{TB Talks TV} The Strain Review: “The Box”
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By: Greg Benevent, Contributor
There are two different kinds of TV drama second episodes. One is basically a second version of the pilot for everyone who didn’t see it, covering much of the same ground while at least trying to go forward a little. The other kind just gallops ahead with the story, leaving you to catch up or not. I thought we were going to get the second kind with THE STRAIN. We got a not terribly compelling version of the first kind.
What’s killing this show right now is that the audience is too far ahead of the characters. The audience knows so much that Eph and Dr. Martinez don’t that it forces us to wait for them to catch up. When they arrive at the coroner’s office, (a scene that should be harrowing, creepy, and all the wonderful things we signed up for) it’s flat, because we aren’t experiencing it with them. We watched the wolf pack gang/orgy/feast scene last week.
This has a corrosive effect of making all of the mysteries less interesting. We know Abraham has quite a beef with the vampires, particularly Eichorst due to being imprisoned by him/the Nazis/vampires in World War 2. We don’t know exactly what the vampires’ plan is, but it sure feels like the plan is “Let The Vampires Run Rampant, We’ll Be Safe And/Or Working With the Master, So We’re Going to Come Out OK On This Whole Apocalypse Thing.” There’s been nothing to suggest yet that they’ll be any kind of twist to these stories. Nothing to pull us through the tale, other than the promise that at some point we’re just going to throw down and do the second half of “From Dusk Till Dawn” in downtown New York City. Which is not a bad consolation prize, as such things go.
(Source: FX)
Vasily Fet, a pretty interesting guy who may be a New York Pest Control cop or may be an exterminator and may definitely be a vampire hunter, is introduced during cool stuff (swinging a weapon!) in his basement. Felix gets the Master in his box across the bridge and into an abandoned warehouse. He sees the box is starting to shake, and he flees. I like the title. It gets in, it gets out, and we’re on with the show.
Back at JFK Airport, we finally found the guy loudly decapitated last week. Eph, Dr. Martinez and Sean Astin use the body as an excuse to bring Agent “What Happened On Last Week’s Episode” and the audience up to speed. Honestly, I thought the show did a nice job with this scene, filling in people who missed last week without really slapping the audience across the face with it.
But, the four survivors have been released from the quarantine and are set to go home, in fulfillment of the Master’s plan. Eph manages to keep them quarantined a little longer. I bumped a little bit against the idea that they would all turn down the medical care to get on with their lives (since each of them doesn’t seem to be 100%) but the idea that the Master/the Strain/the bad vampire stuff inside them could be controlling them a little is enough to let it fly.
At the Stoneheart Group, Eldritch and Eichorst talk about…something. These scenes are also working against this show. The idea of an old billionaire working with vampires to bring about the end of the world is great, awesome, insert superlative here, with any number of fascinating threads to explore. But these two scenes capture all the high drama and dread of two mild acquaintances slightly disagreeing. Like so much else in this show, they’re telling us something fun will happen eventually without giving anything in the meantime. It’s like being told to “eat your vegetables” but those vegetables have the nutritional value of Doritos.
Abraham’s in jail, but holding up well. Eichorst shows up to taunt him about the old days. This scene is probably the highlight of the episode, as it’s two people who genuinely hate each other having a conversation. It feels a little bit false that Abraham would take all this taunting from Eichorst before saying he killed Eichorst’s colleague (I found myself yelling: “Why don’t you just leave??” a few times to Abraham during this scene) but mostly it works. However, let us never again speak of “admitting to a vicious, brutal murder while meeting a visitor in jail.”
At his mom’s home, Felix deals with his junkie brother and adoring mother. Felix is the great hope for this show, as Pedro Miguel Arce’s performance is great, and the character could be a fascinating window into what the end of the world could look like from a poverty-stricken man with a past doing horrible things to save his family. He also seems to be acting like he’s in a prestige crime drama, not a show where a tentacle flies out of a little girl’s mouth and kills her father.
Back at the airport, Eph and Dr. Martinez are told that they can’t keep the four survivors here any longer, and they can’t keep the quarantine going. It’s not at all a bad version of “we can’t close the beaches on the 4th of July” but it still rings a little bit false. This is happening in New York City, a place that’s seen the absolute worst in disasters and terrorist attacks. Obviously, everyone would be doing anything they could to keep commerce going, but…it’s hard to think that the CDC would be overridden with such little consideration, even after Eph gets a bit aggressive.
Eph and Dr. Martinez meet the Captain of the flight (one of the survivors) at a bar. He reveals “the box” was put on “by government officials with suits and badges.” Eph sends him to an emergency room where there’s a good doctor who will…tell Eph stuff the audience found out early last week. There’s a bit of talk about “covering asses” and “not looking for the truth,” which is a little much coming from a character who just a few minutes ago (despite feeling guilty about it) laid down that rationalizating speech about “government agents with badges.”
In a makeshift lab, (where Dr. Martinez tells us we could be thrown out of at any time) Eph learns that the CGI worms really devour blood, giving us some cool visuals. He gets a text from his son to go talk to him, and to remind the audience that there’s a whole thing with Eph’s family. On his way out, he kisses Dr. Martinez which felt…a bit surprising, but at least kind of human. I liked the two of them in that moment more than I did in any other moment so far. It felt like an actual moment inside all this craziness when two people could share a connection.
