The Terror Season 1’s Ending Explained

The Terror Season 1’s ending is not a happy one. It’s absolutely grim, even if you know the events the story is based on. So, what happens at the conclusion of this season? Here’s The Terror Season 1’s ending explained.

How The Terror Season 1 Ends

The Terror Season 1 ends with almost everyone dying except Captain Francis Crozier. As grim as that sounds, it’s true to life; of the real-life third Franklin expedition, not one of the 129 crewmembers lived. But since the show is a fictionalized version of the real-life expedition, it dials the horror up to 11.

The few surviving crewmembers have already abandoned the ships, attempting to make it to safety. Hickey is in charge, and he and his fellow mutineers are practicing cannibalism as a means of staying alive. Previous episodes have seen the rest of the crew perish from hypothermia, starvation, being mauled by a giant polar bear, and other deeply unpleasant fates.

We learn that, as some viewers might already have twigged, Hickey is not the real Hickey – he’s an impostor who killed him and intends to use the expedition to escape England. Crozier, who has been captured, meets with Goodsir, who suspects he’s next on the menu. Goodsir warns Crozier only to eat his feet if he’s forced to.

Why? Because Goodsir poisons himself and then takes his life. Crozier is forced to eat but does as Goodsir says and lives. The others, however, are poisoned and left dead or dying. The Tuunbaq, the supernatural polar bear, returns and slaughters those who can still stand, Hickey included. Hickey tries to control it by taking his own tongue out, as the Inuit shaman did, but it doesn’t work, and he’s slaughtered.

Crozier manages to kill the Tuunbaq during the ending of The Terror Season 1 because of its previous wounds and the poison it’s ingested. He’s rescued by “Lady Silence,” the shaman’s daughter, who is blamed for the beast’s death and exiled. Crozier is allowed to live with the Inuit, adapting to their way of life. When a “rescue” expedition arrives, the Inuit tell them that everyone from the expedition has died. He’s the only survivor of the failed expedition, but no one will ever know.

Why Did The Terror Season 1’s Expedition Fail?

Scholars have long argued about the real-life expedition, but in the story, it was a combination of arrogance, poor planning, misfortune, and a giant supernatural bear. Even without the bear, the expedition would likely have failed due to expedition leader Franklin’s refusal to compromise. He’d led two previous expeditions and was determined that this one would succeed, that he would find the Arctic passage. Instead, he and his crew found only death.

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Is There a Season 2 of The Terror?

The Terror does have a Season 2, but it’s an entirely different story, set in and around a Japanese internment camp. Season 3 is on the way, but it, too, will tell a different story. And that’s The Terror Season 1’s ending, explained.

The Terror is now streaming on Netflix.