Summary
Terror Tuesday: Extreme delivers a thoughtful and interesting examination of dishonesty and relationships in “The Vow”, making the anthology’s least-scary episode one of its best.
Honesty is the best policy, a concept taken to something of an extreme in Terror Tuesday: Extreme Episode 4. “The Vow” is the strongest story in the anthology’s front half, which is interesting considering it’s the least scary by far and is rarely really trying to be.
In terms of pacing, this is closer to Episode 3, “Ode to My Family”, than it is to the more frantic Episode 1, “Our Little Sister” and Episode 2, “Wedding Dress”. The key difference is that it has a more coherent underlying theme and doesn’t fall into the trap of overindulging the cliches. There are scares, sure, but the most compelling moments are intimate character revelations unpacking the very knotty underpinnings of relationships.
Nat and Dao
The couple in question are Nat and Dao, who met studying architecture and have been together ever since. There’s only one problem – both of them are lying about their relationship.
They’re lying to themselves and to each other, which is really the point. It isn’t anything so dramatic and obvious as an affair, but instead much more personal and insidious mistruths that have burrowed so deep into their union that neither wants to drag them loose. This is how a lie begins, as a mostly innocent kernel, but it metastasizes over time.
The episode doesn’t start with the meet-cute, but it does cover it. For the sake of coherence, I’ll just lay out the particulars, since it’s the most fundamentally honest portion of the relationship but does inform a lot of what follows.
In The Beginning
There’s a hint at the start of “The Vow”, which finds Nat floating face-down in a swimming pool, that suggests a darker origin story, but the truth is that Nat was just being dramatic. This is how Nat and Dao met, with Nat heartbroken that his girlfriend had just left him for his best friend.
Nat and Dao bond over a sort of outsider status, but not a conventional one. Dao came from a wealthy family but exhibited none of the characteristics of a heiress; she was humble and genuine, but people only tried to befriend her because of who she was. It made her lonely, and in Nat, she found a companion.
Over eight years, this companionship developed. But it also developed quiet imperfections that neither wanted to give voice to. By the present day, when we catch up with them properly, they’re quite literally trying to pray their future together into existence.
The Legend of the Black Hills Goddess
Terror Tuesday: Extreme Episode 4
Dao and Nat visit a temple together, one erected to pay tribute to a deity with a tragic past. The goddess fell in love with a prince but was denied a future with him because of the royal family’s perception of her lower-class status. She committed suicide to prove a point, and couples have prayed to her since, for romantic prosperity.
But there’s a darker side. In other versions of the story, the prince was already betrothed to another but played away with the goddess anyway. When she found him she killed him and shone a light on all his secrets. This establishes the close connection between love and dishonesty, and the woman tending the temple is clear that there will be grave consequences for praying to the goddess when one partner is concealing something from the other.
This is the hook of Terror Tuesday: Extreme Episode 4, and the rest of the runtime is devoted to the secrets that emerge as a result of the dishonesty.
The Lies
Through various mild hauntings – this is where some of the horror cliches creep in – and shared visions, Nat and Dao gradually reveal all of the things they are keeping from one another.
The first is Nat’s revelation that he has already accepted a job offer from a company in Sweden. Despite Dao having planned a future for the pair of them, working together for her father and then building their own resort, Nat never had any intention of pursuing that goal. He wasn’t even keen on the idea of marriage, which Dae was focused on.
In turn, Dao reveals that she had convinced her father to give Nat a job. He hadn’t earned the position but had been given it out of pity. But it turns out that Dao’s father knew about the international job offers Nat had been receiving and had requested Nat stay with his daughter. There was an element of pity and obligation to their entire union.
Peeling Back the Layers
Throughout this process, Nat and Dao regularly peel layers of skin away from their faces, a not-so-subtle metaphor for removing the masks they have been wearing in other’s presence for such a long time. They begin to break down the façade with each subsequent truth and get to their true feelings and identities beneath.
In this way the goddess functions as a kind of therapist, prompting the couple to expose more and more of themselves and reveal more of their truths, so they can better understand each other. Nat and Dao do fundamentally love each other, they have simply allowed small issues to develop into larger ones. All it takes is better communication.
Terror Tuesday: Extreme Episode 4 has a happy ending, then – the first in the series. After truly revealing everything to one another, Nat and Dao decide to remain together. They reconcile and agree to continue their journey together, free from secrets.
Honesty is the best policy after all.
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