All the recap that should have stated the previous
episode has now been pushed into this episode for some reason.
Anyway we catch up with the evil guy, Eldritch Palmer,
who is super unhappy, His health is failing, Coco is dead, he has no-one around
him he likes very much and Eichorst is taunting him and make him play
subservient loyal follower
It doesn’t suit him well.
He’s been denied the White which is why his health his
failing
His first option is to pay some unethical scientists to
experiment on vampires and sick people to try and discover the White. It doesn’t
work – it does kill people and eventually the scientists walk away because they
can’t tolerate the terribad things he’s making them done
That leaves making a deal with Abraham to see if he will
share… Abe considers it but, ultimately, knows better than to trust Palmer –
though in the process Vasiliy learns about the white and Abraham’s use, it’s
going to be interesting to see how he manages this.
Abe, meanwhile, is still trying to translate the Lumen
and not really achieving a great deal. While his own health is beginning to
fail – much to Vasiliy’s obvious concern. Quinlan is frustrated by them not
actually doing anything and then Ephraim shows up
Ephraim has spent a long time to tell them about Nora and
Zack – and Quinlan is duly suspicious of the delay while Abe is all sympathetic
while warning Ephraim that the Master has an evil nefarious plan involving
Zach. Well duh.
Quinlan keeps being suspicious, not even remotely put off
by Ephraim’s wall of arseholery until he finds Ephraim trying to steal the book
– Quinlan wants in on this action because he’s sure that the book can kill the
Master by using it as bait.
Can we address the one point everyone skipped over –
while everyone is dismissing the Lumen, ultimately Abe is right. The Elders AND
the Master both wouldn’t be losing their ever loving shit over this book if it
wasn’t dangerous to them
And drawing the Master out? Why? Why would the Master come to collect the book himself? Why not just send 80 kajillion vampires? After all, he stopped Ephraim’s train by literally throwing vampires at the tracks until it derailed. Why attend in person?
Now for a fun bit – Dutch has returned! I did worry she
was going to disappear entirely. But she’s back in the picture, running with
her old gang of hackers and losing all patience with their nonsense. They’re
all idealistic and still looking back at their activism days and drawing
comparisons and yay let’s raid high end skyscrapers for high end food, fuck the
haves etc etc
All well and good – but Dutch has seen the very different world out there. She sees the burning skyscrapers and sees this isn’t a matter of changing the world – this is the world absolutely ending. And skyscrapers with likely dozens of vampires in dark places are just a terrible death trap. The gang insists so she tries to give them some basic common sense to survive, which they ignore
Two dead later, they abandon Dutch – who, thankfully, can
look after themselves and catch up with the three survivors. She’s done with
them but does do them the last “favour” of beheading their infected leader who
dared to chew her out for abandoning them. Dutch has passed through fire and
these guys have managed to avoid the worst and she has no time for their
ignorant naivety.
I’m going to insert here how much I appreciate how good The Strain is at portraying how bad New
York is getting, the hunger, the destruction, the constant fighting – it’s all
there in the background
But it still really doesn’t make any sense them pulling
troops out of NYC – even to protect DC – when we’ve seen no real troop
deployment
Finally to Zach, the character I like the least. He is
still being held by Kate who is holding him prisoner and really trying not to
eat him. He’s not entirely useless and actually manages to escape briefly both
seeing his mother eating a child and nearly being eaten by her. She stops only
when the Master takes control of her – and gives Zach the White to help him
through an Asthma attack.
Y’know I have a whole idea about a vampire story where
vampires are tolerated – even honoured – for the healing nature of their blood
(since healing vampire blood seems to be becoming a major trope in the genre)
