Throughout the first season of The Strain the show was able to consistently disappoint, yet always give the impression that things would be getting better, more exciting, more… anything other than what it was. For the most part, the show has been about repetition: a character is turned into a vampire, their loved ones try to find them, vampire attacks; repeat, repeat, repeat. But it always felt like there was a light at the end of the tunnel, that the show was ready to turn a corner and become fun or enjoyable, rather than the trudge through the monotony. Surely, the season finale would bring some sign of this shift, right?
Well, there’s always next season.
“The Master” is disappointing, which is consistent with the rest of The Strain’s first season. The majority of the finale focuses on the inevitable battle between our group of heroes and The Master. We know there will be no closure— there’s no way either side will win, since, then, we wouldn’t ever get the hopefully-better-but-likely-just-as-awful second season. The fight only shows us that The Master can now go into sunlight with very little repercussions, and, for some reason, when The Master is weakened, all the other vampires go in reverse—which looks about as dumb as it sounds.
The climactic fight is pretty much a disaster, as is the newly-constructed group of vampire killers. Now added to the group is Zach Goodweather, for little other reason than “hey, we can’t just leave him in the car.” It’s almost as if The Strain watched every other show like The Strain in the past decade—especially The Walking Dead—saw that every one of those shows had an obnoxious child, yet still decided to follow that trope. Ben Hyland, the kid who plays Zach is just laughably bad. It’s like he doesn’t realize how bad the vampire-overrun world is, even though he’s in the center of the vampire hunting group. I mean, he even asks his dad when they can go home, then tricks his father into getting them to go home at the end of the episode, where they find his turned mother. This kid is a liability, and an irritating one at that.
The rest of the cast isn’t all that strong either, even at this point. Eph and Setrakian still have the most potential, while Eichorst pretty much just makes me want to cheer for the vampires. In “The Master,” Fet spends the first half front and center, and quickly becomes annoying. Fet needs to be used sparingly or he’s too much. But most of the cast is still a bunch of nothings, especially Nora and Dutch.
But the character with the most potential and the most disappointment this first season has been Gus, who always seems like he’s on the way to something greater, but as is typical for The Strain, he never quite gets there. This episode, he meets the Ancients, a group of, well, ancient vampires, who are—as Gus so eloquently puts it—in the middle of a “vampire turf war.” That’s one of the biggest problems with Gus’ character—the constant reminders of him being a Mexican criminal. We get it, there’s no need to make him act like a stereotype the entire season.
To enjoy The Strain at this point, you have to be like Eldrich Palmer. Even though things aren’t really getting better, you have to have faith that maybe in the near future, things will be the way they should be. Maybe all it will take is some time, and some hope, and everything will turn around. But it also might be better not to hold your breath. Maybe next season The Strain will figure out how to become the show it has the potential to be. After waiting week after week for this to happen though, it’s hard to have much hope.
Ross Bonaime is a D.C.-based freelance writer and regular contributor to Paste. You can follow him on Twitter.