What They Say:
Loved Ones – Eph investigates Kelly’s disappearance and struggles with what he finds; Dutch pursues a plan to retaliate against Palmer; Fitzwilliam makes a surprising choice.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The Strain has worked some good story points so far where it’s dealing with a good sized cast, one that’s not too big, while also working some material from the past with the flashback side of things. The balance has largely been well handled, though I liked the episode that focused exclusively on the events at the convenience store with one group that ended up bringing disparate characters together while also eliminating one of them in the form of Jim Kent. The change in the narrative and the fallout from that has been solid, especially with the way some of the coping mechanisms have kicked in, but we’ve also shifted to some more personal stories along the way. Notably with Kelly having gone missing and now having Eph’s son Zack relatively in his safe keeping amid all the chaos going on.
With this episode, things start off in a pretty decent way as Zack goes to find a laptop in Setrakian’s shop that works and he manages to get a little bit of an Internet signal as he goes and tracks his mother’s phone. It’s a smart thing to do to be sure, even if there’s the dicey aspect of internet service availability not being what it should be due to what Dutch did. But it provides them a track to work on with Kelly as they see her phone is trackable and it’s on the move. She’s not answering the phone, which certainly worries Eph about what she could be going through, especially if she’s been turned and is just mindlessly going through the streets. But a starting location gives Eph something to work with and he’s intent on finding her no matter what she may be at this point. Eph also has to soothe things with Nora a bit, trying to talk to her about he didn’t mean to hurt her and I actually have to side with Eph a bit here in that even if things are done and over with Kelly, for some men there will always be love towards their ex – especially with a situation like this where he wasn’t trying to divorce her and was trying to work things out with her.
With this in mind, we also see what Fet and the others are doing in the war room that Setrakian has as they’re trying to figure out the best way to get to The Master and deal with him. Fet definitely comes across well here as he’s aligning rats and vampires with the same mentality in certain regards and it makes a lot of sense in a very basic but understandable way. It’s also something that ends up putting Dutch and Fet together for a job to try and get the information he needs about the tunnels underneath where the strigoli are and how they may try to bolt if they go after them. Dutch doesn’t get a lot of grief, but again, with what she did it’s easy to understand why she did what she did, not realizing that this kind of level of chaos was going to come with all of it. It’s easy to imagine that Palmer and his group would have used it for their advantage with regards to financials, not for bringing vampires to the city.
With all of this going on in the present, we get a flashback sequence here as well, though not another one back to the second World War. Instead, we go back 32 hours to see what happened to Kelly, first as she was simply sleeping and then being stalked by Matt in his undead state while she’s sleeping. As the day rises though with him locked in the bathroom, Kelly’s frustrations has him just leaving him alone and going on with her day. This gives us a look at how the city is changing as half the kids didn’t make it in and most of the staff is out sick as well. When she realizes the severity of things, she decides – finally – to go and get Zack and get the hell out of town. Of course, heading home to where Matt is ambling about isn’t the best thing to do, but at least she realizes that he’s infected and acts appropriately when things hit the fan. More so than a lot of people do as she just gets serious in stopping him. But seeing her get infected makes you cringe because it’s just another sad point in the show with those that are falling sway to the worms. It’s a positive in a way because it means our main cast isn’t always going to survive and that edge of tension is always welcome.
Following Kelly’s descent is pretty interesting to watch as we see her infected with the worm and seeing the way it takes her out for a few hours, while connecting us to where Eph had found her car later on. Her search for her son is definitely natural, though there’s also the potential connection with what the infection is like as well with how they search out loved ones. The thing moves at different rates for different people and seeing her struggling with it really hits home in a big way. Kelly’s holding onto herself as best as she can, but we see when she reaches Diane’s place that she’s pretty much falling apart, though Diane just thinks she’s been in an accident or that Matt has messed her up. But it ends up going in a hugely dark place quickly as we see just how far gone Kelly is at this point, making it even worse to see how her downfall is taking others out along the way.
With Kelly turned and becoming more deeply involved in all of it, we start to see more of how she views the world, which is certainly intriguing. We also get something really neat in that she’s starting to hear The Master, who is calling her to him underground. Having this play out, seeing what kind of path Kelly may be offered which in turn could help to make things worse for Eph, definitely shows a neat track to follow. We also get more of Eph following along in Kelly’s path, which leads him to Diane’s place, and that has its own kind of horror going on there. It’s also another difficult moment for Eph as he has to eliminate more of those that have changed. Diane is one thing, though that’s not easy. Her son? That’s a hell of a thing to do. But the event makes it clear to him that Kelly is lost at this point, though you can imagine it also reinforcing his desire to find a real cure for it to try and turn her back.
Fet and Dutch are certainly interesting to watch together as they make their move to get into Stoneheart to do what they need to do, but it doesn’t go well as they basically get caught up in the security side of the building as Fitzwilliam knows her for obvious reasons. Fet and Dutch have some decent dialogue before that and it’s fun seeing how Fet works things to get them in at first with the receptionist. Dutch ends up in front of Palmer and that has its own kind of tension there, since she doesn’t exactly react well to what he’s had her do overall, but while it makes it clear that she’s aware of what he’s involved with, he’s not interested in keeping her around for anything else at this point. Of course, Fitzwilliam has a different plan in motion. While we’ve known that he’s been working for Palmer pretty much all his life, he’s not exactly enamored with what Palmer is doing and is at least making sure that those that are fighting against it can do so. He’s a potential ally in the future and that’s definitely intriguing.
In Summary:
The Strain works primarily two paths here and there’s definitely a strong path and a weaker path. While Fet and Dutch’s story has its minor moments as we get them close to Palmer for a few minutes and hint at a potential ally inside, a lot of it feels like some wheel spinning. The bigger story is that of following Kelly through what happened, providing some of it context in the present with Eph tracing her steps. A lot of it is focused on Kelly herself though and seeing what she went through since Eph told her to take Zack and leave is simply depressing and heart rending when you get down to it. There’s some great emotional moments to be had here and it definitely works well for showing us what’s happening to her and all that it entails. And it shows us how she may be the new favored tool of The Master as he knows that Eph could be a sticking point in his larger plan. Good stuff all around as it provides more context to events overall.
Grade: B+
