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.