Warning: spoilers may not be as carefully marked as the main page.
- Cliché Storm: Some reviewers listed this as one of the season's key issues; most of the characters are stereotypes right out of a casting handbook (stoic, salt-of-the-earth immigrant parents, rebellious second-generation kids, Jerkass authority figure, Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl out for vengeance) and the plot itself deteriorates into a pretty standard J-horror story halfway through.
- Contested Sequel: The ratings are off more than half from the original The Terror, and many viewers who have bothered to watch have complained of sloppy writing, unlikeable characters, and a confused narrative that doesn't take proper advantage of the setting. Although the finale was widely praised, many felt it did not make up for the stumbles of the season as a whole.
- Draco in Leather Pants: Yuko Tanabe, due to her tragic backstory as listed in Tear Jerker.
- Genius Bonus: Luz standing in the river in a white dress seeing the faces of her twins in the water is reminiscent of the tale of La Llorona. Luz doesn't fit the story of a woman who loses her children, drowns herself, then comes back for vengeance, but Yuko does.
- Jerkass Woobie: Yuko, due to her tragic backstory as listed in Tear Jerker.
- Tear Jerker:
- The death of the twins. Luz doesn't take it well and eventually leaves the camp with her father.
- Henry hugging her goodbye which further cemented that she finally won him over.
- Yuko's past:
- She's thrown out for being pregnant when she marries Furuya and knows no one else in the US.
- A year later she's homeless living in what appears to be the junkyard of an army base stealing scraps for herself and her baby.
- She tries to feed him but he starts crying and she realizes that she has to give him up.
- Her guilt leaving her child with the nuns.
- She then commits suicide by filling her baby sling with rocks and throwing herself off a bridge.
- Ken getting shot as well as Amy's reaction.
- Henry's death.
- The vision or dream in which Chester speaks with Henry on the Taro following his death, Henry telling him why he became a fisherman.
- Yamato speaking with an old friend in the afterlife, who tells him about his life in Hiroshima. The savvy viewer can probably tell what's coming, but The Reveal itself is something else: the camera slowly revealing his entire extended family (including his young great-grandchild) standing behind him.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A common complaint among critics and viewers is that the season failed to make good use of its setting; an internment camp could have provided some interesting storytelling possibilities and been a claustrophobic Closed Circle, much like Erebus and Terror were in Season 1, but it is instead treated as a backdrop that is more an inconvenience to the characters than anything else.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The viewer is obviously meant to sympathize with Chester, but he has a tendency to come across as an unlikable jackass. His bullheadedness, impulsive actions, and inability to control his temper often cause problems for him and his friends and family, to the point where Henry disowning him actually comes across as a reasonable decision.
