Top 8 awful and awesome moments from AMC’s The Terror

Carnivale

After half a season of mounting tension, the men finally have a chance to blow off some steam — and the result is about as bonkers as you might expect. The carnival gives physical form to the darkness Blanky warns Fitzjames about in the beginning of the episode — it seems less a celebration and more a descent into temporary insanity, bright and brilliant at first, but growing darker and stranger the more of it you see.

And then the mental claustrophobia goes from symbolic to quite literal as Doctor Stanley sets the entire operation on fire, trapping the men inside. From a disturbing journey into the men’s fraying state of mind to a desperate battle for survival, this scene is the perfect representation of how quickly things are starting to fall apart.

“It’s all vanity”

This is one of the most powerful speeches in a show absolutely chock full of awesome speeches. It’s so beautiful to see Fitzjames, a character introduced as almost unbearably superficial, open himself up without reservation or restraint. Watching such a man — who by now knows that his body is failing, and his time running short — finally laying all his shortcomings bare to his closest friend was one of the most emotionally satisfying moments of the series.

This moment of comfort between two men at the end of their endurance sets the stage for the final unraveling in the next two episodes. It is, in a sense, Fitzjames’s deathbed confession, a few days removed from the deathbed; without it, much of the tragedy of the show’s finale would have felt hollow.