After last week tripped into leaden dullness, the latest episode of The Strain opens at a sprint, as humans and vampires alike rush across New York City in the hours preceding a major solar eclipse. With every major character now at least somewhat aware of the impending apocalypse they face, and with the villains now hardly bothering to conceal their activities from the public at large, there was hardly an ounce of fat as the episode moved from horror showdowns to seismic plot shifts to shocking violence.
And hey! Five hours in and Eph’s family has a storyline that is A) relevant and B) not soul-crushingly boring. After escaping federal custody, Eph races home to try and alert his wife and son to the whole end-of-the-world thing that is going down. Dipshit New Boyfriend (this character probably has a name but fuck you if you think I’m going to learn it [I think it’s Matt]) calls the feds on Eph and Kelly spends the rest of the episode trying to decide whether she should listen to her asshole ex and head for the hills or listen to the current asshole boyfriend and stay put.
It’s a story that could grate, but I think episode writer Justin Britt-Gibson and director Peter “ROBOCOP, FUCKERS” Weller made the right call in playing Kelly’s dilemma as a slow motion micro-tragedy when juxtaposed with the cosmic horror of the rest of the show. Kelly ultimately chooses to stay in NYC, believing that she is providing stability to Zack during a period of massive emotional upheaval. It’s an idiotic choice that can only have a tragic outcome, but the episode shows you the step-by-step process that a rational person would take to get to that point. Even as the world burns, people will try to hold onto the ash they most recognize.
That’s the major recurring theme of this episode: Characters unwilling to let go of yesterday’s scars to escape tomorrow’s wounds. Kelly, Dipshit, and the FBI can’t see Eph as anything more than the same old drunken control freak, and refusing to take him seriously leaves Kelly and Zack endangered and dooms the feds and Dipshit once the vampires launch their eclipse-emboldened daytime assault.
Similarly, Fet’s father is so committed to his view of Fet as a screw-up that he can’t recognize how serious his son is about the epidemic. For a man like Fet’s Dad, who we learn has committed years of his life to trying to write one book, such a willingness to throw away years of effort and promise is madness.
Really, though, Fet has a predisposition to change that seems to serve him well as the world comes apart. After discovering a vampire nest last week, Fet’s actions throughout this episode are decisive and immediate. He quickly warns other exterminators about what he saw and then goes to the office to stock up on weapons against the rising tide of predators. Discovering his office mates have been infected, Fet releases both his boss and the flirty secretary from a vampiric fate. This sequence contains some of Kevin Durand’s best work on the series to date (the look of equal parts disgust, fascination, heartbreak and relief as he draws open the blinds to bring in the killing sunlight is marvelous) and suggests that Fet is way ahead of the game while others are still trying to catch up.
Among those catching up is Gus, and here again we see the idea of people’s attachment to the old world’s tragedies allowing for the new world to sink its teeth in. If Gus could step outside his own perspective and see what the vampiric fate bearing down on humanity, he would realize that Eichorst blackmailing him with the promise of deporting Gus’s mother is the emptiest threat imaginable. But Gus can’t see the big picture, and he becomes a pawn yet again. This time he helps dispose of Redfern’s body, assisting a very unhappy Jim. Gus’s period of ignorance appears to be coming to an end, as he closes out the episode killing a vampire only to be arrested alongside his infected buddy, the latest victim of the eclipse rampage.
That eclipse sequence, by the way, was the latest in a growing list of standout horror set pieces in the show. There’s always been more than a little overlap between vampires and the zombies of George A. Romero, but the scenes of bloodied, stylized corpses wandering through crowds until snapping down on unsuspecting victims has a decidedly of the Dead bent. Hell, a scene where Setrakian raids a basement-cum-vamp nest feels like a deliberate echo of the apartment complex scene in Dawn of the Dead. In that film and on this show, attempts to honor the deceased has only given the insatiable hunger of the living dead that much more to chew on.
The episode ends with almost every character at a major crossroads as the eclipse ends and dozens, if not hundreds, of newly infected are about to begin feeling the effects. Eph and Nora reunite in Setrakian’s pawnshop and prepare for war, while Fet and Gus remain on the outside and entrenched in the swelling numbers of the undead. After last week’s misstep, The Strain has once more found its footing and is galloping towards the end times. Only time will tell if they can keep up the pace.
