have been going as wrong as they have.
Even less surprising is that Francis's seeming inability to lead is making the crew restless. Hickey (Adam Nagaitis), you see, is planning to stage a mutiny. And who can blame him? When you have a captain who, in Hickey's words, has come up with a 'bootless plan', and initially refusing to send out hunting parties when they are so short on food supplies, it's clear that somebody else needs to be in charge. It's also a vital component of any ship voyage storyline. I don't think it is even possible to have a plot like this without a mutiny.

This episode also sees Francis, James Fitzjames (Tobias Menzies), Solomon Tozer (David Walmsley) and John Morfin (Anthony Flanagan) discover what happened to the hunting party from a few episodes ago, in what has to be one of the show's most arresting images. Seeing their heads away from their bodies among the icy landscape is quite a disturbing sight, and it really demonstrates what a visionary director like Ridley Scott can add to a series like this. He's a director that's perfectly aware what sort of images tend to stick in the mind.

In this instalment we finally get to see John Irving (Ronan Raftery) meet the rest of Lady Silence's (Nive Nielsen) tribe, and they seem like decent people. They offer food to John, and at least don't seem to be attempting to become shamans to the tuunbaq, like Lady Silence. It would be interesting to see the rest of the ship mates' reaction to these people in a future episode, as I'd assume they would be less trusting, given how suspicious they are of Lady Silence.


It makes a change to see nice things happen to these characters for once, and John Irving isn't another character to finally experience some good fortune. Jopson (Liam Garrigan) is promoted to third lieutenant, and I think this is a great idea to introduce into the screenplay. It's always great when a writer shakes up the status quo by increasing another character's rank within a grand hierarchy, as it offers new storytelling opportunities, and gives us new dynamics at play.
As is standard for The Terror, however, it's not all happiness. This episode also delves further into the mental health issues of Henry Collins (Trystan Gravelle), and it seems he has been suffering ever since he took that dive into the ocean many episodes' ago. Henry Collins is perhaps the character I most feel sorry for in this series. He's had a tough time, and has had to deal with a lot across this story, but his difficulties make him such an interesting character to engage with.

Henry Collins isn't the only one experiencing mental health problems however. John Morfin is having very much the same problems, brought on by the pain he is experiencing from his lead poisoning. In one of the most devastating scenes in this show, Morfin begs Francis to kill him, and instead Tozer performs the deed. I'm glad the programme doesn't hold back with these very serious issues of men's mental health. I believe it's really important that things like this are shown more in these drama series, as it is such a real problem, and one that perhaps needs to be addressed more on television. It also allows for such a powerful moment, that sells just how badly this doomed expedition has affected the crews onboard the two ships.
Poor Henry Goodsir (Paul Ready) is clearly deeply affected by Morfin's death, a character who I have found myself rooting for since the beginning of this series. He's such a likeable presence, somebody who seems as though he has a very big heart, and I really hope he makes it through this series alive, because if anyone on this show deserves to it's him. I love his relationship with Lady Silence too; the way she comforts him after Morfin's death has left him traumatised is such a sweet little character moment, and worthy of a thousand fanfiction stories.
Overall, this was an excellent episode of The Terror. 'Horrible From Supper' takes a deep dive into the characters that inhabit this series, and gives them some happier moments among all the grief and darkness, whilst continuing to offer an impressive exploration of mental health that deserves to be applauded. This is a show that clearly values the importance of character, and is therefore a drama series that comes highly recommended. Any show that prioritises its characters above all else gets a big thumbs up from me.


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