Vasily! He’s at a restaurant that has an expensive brunch, where two of the survivors are – Early Type O Negative and Lawyer Lady. (Since those titles are good enough for the show, they’re good enough for me.) Vasily shuts down the brunch, and chases everyone out by waving rats around (which, admittedly, would do it. Although, if you watch, there’s a hilarious moment where one of the women fleeing the restaurant from the rat is clearly smiling broadly). Type O and Lawyer Lady are discussing their lawsuit when Lawyer Lady finds some of her blood in her champagne, which admittedly, she takes like a champ. She turns down sex from Type O to go home, a solid decision. (Not as good as “seeking medical treatment when you start bleeding in your mouth,” but definitely second place).
Eldritch is going to meet the Master. His assistant is not happy about it. When they held hands in the elevator, I really hoped this was going to become a Mr. Burns/Smithers thing, but alas, no. If all this running in place hadn’t ground the episode/series to a halt, Eph going to talk to his son/ex-wife/her new guy certainly did. Eph’s wife is glad he’s on the case, and while the “Ex-Wife Is Super Confident In Our Hero” is odd, it’s not terrible. Eph even has a nice moment with his wife’s new man, where Eph is hugged. Eph and his son Zack talk about the custody hearing tomorrow, and while we should be invested in this, it’s sure hard to be when “tomorrow” might/will hopefully involve vampires roaming the streets. Then Eph goes to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
I don’t really have notes on this scene. I kinda watched it through my fingers. Eph being an alcoholic is fine. Having him give a long speech telling the audience things we already know/have seen is not. (Also, he doesn’t seem to understand the definition of the word “sarcasm.”) One of the people I watch this show with did call out: “Hey, this show is about vampires, right?” Eph mentioning how important his kid is to him did feel like it went long on “show” and not so much on “tell.”
This is FX, so we can have some sex (but not too much, this is not HBO). Typo O Negative is in bed with three women at once (which feels like one woman too many, even for decadence’s sake). He bites one on the neck, then as they leave screaming, he licks the blood up off the floor. He doesn’t continue attacking the one he did bite, who’s bleeding everywhere, so I guess he’s still mostly in control? (Until that whole “licking the floor” thing).
Eph returns to the plot at the hospital, where Dr. Martinez and Sean Astin tell him that the pilot was real sick. Eph sees the little worms/strains/whatever we’re calling them in the pilot’s face. In the car, Eph and Dr. Martinez call the morgue, still getting no answer. Gary calls, thanking them for letting his daughter go. Eph says she’s dead, and before the argument can reveal any more of the plot to Eph, Gary hangs up. Eph (rather hilariously) tells Dr. Martinez that Gary “must be seeing ghosts” due to his grief, and so forth.
Eldritch is finally at his date with The Master. Eichorst tells Eldritch (try saying that ten times fast) that “he’s chosen you to bear witness to his glory.” Eldritch kneels before the Master, as the Master mutters something like: “You brought me all the way here. You’re going to look at me.” Eldritch looks up at him, and sees…well, something that we won’t see till later. What the audience is shown is a very tall man with a bald head, who has some long fingernails in a coat that seems to be a mix of “king’s long robe” and “hobo bags.”
Eph and Dr. Martinez finally end up at the coroner’s office, to find that it’s empty, and somewhat ransacked. All the body bags are empty… which means that, an hour into the show, our main character is just to the end of the first episode. Hurrah. Meanwhile, finally we get to have some ice cream for all those veggies, as dead little Emma sits in a bathtub. When Gary means to help her out, Emma shoots a big proboscis out of her mouth, sucking Gary’s blood and killing him instantly. Tough way to go there, Gary.
Random Splatterings of Ammonia-Based-Goo And/Or Blood:
A special wave of the giant, bloody mouth proboscis to Andrew, who left a great comment pointing out that in the script, the main character is referred to as “Eph.” That is marginally less goofy than the “F” I was typing last week.
Obviously, a horror movie is different from a horror show. Horror movie, you open with some kills, then you get a long stretch of building up to the mayhem in the last half hour or so. That’s a rough, basic template. Horror TV show has to move at a different, more deliberate pace, but man…did anyone else think we’d be two hours into this thing, and the world hadn’t ended yet?
This show needs a real knock-you-on-your-butt moment. A way to show that it belongs on FX for reasons that aren’t just blood, gore, or sex. The best FX shows do breathtaking things with character and story. Kill Dr. Martinez. Or Eph’s family. Or Abraham. Something to shake this up.
I don’t ask this question sarcastically, or even critically, as it’s very personal: anyone scared by this? (And if you are, that’s great. Nothing wrong with that, fear is as relative as comedy, or anything else). I’d love to be scared by this (by God, I’d love to love this show) but everything feels too removed from the world to be afraid of anything in it. Of course, a few more scenes like at the end of the episode, and that could certainly change.
Lead in movie tonight: “Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I.” If you were into that film, I bet you loved this.
Coming Up Next Week On “The Strain!”
… uh, beats me. Sure looks like a lot of the same stuff we did this week, only with more rats. Maybe they’ll take over the custody hearing.
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Greg Benevent is an aspiring TV writer with specs as proboscis to your neck. He also does stand-up in Los Angeles.
Twitter: @gregbenevent
