The Strain: “The Battle for Red Hook”

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Considering The Strain is about a group of people working to fight against a vampire invasion, it’s insane how little we actually see them, you know, working together. Even in its best episodes, the show has had all of its characters focusing on different, individual goals, which are supposed to work towards a larger goal. But “The Battle for Red Hook” is one of the rare instances when the entire gang fights for the same cause at the same time. Even if the fight at hand is pretty disappointing, it’s a step in the right direction.

Now that Red Hook has been proclaimed disease-free by Justine Feraldo, Eichorst knows he has to reclaim it. He and Kelly get a ferry, fill it with strigoi and head straight to Red Hook to wreak some havoc. Thankfully, Eph and Setrakian get to Feraldo just in time to alert them of the incoming attack. Together, Setrakian’s team of hunters prepare for a fight against the strigoi over control of an electrical station.

While the actual electrical station battle is pretty lackluster, what it effectively puts this show exactly where it should be. Almost everyone on the usual team is there, fighting the strigoi as one unified force. It’s not “Nora and Eph in the lab, Fet and Dutch clearing out buildings—it’s everyone together for once, and it works quite well. They each get their own missions, but here we get a better sense of community than ever before. Fet and Nora work on restoring the power, thereby blasting the strigoi with light, while Setrakian and Eph head after Eichorst in a battle that has been a long time coming, even if it is very clear there won’t be any real changes that come after.

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But having everyone unified also highlights the fact that this show has a hard time keeping up with everyone. Gus, Angel and Quinlan never make an appearance, nor do they really have anything to do at this point, anyway. If there’s a battle against the strigoi, there’s no real excuse for them to not be in the mix, especially when random citizens are also helping out, and the core group is looking for backup in any way they can find it.

“The Battle for Red Hook” is also a great example of The Strain’s awareness of what its tone should be, even if it rarely sticks to that formula. The battle is rightfully cheesy, as are any moments where the strigoi children show up, being awkward as hell with Kelly. With characters like Kelly, Eichorst and Fet, we get an over-the-top nature in their lines, which this show needs to be suitably fun.

The Strain often falls into the trap of being too melodramatic, especially in situations where any minor squabbles should really take a back seat to actually saving New York City. We’ve seen Zach complaining about his vampire mom, and more recently, Fet worrying about Dutch’s old love interest coming back into the picture. “The Battle for Red Hook” finally has these characters letting all of these things go for the greater issue and for once, these character’s motivations start to make sense. You just shouldn’t be worrying about your bisexual girlfriend’s old flame appearing when there are hundreds of bloodsucking monsters heading your way.

This isn’t a great episode of The Strain, but it is an example of the little things this show should and can do to make it immensely better. The battle at the center of the episode is slightly disappointing, with no real long-lasting consequences, other than that the community is finally doing something about their city, but that’s what this show needs. It needs a sense of community for our main group of characters and for New York City itself. Hopefully it can keep up that tone from here on out.

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

The Strain: “The Battle for Red Hook”

(Episode 2.09)