A long way to go for one book.
What They Say:
Night Train – Setrakian and Fet battle for possession of the Occido Lumen and gain a surprising new ally; a massive attack imperils Eph, Nora and Zack’s escape from New York.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As we get to the end of the second season of The Strain, secure in the knowledge that a third season is coming next summer, there isn’t quite the same sense of anticipation about it. I enjoyed the first season a lot, campiness and all, but this season has been more of a quest for an item than actually dealing with what’s going on. Some of that came from what Feraldo had been up to and the arrival of Quinlan, but the main cast has mostly spun their wheels or searched for a book. That can work well enough in a novel, but when shifted to this medium it just comes across as very little progress overall and too much focus on some bad character material. The main saving graces were the various flashback sequences
The main beats are here in that we get Fet and Setrakian preparing to go and get the book, albeit with Setrakian not doing any of this with actual gold or anything. Eph is hitting up the train with Zack and Nora while having a sense of that things can go south quickly, particularly with Kelly watching in the distance. And we also get the fun with Eichhorst who is getting the finishing touches put on his sheep processing plant with a really wicked grin to his expression. These are all decent enough pieces and might make for a good mid-season bit of tension that would advance things forward, but at this stage it’s again going back to the whole wheel spinning aspect. There’s the proper tension but nothing that really makes it exciting.
That said, the actual bidding war is pretty amusing and fun to watch with the back and forth that exists until the book ends up in Setrakian’s hand. At quite the cost. What makes it even more fun is the aspersion that the reason that Eichhorst lost is because Eldritch pulled the line of credit. Considering the threats made against Eldritch and Coco, it’s both surprising and not that they went and played this angle. Of course, having the book doesn’t mean keeping the book and the episode gives us some action that we need in order to really feel that it’s a finale. It makes for some fun visuals as we see the two of them doing what they can to survive with it, especially since Eichhorst isn’t going to let them get far with it.
What makes it fun beyond the numbers used here, giving us some good strigoi to work with, is that Gus arrives with the group that’s now working with Quinlan that he freed up. It’s a cavalry moment to be sure and it works well to provide a new complication for Eichhorst. Even more so when Quinlan himself shows up and speaks to the Master through him. That adds a nice element to it considering how long Quinlan has been hunting after him for so long. It’s not exactly a fight between the two, but we do get to see some of their speed and style here as Eichhorst slithers away in the way that certainly fits for him. Which in the end just makes him all the more intense when he goes to confront Eldritch over the money incident.
The other big action component here is with the train as it gets underway only to be derailed as the strigoi aren’t going to let Eph get away. Or rather, Kelly’s not going to let Zack get away from her and she’ll sacrifice dozens of strigoi to retain him. It’s a big enough sequence that works nicely and it lets some of the spider-kids play with Eph. And he’s at least acting more competent with weapons these days so even a short sequence has some good impact. The real fun is that we get Kelly cornering Zack and Nora and Nora get to go up against Kelly with some quite good moves. Of course, Zack has to provide the bad moment in trying to get Nora from not killing his dead mom, but that just provides the expected opportunity for Kelly to take down Nora.
In Summary:
Though I’ll be back for the third season, the second season of The Strain has certainly lowered expectations. The first season was fun and played with its concept well, but this season has had fewer good moments, more bad moments and an increase in silliness that just doesn’t fit well with what’s at stake. There’s just a lot of padding going on this time around and the sense of the scale of the problem isn’t what it should be. There are some fun moments in this episode and some decent bits of action along the way and I’ll even give it the emotional moment with Nora and Eph to give it a bit more weight. But there’s still something missing this season that keeps me from being really enthusiastic about it and enjoying it in the same way. When you have bad material with Dutch and Coco along the way, that’s a big part of it.
Grade: B-
Season Grade: C+
