The Strain: Fallen Light
September 29, 2015 9:00 PM - Season 2, Episode 12 - Subscribe

The Lumen's auction starts in 24hrs. Setrakian seeks the Ancients backing. Gus seeks allies from his past. Zach's Grandparents found leaving Eph with a choice. Eldritch discovers the "White" has an unexpected price at Eichhorst's delight.

A return of Sean Astin ('Jim Kent') in the flashback sequences, and you might recognize actor Jamie Hector from The Wire HBO series ('Marlo') - he plays 'Alonso Creem', dealer of The Lumen.

Our FanFare friend Kyle Fowle at AV Club gives it a C- grade, and writes of this episode:
"This has been a season of fits and starts, the narrative a mess of dangling plotlines and filler. There’s been no momentum to the season, no overarching story to latch on to and care about. While the show has done well to bolster its horror elements, smartly indulging in and amplifying Gothic tropes, it’s also continued to peddle half-baked character dramas. Unfortunately, it’s those character dramas that make up the majority of 'Fallen Light.'"
Jesse Schedeen, IGN: "Needless to say, it didn't make for a great lead-in to the season finale."

Ross Bonaime, Paste Magazine: "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."

RIP 'Mayor George Lyle' (Ron Canada).

“You’ll never get another drop of the white."
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (6 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
To me, The Strain is like ice cream: even mediocre ice cream is still ice cream. I enjoyed this episode though it was not one of it's strongest - it felt like table-setting and that's okay. The scenes in prison were great, though, and also getting an update on Dutch and her relationship breakeup. Fet turned out to be big here.

Hope they shuttle the kid away. It was nice to see Sean Astin again in the flashbacks! And a bit more backstory filled in.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:11 PM on September 29, 2015


I'm still totally hate watching The Strain, but will endeavor not to be too negative.

Some thoughts:
* Shipping off Zack is, indeed, the best thing they could do with him. I hope it sticks. It also did lead to a moment of self-realization for Ephram: he'd always held out the hope that if he had Zack around, he could make up for lost time, and now he knows that won't ever happen. I appreciate this. (Ephram has always been portrayed as an asshole. I don't have a problem with this in a main character - I watched every single episode of Breaking Bad, and Walter White was an outright Villain Protagonist. I do have a problem with them trying to spin it like he's misunderstood or somehow heroic. Just... having him embrace that he's a total failure outside of his job felt like progress.)

* I appreciated Dutch leaving Fet even though he rescued her last episode. I still find the whole love triangle thing forced and dumb, but at least they didn't treat her like a prize to be won. Having Fet be decent about it was also good. Unhappy as I am with the whole subplot, it was the least worst possible resolution, including writing out Dutch's awful ex.

* Every time they show Quinlan or Setrakian, I feel like Milhouse sobbing about "When are they going to get to the fireworks factory?" (I also want to see more of Quinlan's human sidekick. The scene in a prior episode where she tossed that panhandler the keys to the shrimp truck she used to smuggle Quinlan into the city is possibly the single funniest thing I have ever seen on The Strain, and I would totally take a spinoff centering on the two of them fighting crime.)

* Alonso Creem is great. I would also take a spinoff centering on him profiteering from the ongoing vampire apocalypse. "I'll credit this to your account." Hah. (It did make me wonder why Setrakian didn't consider simply offering the watches as payment for a limited window with the books so that he could figure out everything he needed to know. I mean, I get why his character might not, but it was frustrating given the stakes. I bet Creem would've been willing to take payment for the same book twice.)
posted by mordax at 1:11 PM on September 30, 2015 [4 favorites]


On that last point: Setrakian has already said that the Lumen is cursed and he intends to "suffer the consequences". He may need privacy and/or no interruptions when that happens, and maybe he knows there is no way that Creem would leave him alone with the book without payment in full?
posted by Mogur at 2:55 PM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


Man, this is super disappointing to me as "Falling Light" = Occido Lumen, like literally (for some variants of the Latin translation).

I was genuinely hoping to get further along in the book plots by the end of S2. Ah well. Looks like they're aiming for 4-5 seasons rather than 3, then. Here's hoping it doesn't get canceled at an inopportune time.

There are plenty of hints already shown to viewers about what's to come, if anyone cares to look for them.

That said, I feel certain that both Nikki and Palmer's Coco Butter are going to get auf'd in the finale. It'll set up S3 nicely from a motivational standpoint for our characters, and remove some of the dreary personal drama/romance storylines that are slowing the pace of the promised Vampocalypse.

How awesome to get a good look at Creem's legendary silver grill! And finally, some real chemistry between Gus and Angel. I'm sorry it took so long to get here, but excited to see more of Angel's silver cross rings and Creem's smile sending the Munchers running back to their Master.

That stockpile of silver Creem's been hoarding should come in super-handy going forward. Just think of all the cool weapons and other things they can make once it's melted down... plus Creem is definitely one of my fave characters, just sorry he's been so criminally (heh) underused this season.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 3:19 PM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


This episode felt a bit wheel-spinny; best part was the Palmer / Eichorst standoff in which they both drop any remaining pretense of hating each other.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 4:21 PM on September 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


On rewatch: boy, this from the opening hits differently now than it did then:
How do you propose to prevent sick people from flying?

Well, first of all, Homeland Security needs to get off their ass and set up a national "Do Not Board" list.

With incubation times far exceeding travel times, wouldn't we have to track passengers on arrival, too?

Absolutely. We'll need to expand our quarantine facilities to cover all major ports of entry into the States. And we'll need more quick-response teams like Canary. But it'll still be a crapshoot, because you won't have any true control over whether infected passengers will travel. Do you have any better suggestions?

Yes. Focus on vaccine development.

Oh, you mean engage in an entirely different crapshoot... 'cause you'll just be guessing which strain to defend against. And any successful mass immunization effort will just trigger a huge political fight, like it did with Swine Flu in '76.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:17 PM on April 6, 2023


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