I’m bored and I’ve been rewatching my favorite show so here’s a little somethin I’ve been wanting to do for some time now….. it’s not put under a readmore cut because apparently tumblr mobile doesnt have that feature anymore 😑 but I spent too long doing this and I’m not gonna scrap it now so I’m afraid ur just gonna have to deal!

anyway:

The Terror Monologues, Ranked

(with video links for the Top 3)

#10: Xenophon

“They had to choose; They could either stay and fight against clearly unwinnable odds, or they could walk out. They walked for hundreds and hundreds of miles through desert and snow, with no food, and attacked on their flanks… But they made it, Henry.

Read it.

Begin to imagine how you would prepare for such a journey.”

The bookishness. The tenderness. The promise of doom and gloom to come.

We Been Knew about John Lynch’s talent for a grip now but he delivers this line with a severity that had me hanging onto every word. *chef’s kiss*

#9: The Worst Kind of Second

“There are some things we were never meant to be to one another. I see that now. Friends… on my side. Relations on yours.

So let us turn our energies back to being what the Admiralty, and life, have seen fit to make us. We should give that our best. There can be no argument between us there.”

OOOOF! This whole dressing down is just so fucking savage, and Ciaran Hinds does as spectacular a job dishing it out with righteous conviction as Jared Harris does receiving it, grudgingly (my dude looks about ripe for a burst forehead vein). I felt that attack deep in my bones, and it wasn’t even directed at me.

#8: Lady Jane’s Plea

“Most of you gentlemen have written your memoirs. I’ve read them. The past tense is a very sturdy thing. It’s earned, but it does take for granted that one has survived.

Present is a different case entirely, and so I’ve come here to ask you… what is your plan?”

No matter the time period, I do so love seeing an intelligent, headstrong and determined woman interrupting a bunch of snooty old men and just giving them the mother fucking business. And she makes a great point, too: the Arctic certainly is a whole lot colder than merry old England.

#7: Laudanum

“She would stop breathing in the night. She would soil herself. She would get mesmerized to the point where she would forget to feed my brother or herself for days… But it took away her pain and it made her laugh.

I don’t like to hear a woman laughing now, sir.”

Five episodes in and we finally get this quiet Disney prince’s tragic backstory! And boy is it a doozy. And the dad/son dynamic is palpable.

In the last scene of the prior episode, Jopson readily accepts responsibility for Captain Crozier’s recovery. A chance to redeem himself from a prior failure? When the captain asks how his mother fared in the end, they are interrupted before Jopson has a chance to answer, and from there we can only speculate… this is one of the numerous examples of the showrunners exercising their right to NOT spoonfeed its viewers. You love to see it.

#6: Horrible From Supper

“The boys who died… they were cooking. Like fillets grilling. Some of them were my friends. I was screaming, “Help them! Help them!” But my mouth went dry to wet the second I smelled them.

I couldn’t stop it. I’m sorry for it. My nose and my stomach, they don’t know horrible from supper. But I do.

I do.”

Yikes??????

These are some seriously chilling words, and this scene was so poignant that they named the whole episode after it. The dichotomy of man’s mind and body is on full grotesque display here, accentuated by some truly haunting chords of music. As a viewer it’s hard to imagine being so hungry that you start to salivate at the smell of your friends burning alive, it’s hard not to be disturbed by the idea… and yet, you can’t help but feel for poor Mr. Collins. Somebody get that boy some coca wine, for the love of god!

#5: Introducing E.C.

“He told me the ship’s plan to stop at the Sandwich Islands, and the crew was going to dry out in the sun. “The other side of the world,” I thought. “A year’s nothing.”

So I dabbed him, left him in Regent’s Canal. And here I am instead.”

Hickey’s DNA results came back and it turns out he is not actually Cornelius Hickey, a humble caulker from Limerick, but he is 100% That Bitch! This is rat man at his peak; the lead in his diet has finally caught up with him and now he is standing atop a boat in his underwear and his graverobbed boots, trying to lead his cult followers in song. Delightful!

We get a tiny sliver of a backstory here, with the reveal that he is a stowaway imposter who committed murder and identity theft just cuz wanted to go to Hawaii (as you do). This, of course, only gives us more questions than answers. Hickey ultimately ends his deranged rant with a bellowed litany of profanities and blasphemy, before finally piping down when he spies the love of his life, demon polar bear Tuunbaq… this boy really is something else huh. I do so want to hate him, but he is just too fun to watch, and this scene is the crowning jewel of his characterization.

Also, not to be dramatic but if Adam Nagaitis told me to subsist on a diet of solely Goldner’s Canned Veal Cutlet Tomato for the rest of my life, I would.

