The Strain... on The Strain's Watchability

How the fuck do we take that seriously as a villain?
"God hates Morons" - Nate Fisher, Six Feet Under, S01E12



So, last Sunday, FX's The Strain aired its season one finale. Thus far, I've been sticking it out with this show, waiting for it, like The Leftovers to pay off after making us wait for so long. Unfortunately, as of the season finale, this has not happened. Instead, we got an hour of development on the plot with no apparent climax or important moment. Honestly, this episode felt a lot more like the tenth episode of a thirteen episode season, not the thirteenth.

So, that being said, what did we get out of this episode? Was there anything really worth watching in it? Will we even care when season two rolls around?
The answer is a begrudging yes.

Starting off, there was the development on Gus and the Vampire Hit Squad. After randomly kidnapping him away from Marlo Stanfield in the last episode, Gus started out this episode trapped in an underground cavern with the leader of the Hit Squad, Mr. Quinlan. After annoyingly trying to run away for half the episode, we finally got to a scene where Gus stumbled into a room with three very old vampires sitting in highchairs in a pool of blood. Quinlan explained that these are the "ancients", a group of... big shocker... ancient vampires. Apparently, The Master is one of them, but broke some truce they had by starting the plot of the show. Anyways, Quinlan tells Gus that he wants him to be their "Day-warrior", essentially a total badass that can do the work in the day that the vampires cannot. I like this plot a lot, but it does have a lot of unanswered questions involved. For starters, why the fuck did they single out Gus to be the warrior?! All he's done thus far is kill like 8 vampires in a box with the help of Marlo! Why not pick Setrakian?! Or Fet? Or Eph for that matter?! All of them are a hell of a lot more useful than Gus, the guy who didn't believe there were vampires until like a day ago. As far as season two goes, I'll definitely end up watching it because I'm the loser that I am, but if this plot isn't heavily incorporated, I'll be really pissy.
Moving on, the main focus of this episode was on Eph, Fet, Nora, Abe, and Zach going after The Master. Although it made for compelling action scenes, I couldn't help but feel like this was forced. They went after The Master like two episodes ago, and basically the same thing happened. They confronted The Master, they almost got him, and then he got away. This time he just got away in the sunlight. Big whoop. Somehow this just didn't have the big dramatic effect that it should have. Nobody died, nothing incredibly significant happened, and all of our characters seem to be back at square one.
All of our characters... except for one! Eldritch Palmer! This old geezer has spent literally every episode except for this one lying in bed bitching. Now, after The Master gave him some life juice or whatever, he is out and about! First thing he does is go meet with the person in charge of alerting the government to what's going on in New York. After she says she needs to alert the government, Eldritch throws her off the roof of a building. I really would have liked this scene, except for one small problem.
IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE! WHY THE FUCK IS THIS ONE WOMAN IN CHARGE OF ALERTING THE GOVERNMENT?! EVERYONE IN NEW YORK IS DEAD OR DYING! THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD ALREADY FUCKING KNOW!

Okay, that may have been an overreaction... but I don't think so.
It just doesn't make sense that after a full week of this going on, nobody has done anything at all to help! Vampires are munching on people in the middle of the world's most successful city, and nobody seems to give a flying fuck. I know that Americans are supposedly caught up in their own lives, but this is like 9/11 times one thousand. Even if the Breaking Bad finale was on, people still would get up to help! Okay, maybe not if Bad was on, but still.
Anyways, that basically sums up the whole episode. One nameless lady and a bunch of vampires were the only significant deaths, Gus being kidnapped for no real reason was the only significant plot development, and The Master still looks like a carnival clown.

At this point, I really just can't take The Strain seriously. Yes, it's really fun to watch. Yes, I'll watch season two. And Yes, it's hard to believe that David Bradley, Walder Frey from Game of Thrones, is a Jew. But hell, what is television if not an hour of fun each week? Who am I kidding? Guillermo, you've hooked me. But mark my words, if you give anyone else a hairpiece as bad as Corey Stoll's, try to say that another old English man is Jewish, or make Alexander Skarsgard the only sexy vampire in the world, I will quit watching!
This I promise! This I swear!

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