What They Say:
For Services Rendered – Setrakian, Eph and Nora formulate a plan to track down the Master using Jim as bait. Eichorst and Setrakian’s pasts are revealed. Neeva struggles to protect the children.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One of the things that I’ve grown to enjoy with more of the shorter season shows is that there’s a lot less fiiller to spread things out across a longer season. What we also get is a lot more compresses storytelling dealing with various situations that require more material in a meaty way to be dealt with because it’s all so interconnected and you can’t let it takes years to be revealed. With the first six episodes of The Strain, we’ve had a lot of shifts going on with how the city is being affected, who is out there and those that are becoming aware and accepting of this new reality quicker than you’d expect. That makes it feel like we’re really making some progress here even as we see all sorts of other things happen. The story expands, the cast shrinks and grows, but events continue as more details come into play.
The cold open for this is pretty intense as Joan’s husband has returned from a long flight and finds a lot of things have changed since he left. Neeva manages to get in touch with him in a mild panic about how his wife Joan is not right and that he needs to come to her place in Yonkers as she has the kids. But he just wants to get home, not realizing what’s going on and seeing Joan on TV and not recognizing that she’s not right. Where it goes really fun is when he takes a cab to his house and the whole thing goes down bad as some of the changed are there and try to suck him dry. The silly is in that the cabbie panics but instead of just driving the hell out of there, gets out of the car and tries to shoot the creatures. Considering what they saw, not many people would really do that, but it makes for those kinds of moments where you yell at the TV for what goes down. In the end, you just really feel bad for Joan’s husband as he walks deeper into hell without realizing.
With Setrakian doing his best to convince Eph that he needs to listen to him when it comes to ways with dealing with this chaos, Eph is naturally resistant in a lot of ways. While Setrakian has been right so far about everything, the idea of killing the Master that would in turn send all the other ones to death makes no sense to him on a scientific level so he can’t get behind it. But there’s some great dialogue here between the two that makes it clear that there will be control issues between them. That serves as a good launching point to give us more of the past for Setrakian, we see what he was going through in the work camp he was forced into and how he ended up in Eichorst’s service. Because he made a Jewish symbol, that caught the eye of Eichorst because it was filled with such intense detail that it Setrakian would be able to create the special project that he needs. Bringing the two of them together like this is the start of decades of back and forth between them.
It’s certainly interesting to watch as time goes on between the two men in the past as they do talk while Setrakian works on the box project for Eichorst. There’s not an understanding between them of course because of the power dynamic, but you get to see how Setrakian’s skill drew him more attention from Eichorst and that was helping to keep him alive. It’s definitely interesting to see how Eichorst views things as he knows he’s more of a manager of people than a detail person when it comes to creating things, and that plays well in the present as you know he’s using Eldritch for his plans, his being the right person for the needs he has in service of the Master. Eldritch is a bit more playful in a lot of ways because he has some measure of power himself, unlike Setrakian back in the day, and revealing to Eichorst that Jim is attempting to blackmail them adds a fun twist as a bit of bait that gets Eichorst on the move.
The expanded past relationship that we see between Eichorst and Setrakian is certainly engaging material to watch because it does define Setrakian in so many ways as he deals with the man that holds power over him. It’s also instructive when it comes to Eichorst himself in the way he views the world and peoples places in it. There’s definitely an imbalance of power there that’s well acted out and makes for some good screen time in a period that really does help to make us understand Setrakian acts as he does.
When the show deals with the present, one of the more interesting areas is with Neeva as her daughter gets her to take the kids back to the Luss’ house. Neeva’s not keen on it at all, and she’s pretty damn justified as we watch that situation spiral out of control as Joan has put her husband down in a big way and is controlling others. Seeing how far gone Joan is at this point is interesting, especially with the exposure to light and the way she’s intent on getting her kids for her own devouring purposes. I really liked the way they moved through the house and how she had to be careful of her own exposure to the sun, but also making sure the small elements are covered with showing her as shimmering when walking by mirrors in the house, of which there are a few.
The attempt at using Jim as bait is one that has its fun as well as it puts Jim very much in a position where he’s blown his chance to be a part of what Eichorst is offering, which includes salvation for his wife. You know he wouldn’t get properly taken care of in the end, or it would be so twisted so as to be unrecognizable, but there’s a lot of fun in seeing the attempt at setting a trap put into motion and going through the hunt of finding Eichorst. But as we learned about in the past, it’s not about Eph, Nora or Jim. This is the story of Setrakian and Eichorst and the kind of history they share. While they do want to find the Master, Setrakian will be pleased by just taking down Eichorst, though not without a lot of problems. It’s not a huge moment, but there are some good aspects to it that clues us in more about what Eichorst is capable of.
In Summary:
Interestingly, you don’t expect much from the Luss and Neeva storyline because it follows some predictable aspects. But what we get is a kind of game changer at the end as it brings in some new players while not really revealing much about them. But those are the kind of closing notes that I like because it gives you something new, not just an expansion or a cliffhanger based on characters we know and situations we grasp. This could change the dynamic well. Overall, there’s a lot to like here, though I’m not a huge fan of the flashback side of things. Getting a better understanding of Setrakian and Eichorst’s pasts definitely works well and I like that it makes their lengthy history as complicated as it does, but it’s also taking up a bit of time at the moment when I want to see more of the present. We get a little with Stoneheart but nothing with Fet and that kind of disappoints me. Joan’s arc is fun overall and it’s opening up some neat potential. Definitely a fun episode that’s showing us some real changes are in the offing.
Grade: B+
