“You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men.” Barbara Kruger’s influential work of feminist agitprop may not have had murder in mind. But murder exists on a continuum that spans the rowdy-boy horseplay her image depicts, the societally approved homosociality of the playing field and the locker room, and the “rum, sodomy, and the lash” trifecta of life in the Royal Navy. The sailor-on-sailor killings, mercy or otherwise, in this incredible episode of The Terror can be seen as that continuum’s logical endpoint. The taking of life, up close and personal, is a form of male intimacy like any other.
I tried to do this week’s episode of The Terror justice for the A.V. Club. I hope I succeeded.
Tags: horror, reviews, the a.v. club, the terror, TV, TV reviews