After one of those weird hiatus things, The Strain is back.
It is now 23 days after the infection started and a nice
little prequel beginning tells us that though the army has been dispatched to
New York, other cities are also being hit by the vampire menace. The plague is
spreading.
Justine still leads the city and still manages to be
awesome (which is essential to try and balance the sheer loss of female
characters on this show), but can do little to get more resources to help the
city. As she repeatedly tells Ephraim, their winning and claiming back ground –
but the casualty rate they’re taking is not sustainable and it’s all going to
fall apart. To make matters worse, Ephraim’s super bioweapon is becoming less
effective
So is he. He’s torn by nightmares, drinking, scavenging
in the ruined areas of New York and not coming back to mastermind the whole
plan with Justine as she wants (since he could teach others to actually
synthesise the weapon). He remains, unshockingly, an arsehole and a reckless
one at that, constantly risking his expertise needlessly.
He’s focused very much on Zach – which is why the Master
is using Kelly to keep Zach alive in order to trade him for the Lumen. We do get
some interesting indication that Kelly is still partially human… but only when
the Master doesn’t overwhelm her brain
That Lumen is still Abe’s obsession and he has spent a
week studying it – but slowly. I think we’re seeing a very shaken Abe now, he’s
put all his faith in the book while at the same time is almost paralysed by
failure since he’s acted so many times against the Master now and each time not
known enough, not been ready. We can see Vasily losing some of his powerful
respect for the man as Abe continues to be indecisive.
Quinlan, the half vampire, is also growing impatient with
Abe’s slow progress. He’s also still meeting with the Ancients to try and
solidify their alliance (he definitely does not support or serve them and isn’t
a big fan of them generally but enemy of my enemy and all that). The Ancients
aren’t mad fans of the Lumen – with its knowledge on how to kill them – being in
Abe’s hands, but since the Master has already killed their old world counterparts
they’d be fools to make a big thing out of it.
Which leaves us with Vasily, perhaps the only person who
is felling positive about everything. He’s guiding the navy seals around New
York, sending them into the tunnels with his encyclopedic knowledge to wipe out
nests of vampires. They’ve even finally accepted the idea of there being a “king
vampire”, Bolivar. It’s him they want to hunt down, kill and save the world.
This does mean that they’re not doing what Justine wants – helping her
methodically secure New York
They’re also only there for two days before they write
off New York City…
…to which I say… really? This show has shown that New York
is not doing well – but we’ve also seen several boroughs vampire free and
fighting back. It’s also been only 23 days since this infection started. 23
days? How can the US, the country whose military spending has long since past
the ludicrous and we now need whole new adjectives to describe how
over-the-top-ridiculous it is exhausted so much of their military arsenal that
they’re writing off their biggest city and financial centre?
No. I’m going to need more than this – I’m going to need
to hear about a draft. I’m going to need to see much of the rest of the US –
the world – on utter blazing fire before I’ll believe that US is going to
abandon NYC because a couple of squads of marines haven’t got the job done. In
fact, not only will I want to see that but I’ll want to see that AND good
reason why the US isn’t abandoning EVERYTHING ELSE before abandoning NYC.
Seriously – give me a few episodes of radio reports that Baltimore, Portland,
St Louis, San Diego have all been completely wiped out – then I’ll start to
believe that the US is writing NYC off.
Anyway, bizarre priorities aside, the troops keep going
into the tunnels until they find Eichmann… who lures them into a trap. Vasily
manages to rescue two but the rest are wiped out by vampires and Bolivar
himself (and their new ability to make screechy noises that hurt human ears,
apparently?)
Last person to catch up with – Augustin, Gus, is looking
after his vampire mother by chaining her up and feeding her his blood. No way
that’ll end well.
