A little more background, a little more detail.
What They Say:
White Light – The Master’s voice emerges and proves overwhelming; Fet and Setrakian search for cargo from the Egyptian vessel; Quinlan agrees to a deal with the Ancients but a betrayal afterward proves deadly.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With just two episodes left of this season after this one, I’m definitely feeling like the show just doesn’t know how to make it all compelling. With a ten episode run, you’re going to have quiet periods but this whole season has felt quiet when it should be a lot more intense and filled with a lot more tension.Though I really enjoyed the flashback material the previous time around with the 1941 segment and how it connects Fet’s family to what’s going on now while providing for another view of Eichhorst in that period, the rest of the show has just been kind of going through the motions. This one does the same to some degree as more pieces are being brought into play but we’re so close to the end of the season that it’s going to be a very unmemorable segment of the larger show.
With a brutal cold opening that finally takes us back to the processing facility that Eichhorst has been slowly getting underway, things are definitely starting to come together there and you know that what’s being put into motion is going to be very cruel. Eichhorst definitely has the eye for fine tuning the process considering his experience as a Nazi decades ago and he can see things in interesting ways that the humans working on the project can’t. And watching that unfold definitely is unnerving because you know that the guy who survives it understands that it’s only luck to some degree and that he’s not willing to fight back on it. Eichhorst is a wonder to watch here because he views humans as barely cattle when you get down to it so his calm and ease over it is very, very, natural.
This episode shows us how quickly things changed for Eldritch once he started taking the white as a day later it’s like he’s twenty years younger. He’s proving useful for Setrakian and Fet as he delivers them a name and an address that could reveal what was on the ship. You have to laugh at Eldritch as he wants the respect that he believes he’s deserved but the others won’t give it since they simply don’t care for him and the positions have totally turned at this point. It’s amusing to see how Eldritch is now attempting to hitch his wagon and survival here and will do what he needs to, but like the Master he doesn’t get respect from Setrakian or Fet for what he does. You almost want to feel bad for him but he’s been put himself into this position all on his own.
This episode does the flashback side of things as is becoming more and more common though this time it cycles back to 1993 and follows Gus’ life. As he’s doing what he can to help Angel, we see how his uncle and his uncle’s friend helped protect him and his mother from his father that was beating them. It’s a rough period as they’re ending Gus’ father so he can’t cause problems anymore and is something that plays out well as it unfolds. It helps explain why Gus was so intent on protecting his mother, which was fairly obvious even without this, and I actually did enjoy it. At the same time, it just felt like something that slowed down the overall narrative and didn’t add enough to make it feel truly worthwhile.
We don’t get a lot of action in this episode but there are some good bits to be had with it. Setrakian and Fet get close to the crate from Egypt with a bit of tracking and that leads to a decent gunfight that felt like it should have gone bigger and more violent. Eichhorst is definitely focused on the crate and its contents as a priority so it works well in that he won’t take the time to dig into dealing with Fet and Setrakian. The other action piece is smaller but more personal as we see how he’s set the home back to normal and Angel returns and crashes there while Gus is out. With Gus’ mother still in there and causing some trouble, well, it puts Gus in that position of having to make a choice. It goes back to the past with what happened to his father – so not telegraphed! – that it’s just blunter than it needs to be in that regard. It falls through on the action side as well as it’s just a single gunshot that ends it, allowing more for the character moment than anything else. It’s not bad but it’s also something that feels like it should have been touched upon earlier than the ending run of episodes of season three.
In Summary:
The Strain again continues to nudge things along without doing anything big and that continues to be a frustrating aspect of the show. I like the pieces that we get but they’re nowhere near enough to push events forward as they need to be. The show also takes some diversions along the way, giving us a little time with what Eph and Dutch are doing with the black box recorder and getting closer to working with the Master’s voice recording. That has its moments but that it turns into Dutch feeling closer to Eph? Is it just something from the voice that causes her to try and seduce him? Points to the writers and to the actress for selling it, however, as her description of your standard every man’s lesbian fantasy is pretty spot on.
Grade: B-
