Now eight episodes in, The Strain seems to have produced an episode that personifies everything good and bad about itself. As the show continues on its run, it is starting to gain a stronger understanding of fluidity—both in narrative and tone—and it also seems to be a little more cheeky than it was before.
That said, however, the plot is starting to run more and more on tired story lines and overused cliches to keep itself going. This episode, written by co-creator and co-author Chuck Hogan, ends up being the worst script yet. Mainly because the show can never get out of habit of writing these characters like real people.
Case in point, there are vampires everywhere around you, people dying left and right, but you—the cashier—kept wondering when your people are going to buy the items you are taking? Honestly? Nobody, and I mean nobody, would care if there were freaking zombie vampires all around you. But Hogan continues to be inept at writing supporting characters with believable dialogue.
What he, and the other writers, do excel at is writing exposition and straight talk. That is when the show is at its best, and there are flashes of that here as there always is. This episode more or less acts as a bottle episode, with a majority of the episode taking place in a lone gas station, where most of the primary characters find themselves locked inside trying to figure out how to get away from these vampire zombies, or zombie vampires. When the show sticks to its basics, it can produce some sternly grim-minded entertainment. But when it has to try to have characters talk like real human beings, it fails and then some.
The biggest things that happened this week is that Eph (Corey Stoll) Nora (Mia Maestro), Jim (Sean Astin) and Abraham (David Bradley) joined forces with Vasiliy (Kevin Durand) and the introduction of one new primary character in the form of Dutch (Ruta Gedmintas)—a computer and phone hacker that just so happens to look like a supermodel. Oh yeah, and one main character met his end this week. Without giving it away, I will say it was one character that was not among the favorites. So, I don't consider it much of a lost. If you read my past reviews, you can vender to guess who it was.
All in all, this was by no means a terrible episode, just another of the show not quite living up to its full potential while ironically still showing off its good side in health doses. What makes this episode more disappointing is that, not only did it not live up to last week's quite good installment, but it also didn't address anything that was set up then either. Also, not having more Thomas (Richard Sammel) is a big no-no.
Image courtesy of Peter West/ACE Pictures