The Strain: The Battle for Red Hook
September 7, 2015 10:52 PM - Season 2, Episode 9 - Subscribe
Justine takes drastic measures to counter a surprise invasion. Nora and Fet perform a useful mission while Eph and Setrakian face off against an old foe.
FX's vampire drama The Strain embraced the stupid and became much better - by Todd VanDerWerff (Vox)
FX's vampire drama The Strain embraced the stupid and became much better - by Todd VanDerWerff (Vox)
"In any given episode, The Strain will zip from horror show to historical fiction to love story to post-apocalyptic tale, then loop back around and drag in anything else it can find. In the first season, this felt undisciplined and completely random. In season two, however, as the series has left the books it's based on further behind, things have become even more disconnected. And, weirdly, it works. There's exactly no time to get bored.
"There's perhaps no better indication of this than the show's new opening credits, which reimagine the series as a kind of comic-book opera, showing off all of the characters as action heroes and reminding me weekly that the show has a cast of dozens, many of whom seem stuck in their own series, unseen by the audience for weeks at a time.
"The show that follows rarely lives up to that kind of grandly pulpy vision (for one thing, its budget is too small), but The Strain is at its best when it embraces the sprawl and tries to be all things to all people, if only for a few minutes of each episode at a time."
Stuff that I enjoy includes: all the badasses wandering around New York with frakkin' swords and pistols, looking like something out of a 1930's comic book; that bro-nod that Fett gave to Dutch's girlfriend when he heard that she'd saved Dutch's life; and especially the way Eichorst has to keep leaping off tall places when he gets in over his head but he never learns his lesson.
posted by Mogur at 10:35 AM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Mogur at 10:35 AM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
It does not look cheesy; it looks cooooool.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 2:06 PM on September 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 2:06 PM on September 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Cheesy cool. Quite a stylistic shift from the previous slithery titles. I'm reminded also that the teaser trailers for S1 were pretty much pure body horror -- worm into eyeball, etc.
(jcifa's piece linked in the sidebar is interesting reading!)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:16 PM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
(jcifa's piece linked in the sidebar is interesting reading!)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:16 PM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
the way Eichorst has to keep leaping off tall places when he gets in over his head
He's very resilient! Were those silver bullets Our Team was shooting at him? I assume Eph's at least weren't, as that's his "I'm going to kill Eldrich Palmer" rifle rather than an anti-vamp weapon.
The worms wriggling out of Kelly onto Fet: ugh.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:21 PM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
He's very resilient! Were those silver bullets Our Team was shooting at him? I assume Eph's at least weren't, as that's his "I'm going to kill Eldrich Palmer" rifle rather than an anti-vamp weapon.
The worms wriggling out of Kelly onto Fet: ugh.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:21 PM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
Were those silver bullets Our Team was shooting at him? I assume Eph's at least weren't, as that's his "I'm going to kill Eldrich Palmer" rifle rather than an anti-vamp weapon.
Abraham, Fett, and Dutch certainly have silver weapons and know when to use them. Eph may or may not have silver bullets in that rifle -- I doubt it, unless the black marketer was way more foresighted than he seemed -- and anyway he couldn't hit Eichorst, so it doesn't matter. You'd need a clean headshot and he was nowhere near, judging from the little smirk on Eichorst's face every time he dodged one.
posted by Mogur at 5:52 AM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Abraham, Fett, and Dutch certainly have silver weapons and know when to use them. Eph may or may not have silver bullets in that rifle -- I doubt it, unless the black marketer was way more foresighted than he seemed -- and anyway he couldn't hit Eichorst, so it doesn't matter. You'd need a clean headshot and he was nowhere near, judging from the little smirk on Eichorst's face every time he dodged one.
posted by Mogur at 5:52 AM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
the little smirk on Eichorst's face
Eichorst is so gloriously smug; the writing and the performance playing nicely off each other.
A little nod to The Matrix in his dodging the bullets, I thought.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:51 PM on September 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Eichorst is so gloriously smug; the writing and the performance playing nicely off each other.
A little nod to The Matrix in his dodging the bullets, I thought.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:51 PM on September 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Mark my words, this vamps vs. humans dry-humping can't last too much longer.
Abraham said they were testing Red Hook's defenses; why they're bothering when there's an all-you-can-eat buffet everywhere else can only mean that the Occido Lumen is nearby.
I honestly think that Setrakian's an annoyance, not a credible threat, at this point. The Lumen must be secreted away somewhere in Red Hook.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 3:54 PM on September 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Abraham said they were testing Red Hook's defenses; why they're bothering when there's an all-you-can-eat buffet everywhere else can only mean that the Occido Lumen is nearby.
I honestly think that Setrakian's an annoyance, not a credible threat, at this point. The Lumen must be secreted away somewhere in Red Hook.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 3:54 PM on September 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
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posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:51 AM on September 8, 2015 [2 favorites]