by Brendan Foley
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Yes, you did! You were just afraid of the choice.”
The question of obedience versus free will is one that has reoccurred with great regularity in the works of both Carlton Cuse and Guillermo del Toro. How many times on Lost were the various survivors and Others forced to decide between accepting what they were told or striking out on their lonesome? It was damn near the foundational question of the entire show (that, and what was up with the fucking polar bear).
This question has been even more pronounced in the films of del Toro. Since his very first film, Cronos, del Toro has questioned humanity’s willingness/ability to battle both society and nature in order to live moral and honorable lives. Whether it was a vampire refusing the bloodlust or a demon ripping off his own horns, the battle between the individual and the world at large is perhaps the most personal and vibrant theme in all of del Toro’s work.
And it was this same question which came to the forefront in last night’s episode of The Strain, continuing on the show’s recent strong momentum. While there were individual scenes devoted to keeping the story-gears turning, the focus of the hour was on three individuals confronted with the choice of sticking to their guns or bending in the face of opposition.
The sick punchline is that each one of them is screwed, regardless of how they choose.
In the most central storyline, Jim Kent throws in his lot with Eph, Nora and Setrakian, agreeing to help them try and lure Eichorst out into the open so that they might track him back to The Master’s lair. The choice costs Jim his wife, who flees in equal parts disgust and confusion, and it also puts him high on the shitlist of the vampire overlords. Which is not a good list to be high on, I imagine.
Sean Astin continues to make Jim one of the most interesting characters on the show, working hard to make sure that the audience remains empathetic to a character who could easily play as reprehensible. While no one wins a damn thing in this episode, Jim alone seems to be on better footing by the end. He’s lost a great deal, and stands to lose quite a bit more, but at least he has definitively put himself back onto the side of right, which is underscored nicely by the ending where he picks up Setrakian’s sword post-battle and returns it, a tiny gesture that cements him on the side of the angels for the first time in the show’s life.
Setrakian forms the second half of the episode’s hour-long inquisition into the pain of servitude versus the danger of independence. At this point in the series, Abraham Setrakian in both younger and older incarnations has been the stalwart defender of humanity and decency, the one unshakeable and incorruptible pillar against the tide of darkness.
But he is, of course, only a man. In the flashback storyline (a massive improvement over the disastrous attempts at a similar structure from a couple weeks ago) Setrakian’s skills as a carpenter are called into service by the still-human concentration camp commander Thomas Eichorst. In the best scene of the episode (and perhaps the best scene of the series to date) a drunken Eichorst stumbles into the workshop and lectures Setrakian about how humans choose to serve, choose evil systems in place of having no system at all.
It’s a marvelous scene, capped off with a wonderfully tense standoff during which Eichorst offers his gun to Setrakian and gives him the chance to kill Eichorst then and there. Hey, Abraham’s probably a dead man anyway, right? Why not at least make that death good for something and take out a scum like Eichorst?
Instead, Abraham goes back to work, completing what we later learn is the coffin which The Master will use to travel the earth and spread his pestilence across millions. In a moment of awful but understandable weakness, Abraham chose to bend to fear, and thus damned the world. It’s a brutal moment, beautifully played and deployed by all involved.
Man, how great has Richard Sammel been as Eichorst? Early episodes saw him nicely play the off-putting toady, but here we see that he’s actually pathological in his toadiness, throwing himself behind whatever ideology seems most likely to protect him. As the episode ping-ponged between the past and present, Sammel did a great job showing just how far removed from humanity Eichorst has become in his time as a vampire, and by the same token, how vampirism has only brought his worst human traits to the forefront. It’s an important human note to hit amongst all the craziness and carnage.
Speaking of craziness and carnage, that brings us to our third strain (shut up) of the episode. Joan Luss’ maid, Neeva, having rescued the Luss children from rapidly turning vamp mom a couple weeks back, is pressured by her daughter to return the children. Neeva is fully aware of just what a bad fucking idea that would be, but she caves in the face of both her daughter and the Luss kids. Neeva can’t bring herself to try and discuss the supernatural and unholy things which she believes are happening, and for that she, her daughter, and the Luss children are repaid with a day of horror as they are chased around the Luss household by swarms of the undead.
Even when salvation arrives in the form of an inhuman assault team (about which I will say no more) it is still not enough to save Neeva’s daughter, who is shot in the head by the rescue team after they discover that she has been infected. Neeva’s screams of grief and horror end the episode in a cold and pitiless place, a place that seems all the darker when you realize that it was Neeva who brought them there.
With the season now over half over, The Strain has numerous threads picking up speed. Eph, Nora, Abraham and now Jim are continuing the hunt for The Master while Gus is incarcerated with his infected friend and Fet is Fetting things up elsewhere. Kelly and Zack are still in the danger zone, while Bolivar remains the only ‘surviving’ original passenger. Things are heating up on The Strain, which probably means that a whole lot more people are about to die.