by Brendan Foley
The problem with a show like The Strain achieving consistent competence is that it leaves me less to write about each week. Usually there’s at least some zany plot point or HOLY SHIT DID THEY JUST DO THAT bit of gore or creature design to liven these things up a bit, but for this week’s I’m coming up mostly empty.
Which is not to say that ‘Intruders’ was a bad episode of television or even a bad episode of The Strain. It was just a pieces moving episode, with a whole bunch of stories running in place for an hour before the show can transition into the end-game of season two.
Which is kinda fucking inexcusable, if you think about the fact that there’s only 13 episodes this year. I understand when a network show that needs to fill 22 of these goddamn things decides to lob it in for a couple episodes, but if you are a cable drama only doing 8–13 a season, then I, as a viewer, expect each and every one of those precious hours to be necessary and for the forward momentum of the story to be unimpeded.
Yet impeded it was tonight. Gus hooking up with Quinlan, and Fet and Setrakian getting another piece of the puzzle leading them to the Lumen are all things that will surely yield interesting story developments down the line, but none of this shit requires and entire episode’s worth of running time to get done.
The whole episode can be summed up with Zack and Eph’s daytrip: Eph wants to get a rifle to kill Palmer, Fet tells him where to get one, they get there and discover the gun dealer has been shot in a random altercation literally seconds before the boys get there. Eph performs miracle surgery, they are given the rifle, and then they leave. Riveting stuff, riveting. I was on the edge of my seat as to whether or not the character I had never seen before was going to survive the injury I had no interest in.
Let’s hit a couple bullet points.
• If nothing else, this was probably the best episode for Richard Sammel as Eichorst all season. From his ongoing feelings of jealousy for not being selected as The Master’s new host, to his magical make-up job on Kelly, all the way to his various interactions with Palmer and the doomed Cardinal, it was great fun to see Sammel having a cheerfully hammy time with this material. Sammel was the highlight of season one, but the events of that finale and this season have sidelined him considerably. The show loses something when he isn’t around menacing people, so hopefully that will change.
• Nice make-up work on the revived Kelly Goodweather, giving her a just-north of plastic sheen that was very creepy without being obtrusively so. Becoming one of the undead has done wonders for Natalie Brown’s performance, and the early scene this week where we watch as Kelly slowly remembers what it was like to be human was very effective.
• Eldritch Palmer gets dumped.
• The Strain is really doubling down on Eph’s assholery. Not only is he a callous, cheating bastard, but he also willfully lies to Nora about what he was up to in DC and what he’s now planning. The lies are essentially pointless, so I’m glad the show had Nora immediately know what was up and call Eph out within the same episode, as opposed to dragging it out. Still, the show has made the main character the least likable human being around, and I’m curious what the game plan for that is.
• ‘Least likable’ besides Zack. God, what a trainwreck of a character. I don’t want to harp on the child actor, who is clearly trying his very best (and has landed good moments in the past). Zack is just such a one-note, stupid irritant. He’s been whining the same whine since the very first episode this year, and the show needs to either shit or get off the pot with him.
• Nice directing by Kevin Dowling tonight with a very stylized use of color throughout. Very ‘comic book-y’ especially with the Gus/Quinlan scene and the final gunfight with Kelly.
So, there you have it. Again, not a bad episode, but the kind of placeholder that you see with serialized dramas. Because The Strain benefits from a breakneck pace, this kind of deep breath can be a killer. Let’s hope the last stretch of episodes lives up to it.
