AMC’s The Terror
Season 2, Episode 9: “Come and Get Me”
Directed by Frederick E.O. Toye
Written by Steven Hanna & Naomi Iizuka

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “My Sweet Boy” – click here
* For a recap & review of the Infamy finale, “Into the Afterlife” – click here
January 29th, 1945.
The camps are being cleared out. Japanese Americans are headed home, or whatever’s left to home. Not only that, they’ve got to return to normal America and try to pretend like their own country didn’t lock them up. Bowen’s not around, of course. Yamato wonders if he hasn’t “found shame.” There’s a big goodbye speech about the need to “demonstrate your allegiance” as a show of thanks to America for housing them during troubled times. A total load of nationalist bullshit that Amy, for one, is sick of listening to— not only that, she wants to put as much distance between herself and that dingy room where she had to kill Bowen.

Henry enjoys the small things while they travel from the camp, whereas Asako can’t help thinking about the psychological cost, namely re: the children. Again, home is a relative concept now to many of the Japanese Americans. One small child doesn’t even know her family’s home in Fresno because the only home she’s known is the camp.

Asako, Amy, Henry, Yamato, and Fumi get back to find their homes bulldozed into flat nothing past a gate marked by the U.S. government. Some time later, we find Henry in a part of Los Angeles gardening for an old bourgeois businessman. At night, Asako goes to the bridge where her sister Yuko stepped over the edge to her death. She picks petals from a flower. “You are hiding,” she says. Asako also has secrets of her own, claiming Yuko’s suicide was her fault.
On Skid Row, Asako and Henry live in a cramped place with many others. One night he gets a call from Chester, who tells him about Yuko tracking them down, waiting until Luz has their child. He pleads with his father to come help. Henry isn’t so willing, though knows his wife “will insist.” Even when they get to New Mexico he remains bitter.

In that other place, little Jirou wakes. The only thing out of place seems to be the fly buzzing around overhead. Yuko opens the door to greet him. He sees the baby bassinet nearby. He’s not quite sure exactly what’s going on. His mother insists they’ll be a family once again soon enough.
In New Mexico, Chester keeps the place on lockdown. He and his mother talk about when he saw Jirou in the realm of death. A priest, Father Ysidro, comes to visit and asks about what they’ll do once the child’s born. Chester plans on going from “city to city” until their child is old enough to look after themselves. Ambitious. Henry tells his boy that running away “is not the answer.” He has a few choice words for his son, and also thinks Chester isn’t telling him everything.
The priest returns later and places his hand on Luz’s stomach. Something isn’t right with him. Everybody can sense it gradually. They sing the little nursery rhyme they’ve used for the door’s code. Suddenly Luz sees the demon inside the priest. Fellow military man Hector holds Father Ysidro back while the others escape with the pregnant woman.
Chester takes the others to a U.S. government bunker in the New Mexico desert, a place Hector told him to go. They head inside, down the long, dark corridor. Chester sets up bells on string, strategically placed, to let them know somebody’s coming. Luz is in more and more pain, continually worried Yuko will find them.
The baby’s coming. Poor Luz struggles through the delivery, as Henry keeps watch at the entrance. And then, a baby boy is born into the world, barely making a sound. The new parents welcome their child right before one of the bells starts ringing. Has the yurei come just in time? Chester leaves the others to go check, taking a pistol. It’s only a rat. Henry goes to check on his son and they talk about how to fight Yuko. Chester, essentially, wants to sacrifice himself to end it all. His father, in spite of bitterness, doesn’t want to lose him. Then off into the dark Chester goes. He runs into a man from the military in the desert. The man references Little Boy— an even darker piece of American history than the camps themselves. Henry turns up to knock the guy out and gets Chester out of a jam.

Luz worries her boy’s not making any sound. She believes he “has a secret.” Asako gets closer to the child and knows what’s going on: Yuko’s inside the baby. After a moment, abuela takes the child and the boy cries. Abuela herself has been inhabited by the yurei. Asako commands her sister to stop. She confesses to wronging Yuko, explaining she was the one meant to marry Hideo, and Yuko was supposed to marry Henry. Asako heard Hideo wasn’t a good man, so she had Fumi arrange for her to marry Henry instead, without knowing her sister was already pregnant. She feels she robbed her sister’s life, yet is unrepentant. The yurei grabs Asako by the throat.
When Chester and Henry make it back they find Asako bloodied, along with abuela, too. Luz and the baby are nowhere to be found— the yurei has them both now. Along a road not too far away, Yuko’s taking Luz and the child off towards her perfect world.

“Be strong for him”

One of the better chapters of Infamy. Wild!
One final chapter: “Into the Afterlife” is next time.