The AMC+/Shudder anthology series The Terror is finally back for its third (very creepy) season with Devil in Silver, an eight-episode arc that brings the scares to the realm of a New York City mental institution. Adapted from Victor Lavalle’s novel of the same name by Lavalle and Christopher Cantwell (Halt and Catch Fire), the series follows Pepper (Dan Stevens), a screw up with a violent streak who gets on the wrong side of a trio of cops and gets stashed in New Hyde Psychiatric Hospital, for what is meant to be a long weekend that turns into a much longer, more complex stay than he wants.
Setting a horror story in a mental institution is hardly new – heck, the best installment of American Horror Story was set in one – so the main beats in the season overall aren’t novel. The treatment of the patients is certainly better than you’d find in most of those other stories – the medical team (Aasif Mandvi and Stephen Root – who is having a horror-filled spring with this and Widow’s Bay – are the two doctors, while CCH Pounder is our main nurse) genuinely care for the patients, listening to them and trying to help them heal (if they are able). And the patients themselves (among them, Judith Light’s Dori and Chinaze Uche’s Coffee) aren’t prone to extreme fits or overly complex displays. Rather, much of the main action between the characters is rather mundane. They have a daily group session – which routinely gets thrown off track, naturally – and they all have a seemingly shared delusion: thedevil is working within the ward, feeding off the souls of the patients and trying to ensure that none of them leave. Oh, and if someone gets close to getting out, well, they might not live to see tomorrow.
But here’s where The Terror deviates from all those other horror stories set in mental institutions: we, the audience, aren’t asked to determine whether or not the devil is really there. Sure, there’s some level of ambiguity at the outset – perhaps this is some sort of shared delusion – but pretty quickly it becomes clear that LaValle and Cantwell aren’t trying to turn this into a mystery. Some sort of demonic presence is in this hospital, the patients all see it, and those in authority very much do not. So the central question of the series becomes how this group can stop whatever evil force it trying to hold them there without running afoul of those in power around them. Again, not exactly a new trope when it comes to stories like this one, but having the added element where we’re not trying to guess if the evil is well and truly evil helps to clarify the show’s focus quickly, letting us settle in and root for the patients.
Of course, there’s a lot more layered under this central arc, including the necessary metaphor of an oppressive force keeping patients institutionalized as a comparison to the various failings of the our current medical system here in the US, where funding for mental health is lacking and patients can get stuck in cycles that see them unable to leave treatment for decades. Each patient Pepper encounters offers an example of how even those with the best intentions cannot manage to help everyone (or, in some cases, anyone) without the financial support necessary to provide that care. It’s a story we’ve seen before and one that we’ll see again. Just, this time, with a terrorizing demonic presence pushing characters to the brink.
If I have one bone to pick with the series, however, it’s that the show is so overfilled with characters that it’s not really possible to get a feel for everyone in order for the major story beats to truly hit home. By the end of the season, the only characters we’ve really had a chance to dive into are Pepper (our central protagonist), Pounder’s nurse (who we get a brief moment of character development with to understand why she keeps coming into work despite being a woman of a certain age), and Light’s Dori (whose story isn’t all that revolutionary on the whole, but is elevated by Light’s stellar performance). And when you have a cast that goes as deep as this one – Marin Ireland* recurs as one of the cops who initially locks up Pepper and Tony-winning stage actress Celia Kennan-Bolger plays another patient, for example – you can’t help but want to see more of the supporting cast. Instead, we get some mythology around the supernatural entity haunting the ward – doled out slowly, but still, not nearly as interesting as what makes some of these characters’ tick. Heck, Coffee, Pepper’s roommate, is ostensibly one of our three leads, and we learn next to nothing about him over the course of the series.
*I was particularly bummed out that Ireland, who is a wonderful actress, barely showed up over the course of the series. She’s someone who can really elevate anything she’s in (see the recent standalone episode of The Bear, where she’s the woman Mikey connects with in that Gary bar), and she’s woefully underused here.
It’s rare that I wish a series had an extra episode or two to allow the story a chance to breathe, but with Devil in Silver, I found myself wishing for a bit more time to flesh out those supporting characters. Heck, we learn almost nothing about Stephen Root’s doctor – and when you have someone like Root, who commands the screen whenever he’s on it, and don’t give him a chance to really cook, well, that’s just plain disappointing. I found myself less concerned with the mythology of the story and far more interested in the humanity of our patients and medical professionals, so the balance within the series as a whole felt a tad off to me at times, especially as the show reached its climax. But that’s not to say that the series was unsatisfying.
No, as a horror series, Devil in Silver works. It’s creepy. It’s well acted. It’s generally well-written. The villain is scary. The revelations, while not all that surprising, are satisfying. I just wish we learned more about this interesting tapestry of characters while going on this adventure. If you’re looking for another scary series to tackle this spring (which has a surprising amount of horror in it, both on the small and large screen), The Terror: Devil in Silver is a solid watch.
The Terror: Devil in Silver premieres on AMC+/Shudder on May 7. All eight episodes were provided for review.
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