As Season Two of The Strain comes to a close, we’re getting to see this show improve greatly, finally becoming a mix of suspense and occasionally silly horror with actual stakes. The height of this upswing in quality comes in “Dead End,” an episode that expertly balances everything this show should be, but also disappointingly uses the all-too-frequent trope of suggesting a rape as a way of building momentum and fear. Especially in an episode like “Dead End,” where almost every other aspect is firing on all cylinders, this misstep is even more egregious.
What makes “Dead End” so fantastic is how it leans into the horror genre in a way that The Strain rarely does. “Dead End” does this by focusing on Thomas Eichorst, likely the show’s most horrific character, who is almost always composed, which makes it even more terrifying when he occasionally breaks from his cool. Throughout “Dead End,” we’re given a series of flashbacks that hint that maybe Eichorst is misunderstood, that there’s a reason behind the monster we see planning awful things in the present.
As the show flashes back to 1931 Germany, we see Eichorst as a failed salesman with a crush. Maybe he became this way because he saw a way to finally succeed in life? Or maybe as Dutch puts it, he joined the Nazi party because he couldn’t get laid? As we go through the first half of the episode, these flashbacks give us a mostly sympathetic view of the man—and what is it, exactly, that turns him to the side of the Nazis? Quite simply, the belief that what they were doing was right and that the Jewish people were the reason for the plight occurring to Germany. The Strain smartly gives us a glimmer of hope, that this man might not be as bad as we believe him to be, before snatching it away and laughing at us for ever thinking such a thing. We even see the last remnants of humanity leaving him, as he lies to the Nazi party so that the Jewish woman he once had an office crush on gets hung. While he hides his true feelings towards her, he still has no qualms about flicking his cigarette at her dangling body.
Back in the present, here’s where things get even more complicated. Eichorst has trapped Dutch at the Mayfield Hotel for unknown reasons. When Dutch asks Eichorst what he’s going to do to her, he chillingly replies, “everything.” What follows is a true horror story, with Dutch escaping her shackles and running around a hotel room that has her trapped by strategically placed brick walls at every exit. Once again, “Dead End” presents the idea of hope, before snatching it away and letting the dread set in.
This alone is a fantastic way to handle The Strain, and it’s one of the most gripping hours the show has ever created, by far. But it’s Eichorst’s view of “everything” that seems incredibly questionable. Eichorst obviously puts Dutch through mental anguish, even making her watch as he forces a cop to drink a bottle of Schnapps, before drinking his blood, which Eichorst calls a human cocktail. He also has Dutch chained by her neck and forces her to eat pineapple to “season” her. From the beginning of the episode, it’s established that Eichorst has dominance over Dutch, but to push things over the unnecessary edge, Eichorst forces Dutch to take off her pants, spread her legs and bend over as he waits from behind. We see him lap his strigoi tongue at what he sees, before Dutch turns around and maces Eichorst right in his false eyes.
There’s no need to threaten rape on Dutch when we already see the power dynamic between these two. It’s even heavily hinted that this is a vengeance-related move because Dutch reminds him of the Jewish girl he used to like, but it’s such a terrible way to increase the tension in an episode that is already incredibly tense. As much as I often like Carlton Cuse’s writing, this episode and Bates Motel’s first season show that Cuse will often use the idea of rape to push forward a story when frankly, it’s absolutely unnecessary.
Besides this awful digression, the Dutch/Eichorst scenario is incredibly well put together and represent some of the tensest moments the show has ever created. Thankfully “Dead End” sticks to the Eichorst story for most of the episode, only occasionally catching up with Fet, Nora and Eph as they come to Mayfield to save Dutch, which they eventually do (even though for some reason Fet still has time to give his compatriots a history lesson on the hotel where the woman he loves is being force-fed pineapple).
Whenever “Dead End” deviates from the Mayfield Hotel, the episode drags significantly. Setrakian gets caught by the boy from the convent that took the Lumen, who eventually seems on his way to selling it to a higher bidder. Poor Setrakian has been running after this damn book all season and I just want this plot to be over. Give him the book, or don’t. The end.
We also finally catch back up with Angel and Gus, who consummates his relationship with Aanya before he has to say goodbye to her and her family. With them apparently safe, Angel and Gus team up to fight. As much as I want the Gus story to be as interesting as this show thinks it is, we check up on it so rarely, it gets hard to care at all about a character we see maybe every three weeks.
For a series that has had consistent problems with tone, “Dead End” is the closest The Strain has gotten at nailing its tone. But the implied attempts at rape almost spoil the good grace the episode creates, not to mention the half-assed secondary plots that need some sort of resolution soon. “Dead End” comes so close to greatness, but goes too far in its attempts to shock and push the terror to its breaking point.
Ross Bonaime is a D.C.-based freelance writer and regular contributor to Paste. You can follow him on Twitter.