AMC’s anthology horror series The Terror returns for its third season on May 7, and the network dropped the first trailer for the six-episode installment on April 15. The first look at Devil in Silver, based on Victor LaValle’s 2012 novel of the same name, shows star Dan Stevens (The Guest), taking pills, hallucinating, and being hunted by a mysterious entity while locked in a sketchy mental institution. That feels very familiar, seeing as Stevens went through all of that back in 2017 when he starred in Noah Hawley’s bizarre X-Men series Legion.
In Legion, Stevens plays David Haller, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a child and spent most of his life in psychiatric hospitals. David learns he’s not just mentally ill, he’s a mutant who’s been infected with a psychic parasite. In Devil in Silver, Stevens plays Pepper, who is committed to the New Hyde Psychiatric Hospital after getting into a fight with his partner’s ex, who shows up unannounced at their home.
Pepper isn’t going to be busted out to join a secret enclave of mutants, so it seems like he’s in for an even worse time than David. The trailer shows Pepper going from trying to prove this has all been a misunderstanding to wondering whether he really belongs in the facility. Eventually, he joins other patients to defeat a creeping evil in its walls. The setting is very similar to Legion, though the vibes seem less psychedelic and more like a supernatural spin on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Devil in Silver feels like a departure for The Terror in that it’s set in the modern day, while the past two seasons brought supernatural elements into distinct historical events. The first season, based on Dan Simmons’ 2007 novel The Terror, imagines Captain Sir John Franklin’s lost Arctic expedition as it’s stalked by a monster. Season 2 involves a creature from Japanese folklore in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. Those settings helped distinguish The Terror from Ryan Murphy’s anthology horror series American Horror Story. Now, The Terror seems to be mimicking more than just Legion: Murphy set the second season of American Horror Story in a mental institution back in 2012.
The Terror: Devil in Silver premieres on AMC Plus and Shudder on May 7. LaValle serves as co-showrunner for the series, along with Chris Cantwell (Halt and Catch Fire). The stacked cast includes Aasif Mandvi (Evil), Stephen Root (Barry) and CCH Pounder (Warehouse 13 and Justice League Unlimited).