(Spoilers Below)
THE STRAIN SEASON 1 EPISODE 2, “THE BOX”
Departing from traditional recap form in light of last week’s tl;dr situation, here is an enumeration of what we learned about eyeball worms this week:
1. We have a new friend! His name is Vasiliy Fet, he likes cats, and his business is pest control. In NYC, business is always good. In this ep, he’s most concerned with controlling the rat population immediately outside his Red Hook warehouse and in trendy downtown eating establishments, but I can’t wait to see him deal with eyeball worms.
2. Gus is really fun to imitate. All you have to do is love your mom a lot and try to sound like what you think a thug with big biceps would sound like. Make sure to call everyone white boy, especially reptilian German vampire men appearing to be well past boyhood. Shove your beer loving, layabout brother around. It’s good for him.
3. Sean Astin is not a doctor. He’ll puke at the sight of a man with his head caved in. This possibly has something to do with realizing his own personal responsibility for Bishop’s death and everything else that’s unfolding. Kind of a heavy weight to bear.
4. Disinformation is a virus! Palmer has created a cover-up story about the plane involving a carbon monoxide leak and everyone’s anxious to believe it, particularly two of the four survivors, Bolivar and Joan Luss. They’re out of quarantine and ready to sue. They’re also ready to bite some people. The worm wants what it wants, and what it wants is sweet, sweet blood. Because Bolivar is not in the habit of controlling any impulses and clearly has poor judgment (as evidenced by the wig and taste in home furnishings) he is the first to attack another person after he’s released from quarantine, in the midst of a cliche-FX girl-on-girl-on-girl-on-boy lingerie orgy.
5. Herr Eichorst and Abraham Setrakian have quite a history. It seems to go back to the Holocaust, or some sort of situation similar to the Holocaust. When Eichorst visits Setrakian in jail, he repeatedly calls him “Jew” and refers to the number Setrakian has tattooed on his arm. It’s not enough that Eichorst is a vampire—he is a NAZI vampire. Just in case any of you were thinking about rooting for him.
6. Eph is powerless to shut down the airport, because that will shut down New York’s economy, and who really cares about eyeball worms as long as their stocks are doing ok? His edict is dismissed by his superior and Margaret Pearson, the director of health and human services for NYC. Guess what guys, the government might be corrupt. Men like Palmer and companies like the Stoneheart Group might control it. I know that’s probably difficult for C&L readers to believe, but suspend your disbelief.
7. Nora and Eph discover that the worm wants sweet, sweet blood. Eph also discovers that he needs to lay a smooch on Nora before he goes to visit his estranged wife and her new boyfriend in Queens. I hope that smooch offset Kelly’s weird vibes, her friend Diane’s day drinking, his son’s incredibly weird precocious grasp of adult situations, and the boyfriend Matt’s awkward man-hug. Also:
8. Eph is an alcoholic.
9. Eph and Nora convince the captain of the flight to go to the hospital rather than go home, and therefore learn that the worms also live just under people’s skin. The captain is lousy with worms. Reader, this scene makes me itch.
10. Gary Arnaud, cute dead Emma’s dad, calls to thank Eph for releasing his daughter. This is the first indication Eph and Nora have that maybe there’s a zombie vampire situation related to the bloodthirsty worm situation. Having fulfilled his function, the writers promptly make Gary Arnuad die at the hands, scratch that, vampiric snake proboscis of his daughter. With a knick knack paddywack give a dog a bone, now Gary Arnaud is a zombie vampire with eyeball worms. (Loosely affiliated with the Nazi party.) Eph and Nora go to the ME’s office only to find that all corpses have split the scene, leaving only some stray worms in their wake.
11. Palmer gets his first glimpse of the Master—who pulls down his Grim Reaper hood to reveal a humanoid skull formation, albeit one possibly related to Game of Thrones’ The Mountain or Dwayne Johnson. He’s huge, is what I’m saying, and he has Nosferatu ears and a loud purr. Palmer has to look away and probably has to change his trousers (or wait, his assistant has to change Palmer’s trousers) he’s so afraid. Will he come to his senses?
See you next week, bloodsuckers!
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