The 5 Best Moments from The Strain, “Bad White”
Last week, The Strain got its third season off to a pretty bland start. We saw our individual team members doing the same old, same old, which really highlighted the show’s flaws. With this season’s second episode, “Bad White,” the show actually seems interested in making some growth, with some new ideas and a resistance to those repetitive, boring arcs that we saw in the season premiere.
“Bad White” reunites our team, catches us up with some of the more minor characters who could have a much bigger impact this season, creates some alliances with potential and makes certain MacGuffins into potential game changers.
Let’s take a look at the latest episode of The Strain, “Bad White.”
1. The Team Gets Back Together
After the basic team was scattered in last week’s season finale, “Bad White” reunites the heavy hitters once again. Ephraim, Setrakian and Fet all work best when they’re one unit, playing off each others’ strengths and making up for their weaknesses. Last week’s “New York Strong” showed us just how frustrating these characters can be alone, with Eph drinking his problems, Setrakian’s one track mind and Fet’s way of speaking, frankly just getting on my nerves.
But getting the core trio back together is more interesting than it has been for a while. Having Eph break the news about Nora’s death gives David Bradley at Setrakian a rare emotional moment in this show. Also, Eph’s attempts to sweet talk the Lumen away from Setrakian gives an extra layer to characters that are usually pretty one-dimensional.
Making this dynamic even better is the inclusion of Mr. Quinlan. From the looks of the teaser for next week, we’re going to learn more about his past (and flashback episodes are always The Strain’s best), but for now, the way he interacts with these three makes everything slightly better. Fet’s distrust of Quinlan makes perfect sense and Setrakian seems to think working with Quinlan is a means to an end. But it’s very fun to watch their alliance throughout the episode. For one, it allows Eph to have some humorous moments again, as he questions how someone could be half human/half strigoi. But tearing up this just-reunited group into pro-Lumen and con-Lumen teams at least makes the Lumen a more integral and compelling part of this story.
2. The Return of Dutch and Her Hacker Friends
With the main team back together, it’s time for The Strain to catch us up on its scattered group of secondary characters. Dutch has reunited with her hacker team, which originally wanted to take down companies and make the world equal. Now that the world has been thoroughly destroyed, she sees the childishness of her ways and shows frustration towards her former friends. Maybe it’s just me, but this lambasting of the hacking culture almost felt like it was poking fun at Mr. Robot’s Robin Hood mentality?
Dutch’s raid with her hacker friends through a skyscraper isn’t anything new from The Strain, except that we now see her determination and frustration with her old way of life. But considering that “Bad White” opens with Fet sleeping with Kate and planning on meeting up with her again later, it seems like only a matter of time before The Strain has another love triangle on its hands.
3. Eldrich Palmer and His Changing Loyalties
The return of rich pawn Eldrich Palmer has a much bigger impact on the story itself. By episode’s end, Palmer offers to stand down in New York, as long as Setrakian gives him the “white” goop made by strigoi blood, which had allowed him to live so long. Palmer giving this option to Setrakian could create yet another awkward alliance in The Strain, one with decades of bad blood already inherent between the two.
But more important is the reveal to Fet that Setrakian has been using strigoi blood for his own means. Fet already doesn’t trust Quinlan, and Setrakian is still the person with whom Fet has the closest bond with. With this new information out in the open about Setrakian, surely Fet will question his friendship with the man he thought was being honest with him.