#4: Lieutenant Minister Irving

“It is no accident the world was reborn clean out of an ark, Mr. Hickey. Man’s worst urges can be satisfied through Christian pleasures and graces; singing with friends… watercolors, study. Climbing exercises.

Your crisis is an opportunity for you to repair yourself. You are in the world’s best place for it.

God sees you, Mr. Hickey. Here more than anywhere.”

Methinks the lady doth protest too much!!! Lieutenant Irving serving up some serious Frollo vibes here :0

This monologue is sterling in its ambivalence; on the one hand Irving’s warning is harsh, threatening, saturated with religious zealotry and classism. On the other hand it is fucking ludicrous, as he scrambles to come up with activities that will surely rid Hickey of his ‘sinful appetites’ - he seems frustrated, as though he is trying to convince himself more than anyone else (not sure that Ronan Raftery meant to play him as if he’s suffering under some grade A internalized homophobia, but that is how my queer ass chooses to interpret it). Coming at this from the point of view of an audience from the 21st century, the lieutenant’s attempts at a reprimand only comes off as self-righteous clownery, and we find ourselves sympathizing with Hickey.

What’s more, this monologue - along with a scene in a later episode, where Hickey steps in to do a job that Irving clearly can’t hack - highlights the bumbling incompetence apparent in a lot of these public school educated officers. It also lays the foundation for what Hickey will later become and what he will eventually do to poor, repressed Lieutenant Irving.

Just pray the gay away, Mr. Hickey! I adore this scene.

#3: The Eucharist

“The service was not the howling spectacle of sin I had imagined, but… ‘twas beautiful. The singing sounded delivered by angels themselves. When it came time for the Eucharist, I found myself moved to step forward. My aunts were surprised, but pleased, I could see.

I took the wafer on my tongue. Drank from the chalice. I felt clean. With the body and blood of Christ within me I felt forgiven of every poor, weak or selfish thing within my soul.

It was a perfect moment in a whole, imperfect life.”

More religious overtones! Hodgson has a special place in my heart, as he is a character that is just so fucking ridiculous and useless and toffy that you almost can’t take him seriously….. but then he is played with such a conviction and honesty that I cannot help but feel for him in the end, even if he is an upper class idiot. And this scene is the prime example.

10/10 this is ASMR shit. Christos Lawton, where have you and your toffy velvety voice been all my life??

#2: I’m a Fake, Brother

“I always felt I deserved more. So I went to sea aged 12, and I began to build myself a great, gilded life… that didn’t humiliate me to live. And so all of those stories that you would have my biographer tally as courage… it’s all vanity. It always has been.

And we are at the end of vanity.”

(Patrick Stewart voice) ACTING.

I prolly wouldn’t have watched this show in the first place if it hadn’t been for my crush on Tobias Menzies, and boy he did not let me down.

Fitzjames is one of my favorite characters on the show (hot on the heels of rat boy and the good doctor) because the Character Development is simply unparalleled. You thought he was just a one-note toff douche did ya?? Well in this scene the mask comes all the way off. Turns out he’s a damned good soldier, a good commander (who knew??), a great friend, and he’s just absolutely LOUSY with daddy issues and imposter syndrome.

This tender moment between him and Francis is a real tear jerker, and Menzies delivers his lines with a weary sorrow that left me with a fist-sized lump in my throat. 12/10 makes me cry erry time

#1: Fury Beach

“You need to understand it wasn’t sickness or hunger that most mattered to our chances. It’s what went on up here. Notions. A darkness… with no firm hand to stem it.

I know many were thinking what I was. Sir John Ross, he never knew how close he came.”

CHILLS. I already knew long before watching this show that Ian Hart never does anything half-assed (not even shouting about troooollls! in the dungeon!!) but this is just next level. King of Meaningful Looks!! Possibly his finest work. I am creeped the fuck out but at the same time very supportive of his ‘dark notions’ about killing his boss? Working class hero.

Accompanied by Marcus Fjellström’s (RIP) haunting score, this monologue is flawless. The writing here is masterful; the tension between commander and subordinate is palpable at first, with Fitzjames curious but apprehensive and Blanky unwilling to say too much.

The ice master knows his place. But Fitzjames presses the matter, and the more that is revealed about the events at Fury Beach, the softer Fitzjames’ disposition grows. Soon it is the ice master giving his superior some much needed advice on how to avert disaster, and Fitzjames accepting it with open arms. The naval hierarchy means very little at this point, in this room, and this is evident.

Blanky’s words speak as much to man’s tendencies for violence when put under duress by the powers that be, as they speak to the tenderness and hope that can be found in, to quote Lieutenant Irving, “the collective”. It is exactly this theme which is at the heart of The Terror.

100/10 was holding my breath throughout this scene. POETIC CINEMA~