When the audio on my Comcast cable box went out unexpectedly on Sunday, I was relieved to not have to watch The Strain this week; I’m a size snob and there’s nothing worse than watching a show you already don’t like on a tinier, more frustrating screen. I digress because instead of making up what happened in “Runaways”, like I’d planned to do if the problem didn’t resolve itself but did, I suffered through another fairly lame episode of set-up and exposition – as The Strain loves to do. This is why I’m weary of doling out compliments, as I did in my hopeful-ish review last week, I wish I could take it all back now. YOU WON’T FOOL ME TWICE DEL TORO.
What I dislike about The Strain most, besides it being solid evidence of del Toro being surrounded by people who must only say ‘YUP!’ to any and every idea he has, is that the preview for next weeks episode always looks way better (and more interesting) than what you just watched. I know that’s the entire point of teaser trailers (unless you’re Mad Men) but it only amplifies the jipped feeling that descends upon me whenever 11pm on Sunday rolls around.
But we’re nearly halfway through this dreck (5 episodes down, six more to go) and I haven’t quit anything since Girl Scouts and I’m not starting now – I’m a complainer not a quitter, BRING ON THE LAMENESS STRAIN.
A majority of “Runaways” focused itself around a disjointed World War II flashback, featuring a young Pawn Shop Keeper in Poland because of course this was coming – Nazi vampires. I called it in my first review – I CALL EVERYTHING. The two things to take away from these flashbacks are one question and one comment. Question: Are we really supposed to believe Hitler used a vampire virus during the Holocaust or is simply responsible for unleashing The Master? Cause high school history class already pokes hella holes in this ridiculous notion – suspended disbelief or not. Comment: The Master essentially face fucks the life force out of you then snaps your neck – dead, and you thought your last one-night stand was a dick for never calling back…
As for present day survivors, Marilyn Manson wannabe Gabe not only kills the pointless urologist who shows up to check out his now non-existent peen, he scares the living daylights out of Regina King. Gabe also goes to town on the “fixer” King sends over to Gabe’s house to cover up his first murder (?). Do I smell a Ray Donovan/The Strain crossover in season two? God, I fucking hope not. Other survivors aren’t faring much better, Lawyer Lady is on the brink of either eating her Nanny or her two kids, sadly neither transpire over the course of “Runaways” – they get away all safely and shit, BOOOOO. And the Russian Vermin Cop discovers that – holy schnikes! – vampires are already living underground and having daily rat feasts. Yet, NO ONE HAS CALLED IN JACK SHIT CAUSE WHATEVS THIS IS SEH NORMZ. But we do find out that vampires are allergic to sun in Strain’s wacky-ass world, where everyone speaks to each other in lengthy, repetitive exposition.
As for the CDC Three, Eph returns to the office to attempt to convince his Boss, with an iPhone video (oh, and iPhones have SIM cards now!) of him and Pawn Shop Keeper decapitating Ansel and the Dickhead Neighbor in a shed, that this is SERIOUS. One minute, Eph’s Boss seems to be on his side and the next, Jim is ushering Eph out of the building because Eph is fucked – they’ve seen the video of him (in the eyes of the CDC) murdering Captain Redfern.
The Strain endeavors to end “Runaways” on a cliff-hanger note but since this shows stakes (pun in-fucking-tended) are so damn low, you know all this set-up and exposition is an exercise in futility – get to fucking part where this shit starts terrorizing New York, not like I have high hopes for that storyline either, at least it’d be something. Luckily-ish, that seems to be where next weeks episode “Occultation” seems to be headed but knowing The Strain, they’ll probably fuck up this next phase of the show, no matter how interesting they make it seem in 15 seconds.
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