Three weeks after everything began, the battle continues on.
What They Say:
New York Strong – The strigoi become faster and smarter; Eph’s son is abducted; Setrakian and Quinlan try to unearth the Lumen’s deepest secrets; and Fet helps the Navy Seals on a deadly mission through the underground of New York
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As goofy as this series can get at times and as many bad decisions as the characters make, I’ll easily admit that I missed having this as summer entertainment this year. The quality of summer shows have grown a fair bit in the last few years from when we just had reruns and reality programs and I liked what this brought as a horror series on those hot Sunday nights. This season goes through a few changes as for a few different reasons it’s been reduced from thirteen episodes to ten as they intend to use that to tell the story of the battle of New York. I’ve seen how the producers behind it view it as a way to run it a bit tighter, but they’ll have to really prove that as they had a lot of fluff in the previous seasons that simply drew things out far more than it should have been.
The cold open does a solid job of looking at the big picture problem going on in the three weeks since the Master landed in New York City on the plane but it does it by not looking at any of the cast of characters. It’s a smart way to do it as it gives us a look at how it’s all unfolding and the reactions around the world. When the focus shifts to the military teams being sent into the city to deal with the strigoi and those consumed by it, we get some good action sequences while also seeing how Fet’s involved to some degree in watching all of this. It’s basically an underground bug hunt looking for Bolivar as he’s a serious person of interest at this point. The thing plays in a suitably creepy way as it should before shifting into the new opening sequence. I liked the few that we got before so another new one definitely works as a good way to set the tone, something that the show definitely needs to do.
While Fet is involved in that, Eph is certainly feeling things considering the loss of his wife and then his son to these things. He’s essentially waiting for Zack to come back to try and help him so he’s doing some work back at the makeshift lab that they used before while also certainly enjoying drinking a whole lot. He’s also doing his part for the cause by working on the bioweapon, at least in a part-time kind of way as his real focus is elsewhere. It’s little surprise to see Eph throwing himself into his work and there’s a kind of welcome consistency in seeing him this way as it feels very in character for him. He’s past the point about caring about a lot of things, including his fugitive status, but he does care that the bioweapons effectiveness seems to be going down. That at least keeps him engaged.
Eph’s action side has picked up a bit since we last saw him as well as he’s working his taxi around town on the various missions that he’s giving himself, which leads him to an underground garage in search of gas for the car. Not surprisingly, things go badly for him but it gives us a decent action piece with several strigoi going after him that he has to deal with. It serves no actual story point but it’s the kind of action piece that the series uses to provide a little tension and remind us that things are certainly bad out there. Eph’s still the unlikely action guy when you get down to it but it’s something that works as well as it can here since it feels a little more real with how bad he is at times and some of the mistakes he makes while trying to survive.
I do like what we get from Quinlan as he goes to deal with the Ancients and makes clear that he’s not their servant but their ally and only hope. His work with Setrakian is dealing with trying to decipher the Lumen, though Quinlan is more about action than words, which makes the pairing pretty good. There are a few teases that we get from this meeting with how Quinlan talks about the other Ancients and how the Master likely destroyed them before coming to New York and he also talks about how they’re probably pretty worried that the Lumen may reveal how to destroy them in addition to the Master. It’s a delicate balance but Quinlan has the right personality and history to be able to walk this line in a way few or no others could. Particularly since he’s doing this work with Setrakian and the Ancients have no love for him considering their history with him.
The subway bug hunt is one that’s definitely fun to watch as we see the soldiers working through it and coming across Eichhorst, who is essentially leading them on a bit of a chase since he knows he’s going to be followed. It’s a bit by the numbers for the military as they basically put themselves right into a trap but it plays well visually as an action piece. Where it becomes interesting is that one of the teams is attacked with a high pitched method that disables them and sends plenty of fear through the rest. It doesn’t take long for the soldiers to get cut down or for Fet to make his way in since he wants to help so it’s predictable to be sure. But it works because of the uncertainty and the slow nature of how the soldiers are hunted down. There’s no true resolution here but it sets things well for where the players are.
In Summary:
With a cute nod toward the end with Zack reading a big copy of Y: The Last Man that you almost wish was foreshadowing, The Strain has a solid enough season opener here. A lot of what this does is working to put all the pieces where they need to be and remind us who everyone is and what they’re up to. Some of it is creepy, such as Zack and his mother, while others is all about the action. Eph’s story feels the loosest overall at the moment because of how he’s handling things but it also leaves him in a position to pivot and change more than anyone else. At least this episode gives us a little more with the creepy children as they’re something that definitely sets the show apart at least a bit. Not bad but the show really needs to engage in a big way with the shorter season order and the implied scale of what’s going on here.
Grade: B
