“Gaman” is the third episode of the second season of the TV show “The Terror”, which was named “The Terror: Infamy”, and follows “All the Demons Are Still in Hell“. It’s broadcast in the USA on AMC Studios and in other nations on Amazon Prime Video.
Note. This article contains some spoilers about “Gaman”.
The now ex inhabitants of Terminal Island must get used to life in the camp, where they meet other Americans of Japanese heritage. Chester Nakayama (Derek Mio) is looking for a way to provide for Luz Ojeda (Cristina Rodlo), but the girl finds it difficult to be accepted by the others. A reunion that’s supposed to be a source of joy becomes bitter instead while Hideo Furuya (Eiji Inoue) seems to be targeted again by an evil entity.
In “Gaman” the impression is that the season has come alive after the tale of the historical events that led to the internment of Japanese Americans. After two episodes set in various places, the third is concentrated in the isolated micro-world of an internment camp and on the protagonists’ personal stories.
Chester Nakayama remains the protagonist but his father Henry (Shingo Usami) is in these initial episodes the strongest character and not only in the contrast with his son. Herny reunites with his family but this becomes a source of bitterness because he’s a broken man, a man who loved the USA and was betrayed by what he considered his country. In this sense he represents all the people who in 1941-1942 after the attack on Pearl Harbor were really treated as enemies only because of Japanese heritage.
The slower pace of the events also enables to offer more room to develop the relationships between characters and in particular between Chester and Luz, who in an internment camp of people who are not accepted by the US government has in turn problems to get accepted. It’s positive that Chester and Luz start giving the impression that they’re actually a couple and Chester looks for the best way to provide for her and their future child.
“Gaman” also offers more room to Yuko Tanabe (Kiki Sukezane) and once again Hideo Furuya is the one who pays the price in some of the most intense scenes of the episode, which include the most brutal one. So far the supernatural element didn’t seem scary at all to me but at least some scenes have a high intensity. The final twist indicates that there’s still much to see around the bakemono.
There’s also room for small moments that give depth to characters such as Asako Nakayama (Naoko Mori) with her dream at the beginning and her scene with Chester at the end of the episode. The woman is among the ones who endure their situation with patience and dignity, a definition of the term Gaman, connected precisely to the Japanese-Americans locked up in internment camps. Perhaps the audience also needed to have some patience to allow “The Terror: Infamy” to take off.
