The most compelling mystery in The Strain is not the one at its core because so far, this vampirism outbreak is stalled due to convoluted character backstory and attempts to intertwine them with some emotional significance.
Nay, the biggest question surrounding The Strain at this point, at least for me is, has Guillermo del Toro lost his ever-loving mind with this crap? From the two episodes that have aired, the answer seems to be a resounding, YUP. Even if del Toro didn’t direct “The Box”; he directed the pilot, is credited as director for two other episodes, and is co-creator of the source material I will never, ever now read.
At this point, The Strain leaves so much to be desired, you can only hope that del Toro’s other efforts, like Crimson Peak (or one of the other many projects he constantly has in the pipeline) can only be better than this FX nonsense we’ve been watching, RIGHT?!?!
I guess the only positive thing I can say about the show is that it’s not as boring as The Leftovers, which, isn’t saying very much. But this show just keeps going on, so let’s get to it.
Dr. Goodweather learns the harsh lesson this week that you should never declare a plane full of people dead unless you’re rilly sure. Between the four survivors being released back into the public, finding Bishop’s headless corpse, and The Man shutting down Goodweather’s operation; it’s honestly a miracle Stoll and his wig make it to an AA meeting, all in the same day. Someone (or their wig) take that Beyonce mug a little too seriously.
But a few helpful tidbits manage to float their way to the top of this bloated show.
All over Bishops crime scene, besides the brain matter-mess, the Vampire Overlord left behind traces of biological discharge, similar to that of a tick. Um, vampire ticks? SHIT IS GROSS. But also, creepy-cool.
The second bit of Good To Know Goodweather and his lover-CDC peer glean is, those little worm things? Yeah, they’ve got TWO tiny mouths, sort of resembling the mouth-within-a-mouth of the alien in Alien. Oh and, it has quaint taste for blood too! Delightful.
Elsewhere, in less interesting parts of the episode, the survivors (for now) of the virus are experiencing the after-effects of “carbon monoxide poisoning”; a story the media and The Man stick to as an explanation for the mystery plane but, was planted by the Old Guy With The Liver Thing Who Has A Stake In The Vampire Overlord. DUN DUN – PLOT TWIST.
And while we’re on the subject of The Government, Goodweather meets up with Captain Redford who looks like death warmed up when he tells Goodweather that he saw the box in question, the missing one that made its way out of JFK. Redford let it aboard, last minute addition to cargo, at the behest of “official looking” Government types. Good job moron, so can we all just blame the Captain of the flight and call this shit a day yet? No? Fine.
We’re introduced to more useless side characters, the Russian Vermin Cop that ruins an entire restaurants Sunday Brunch by flinging around a dead rat and that’s about it. I have no idea how this was supposed to advance the plot. Regina King was almost a pleasant surprise until it’s revealed she’s the Goth Rockers manager/agent (?). Mainly, it seems likes she’s there to help Goth Rocker sue the shit out of the airline and also find several classy ladies to “clean his pipes”. HE MEANS SLUTS TO GIVE HIM ALL THE BLOW JOBS GUYS.
There’s a point near the end of the episode where the show veers so severely into camp, it no longer feels fair to call The Strain “horror”. It’s right around when the worlds least sexy four-way ends in blood, which isn’t half as sexy/cool as it might sound. After yelling at and kicking out half naked groupies, Mr. Vampire Rock starts lapping up the spilled blood off the floor. It’s not hot, scary, weird, or even gross. It’s plain fucking silly.
There is zero suspense on this show because the characters choose to open their mouths and ramble about themselves as pointlessly as people do in your FaceBook feed. Sitting through the 40 minutes of exposition to see the back of The Master’s head that looks (and sounds) like a less menacing Voldemort. Gag me with a spoon, it doesn’t get less creative than that.
Even when the darling little French girl kills her naive Pepe Le Peu Father in the bathtub, you’re not worried or the least bit scared. You’re wondering why in the fuck it took til the last 5 minutes to get here. The monster she unleashes looks great, complete gross-out moment. But that’s all it is, a fucking moment.Then, whoops, gotta wait till next week and some more meaningless subplots with characters you don’t give a fuck about that will (hopefully) be dead by series end.
If your show is supposed to be Horror, your batting average should be better than 1 kill per episode. This is FX for Christ Sake – Fargo had MINIMUM one kill per episode.
My hopes, they ain’t high.
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