The secrets that are kept.
What They Say:
Fort Defiance – Gus and Vaun attack Palmer; Steph tries to connect with Zack; Councilwoman Justine Faraldo wants to bring her extermination police to the other boroughs.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Though it can slow down a show, there are times that I really do enjoy when we get flashback material. Often it feels like it’s lazy writing with how important information can be learned by characters – or rather the audience – but then there are the times it can really expand on the view of the world. The Strain tends to do that pretty well and especially this season, first with the far back Sardu material and then the first meeting of Eldritch and Setrakian in the 60’s. Combining that with material in the present, including some sweet naked Fet time, and you get that early in the season world building piece that lays down a little more foundation for what’s to come. The show may not have moved forward much, especially if you want more of the creepy Kelly scenes, but it did grow and that worked quite well for me.
With the cold open here, we get to return to some time with Bolivar, which has him dragging a bag down an alley at night. He at least tries to look his particular part by wearing his makeup so that he doesn’t look quite so dead in a way. That he’s dragging a sack of dirt has the cops unsure of what he’s really up to, but picking up the dirt ends up causing one of them to get the worms while the other gets to just suffer a more direct attack by the strigoi under his command. Bolivar’s part weakened along the way in the first season, but he’s getting some growing presence here. Having him able to call in a significant enough little army of the strigoi to overwhelm the entire alley certainly makes it clear what his position is, as if lugging around the Master’s dirt didn’t make that clear.
With a few quick hits to catch us up with things, such as the problems of the reverse virus and that of Setrakian working his own mysterious plans, a decent bit of time is spent with Gus learning more of how to fight under Vaun’s guidance. Gus has been interested in being this daytime soldier after all the things he’s seen but he’s wanting to be a lot more involved in what’s going on rather than just a pawn. The training sequence actually is pretty fun to watch as we see a new way to deal with the strigoi, admittedly not the best way with hand to hand combat, but it provides a different kind of lethality for Gus to use. We also get to learn what Vaun is really up to, at least for the moment in their hunt, by going after Eldritch and kidnapping him in order to advance their larger plan.
Setrakian’s shenanigans are a bit interesting since he’s working with distilling the worms and using it to create a liquid that he can place into his eyes, possibly in order to help his eyesight so he can be stronger for what’s to come. That it nearly kills him? Not surprising. We do get to see Nora doing her best to save him though he’s not exactly grateful and is just trying to survive through what it is that he’s done. His reveal of why he ingests the worms as he does is certainly interesting and it at least explains away the age issue, though it certainly doesn’t make him trustworthy. And that view of survival is something we get a few times here in this episode. One of the more interesting aspects is the way that those that are in the city are doing things that work for them but wouldn’t normally even be considered in the daylight in a sense. With Councilwoman Faraldo, she gets to do a showy moment in talking about how Staten Island is plague free, which is good, but it’s the way she sends a message that you know it unnerves. Hanging the decapitated bodies of some of the strigoi at the entrance of the borough certainly does send a message.
This episode delves into the whole Zack character a bit, which is unfortunate as the show really hasn’t done well by the character in the first season and the new actor for the second season isn’t being managed well either. What we basically get is that the kid just wants his mother and can’t grasp what’s really happening, which is why he sneaks off at first, only to get caught, and then later upon being shown what it is that his dad is doing he goes and tries to destroy everything. He doesn’t want his mother to die, which certainly makes sense. But it’s so hamfisted and awkwardly done, made worse by the inability of the actor for Zack to pull it off, that ringing hollow would be a massive improvement. It does make it clear that the show is either going to bring Zack around at some point or he’s going to cause a whole lot of problems before he’s just taken out of the equation somehow.
While these bigger elements play out within the episode, including Faraldo gaining more power that the mayor is ceding to her in order to secure his own position, we also get a few other subplots moving along. Dutch finds posters up for her ex Nikki, which is like a bee in her bonnet until she discovers it was Nikki’s mother that put them up – and that has its own history that gets touched upon lightly. We also get a little time with Eldritch and Marchand now that Bolivar is placed with Eldritch to watch over him for the Master. Marchand’s not thrilled with this as she knows Eichhorst and Bolivar are not good men and she’s wary of Eldritch’s involvement with them as well. Where things get a little more interesting at Stoneheart is when Gus makes his way in undercover while Vaun and the rest of his soldiers are sneaking in just behind him in order to get Eldritch. While you do expect them to be successful, it’s far more interesting because Eldritch is ready for any possibility and it plays out in a really brutal way.
In Summary:
The Strain once again avoids having any truly big moments but instead continues its slow build with what it wants to do. This can be frustrating on some levels, especially when you want a lot more tension out of it or more serious movements with what’s going on in the city, but I also like that it takes the approach it does to soak in the moments themselves. It’s moving across several different areas and expanding its scope, but it’s keeping it as personal as it can. Outside of Zack’s subplot here, most of the episode works well for me just in seeing what’s going on and the way the characters are interacting and crossing paths, while some that have been out of the picture for awhile circle back. The series really needs more big moments more regularly, but I’m definitely enjoying it.
Grade: B+
