The game changed drastically in this week’s episode of The Strain as a new force arrived in New York to battle the vampires.
Concentration Camp Flashbacks Return
The last that we saw of Abraham Setrakian in the Nazi concentration camps, he saw The Master arrive and start to kill his fellow prisoners and desperately wanted to find a way to survive. It looks like he used his woodworking time to design and create a Jewish protection piece – one that Thomas Eichorst’s Nazi soldiers found.
After watch them kill two prisoners while searching for who owned the piece, Abraham finally stepped forward and admitted to it. Surprisingly to him, he was not killed or punished, but was actually rewarded by getting a new assignment at the camp. He was to design something for Thomas and working on it helped take his mind off the horrors of the camp.
Throughout the episode, Thomas paid visits to Abraham as he worked on the project and we got some fantastic scenes as Thomas at first defended Hitler as a democratically elected official that the German people wanted to lead them and then later talking about a new Reich that could replace it (meaning that of The Master).
It was great character development and the relationship between Thomas and Abraham is still the best on the show.
A Plan Gone Wrong
Sadly, for a vampire hunter as experienced as Abraham, he proved in this episode to be very shortsighted. Remember last week when Abraham said he had a new plan? Well, that plan was to lure Thomas into the open and then follow him back to The Master, where they could kill him.
Sadly, the plan was doomed from the start. The first step was to head to Jim and ask him to help them get in contact with the men who have been blackmailing him. It just seems that Jim is the most tragic character on the show. Everything he has done was to help his wife get the cancer treatment she needed and in this episode she leaves him in anger when she disbelieves everything about the vampires. Finally, Thomas tells Jim that his betrayal means that his wife will not get the cancer treatment and will die. It sucks to be Jim.
As for the plan, Abraham decides to have Jim lure Thomas to the New York subway station and then they follow him into the tunnels in search of The Master. Of course, they can’t keep up with a vampire on the run in the tunnels, Abraham almost dies, and Thomas gets away.
Gus is in Jail and No One Cares
Gus is now in jail after killing the vampire in last week’s episode. The cops don’t believe anything he is saying because crazy things happen in New York all the time. Gus’ best friend is changing because the vampire worm is in him and the cops refuse to bring anyone in to help him. Soon, his friend will change and start to kill people and there will be no one to blame but the cops. Things are about to really kick into action for Gus.
Quinlan Arrives
He wasn’t named in this episode, but at the end when the vampire paramilitary force shows up with guns ablazing, the leader is Quinlan and this force is The Born – and they are huge players in the wold of The Strain.
Backing up some, this entire plot line starts when Neeva (Joan the lawyer’s housekeeper) is still keeping the two kids at her apartment. She calls Joan’s husband and warns him that something is wrong, but he doesn’t believe her, heads home and gets killed by a growing vampire pack at his house, led by his wife. Then Neeva’s daughter tells her mother that they have to return the kids as she also doesn’t believe her mom.
When they arrive, they find the dad bleeding out on the bedroom floor and then Joan attacks. They run upstairs (what?) and hides in a room with a glass wall and door (what?). These dumb moves leads to the vampire busting in the door and moving in for the kill.
That is when Quinlan blasts Nora’s head off in front of her kids (lawsuits over!) and then guns down the other vampires. They bring Neeva, her daughter and the two kids out. After investigating to make sure none of them were hurt, they shoot Neeva’s daughter in the head because she was cut open by a vampire tongue and say that she was corrupted.
With so many people on this show refusing to open their eyes and see what is happening, and refusing to believe anyone who warns them, I love the ones who turn a blind eye dying. And I loved the arrival of Quinlan, a true game changer for The Strain.