6.4

The Strain: “Fallen Light”

(Episode 2.12)

TV Reviews
The Strain: “Fallen Light”

In its second season, The Strain hasn’t so much built up to anything, but rather decided to drag out its already frustrating plots for an entire season or longer. Making this worse is a lack of character consistency and the show’s inability to focus on all of its players. The Strain has gotten frustrating because occasionally it shows incredible promise (like in parts of last week’s episode) only to throw it away to focus on the wrong aspects of the series, or by trying something blatantly stupid (also like last week’s episode).

The most egregious example of The Strain’s second season dragging is poor Setrakian. This season began with him searching for the Lumen and his arc led him to…continuing to search for the Lumen. A few weeks ago he finally found the Lumen, only to have it stolen from him. Now in “Fallen Light,” the season’s penultimate episode, this whole story builds to Setrakian going to what is essentially a book auction. Last season, Setrakian was sort of a badass and his constant flashbacks gave him a depth that the other characters lacked. This season has turned him into Setrakian: Book Hunter, and it leaves the audience just wanting him to get the damn book already so this story can end.

The Strain also seems to think that its audience cares about its romantic relationships, even when it shows time and time again that it doesn’t know how to handle them. “Fallen Light” brings back the flashbacks, but this time to 2005, when Eph meets Nora for the first time. But these flashbacks would’ve been more useful at the beginning of the season, so we could understand where Nora and Eph came from, instead of now, when I think we all just assumed that relationship has been over, ever since Eph cheated on Nora in D.C. It’s been weeks since Eph and Nora showed any sort of romantic connection to each other and Nora has been relegated to little more than Zach’s babysitter this entire season.

A slightly stronger relationship is the one between Fet and Dutch, which hits harder than expected when Dutch leaves Fet, even after saving her from torture and certain death last week. Even though Dutch is doing the wrong thing, her rationalization for her choice sort of makes some sense. But later on in “Fallen Light,” Fet is the same old playful Fet, as if nothing has happened. When Dutch’s ex got back in the picture, Fet couldn’t quit complaining about it, and now he seems totally fine when she finally leaves him.

“Fallen Light” barely figures out a way to make Gus and Angel a part of the larger story. They free a bunch of prisoners to help fight along with Quinlan, but Gus and Quinlan’s alliance has been such a small part of this season, it feels incredibly anticlimactic when they finally do get together. In the end, when Quinlan tells Gus he might have to kill Setrakian, it just feels like the bare minimum of a way to get these characters back together once more.

The second season of The Strain has been incredibly mixed and never really righted itself into the show that it sometimes hints it can be. As we head into the final episode, we’re basically “building up” to discussions of a tax on the rich, a bidding war over a book and Nora and Eph dropping off Zach with his grandparents. That’s what we have to look forward to in this show about vampires taking over New York City. “Fallen Light” showcases The Strain’s problems by focusing on the relationships that never fully work, instead of paying attention to the campy horror aspects that usually work pretty well. At the very least, hopefully next week’s season finale will be a way to start over, and try again when the third season begins.


Ross Bonaime is a D.C.-based freelance writer and regular contributor to Paste. You can follow him on Twitter.

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