After all the excitement of last week’s “Creatures of the Night,” it’s time for the team from The Strain to cool down a bit, regroup and get ready for the next wave of strigoi. The show has amped up the excitement in the past few weeks, with Eichorst subway fights and gas station battles, so “The Disappeared” is an opportunity for these characters to figure out the next step in this battle.
For Eph, that of course means reuniting his family. He’s already taken the first steps by rescuing his son Zack, and killing his replacement/his ex-wife’s boyfriend Matt, who had been turned into a strigoi. (Frankly, I don’t think he would’ve minded killing him regardless.) However Eph’s ex-wife Kelly is still missing, so that’s his next point of concern, as opposed to the giant infestation that is occurring all around him. Although he does want to get his family back together again, he still finds the time to have sex with Nora in his old bedroom, before making the trek to familial bliss.
Meanwhile, Dutch goes to her apartment with Setrakian, realizes her roommate stole her money and computer, then confesses her involvement in the whole situation to Setrakian. His response is pretty flippant, because—honestly—who cares about Dutch at this point anyway?
Then on the other side of town, Gus is being transported in a police van, when his friend Felix turns. Gus has to kill his best friend, and then run away, I imagine to Setrakian’s pawnshop to get the final team together.
As the heroes are uniting under their new base at Setrakian’s pawnshop, the truly interesting stories are coming from the villains, most notably Eichorst. Following the lead of Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds, Eichorst is one of the few Nazis that is actually fun to watch. Through another flashback, we see the destruction of the Nazi base in Poland and Eichorst’s loss of faith, as he fears that The Master has turned his back on him.
Plenty of the bad guys in The Strain are bland—basically, anything that happens with the Stoneheart Group is immediately boring, but Eichorst is truly the first interesting character in the entire show. Yes, Eichorst is a Nazi and yes, that is absolutely terrible. But he brings a vulnerability at times and a surprising layer of caring that occasionally seeps out. He’s 99% evil, but that 1% that makes him human is fascinating.
Also at this point, The Strain should probably be giving us more of The Master. We’re supposed to consider him this pure, evil monstrosity that could destroy the world, but besides inserting some worms into the arm of Eichorst—and finally showing his face—there’s not much to him as a character. To understand the stakes, you sort of have to give us the stakes.
These last few episodes of The Strain have been a major step up from the beginning of the series. Now, all the writers have to do is evolve these characters a bit, and set up some basic stakes, all of which could end this first season on a high note.
Ross Bonaime is a D.C.-based freelance writer and regular contributor to Paste. You can follow him on Twitter.