TV REVIEW: The Strain Season 1 Episode 4 “It’s Not for Everyone”

By Clinton Bell

Episode four of The Strain picks up immediately after the conclusion of “Gone Smooth,” with Eph dropping the fire extinguisher after killing vampire Doyle. Jim and Nora are, obviously, freaking out, yet Eph appears more fascinated than disturbed. Finally, after days of trying to understand what happened on that dark plane, things are now starting to make sense to Eph and his team. They know what they’re dealing with.

It turns out, much to Eph’s surprise, that Abraham was right all along, and at the end of the episode, after Abraham kills vampire Emma and her father, Eph makes the easy decision and sides with Abraham. Nora, on the other hand, is horrified by the thought of eliminating the remaining infected. To Nora, it’s murder, but to Eph, it’s just part of the their job, and while he doesn’t like it, he still has to protect the uninfected.

Although the climax stretches plausibility quite a bit—Abraham just happened to be at the same house, in the same room, at the same time as Eph and Nora?—it was nice to see Abraham finally use his sword. Abraham gets to take action, but at the same time, Nora is pulling herself away from the action. She decides to let Eph and Abraham continue on without her, and though I highly doubt this means we won’t be seeing much of Nora for the rest of the season, I wouldn’t mind saying goodbye to her for a little while. Of all the characters on the show, Nora is the flattest of them all.

Even Ansel’s wife Ann-Marie, a character that I barely remembered from last week, has emerged as a more fully fleshed out character this week. After Ansel orders Ann-Marie and the kids to leave the house because of his illness, Ann-Marie returns home to find Ansel and their dog missing. She checks the backyard and finds the family pet bloodied and dead. Then she hears a rumbling sound coming from the woodshed. Ann-Marie opens the woodshed to find Ansel chained like a wild animal. He did it to himself, knowing that he cannot control his thirst for blood. Ansel tells Ann-Marie to leave, and she does. Minutes later, after burying the dog, the asshole neighbor comes over to complain about the “dog” in the shed. Ann-Marie sends the neighbor into the shed to “teach the dog a lesson” and Ansel ends up brutally killing him.

It’s the best sequence of the episode, largely because of how slowly and quietly it unfolds. Ann-Marie’s decisions and reactions reveal a lot about her character, and I hope the show decides to keep her around.

The rest of the episode struggles with subplots. Every time Gus and the Stoneheart Group are on screen, I automatically glance at my watch; their scenes are a chore to sit through. Thankfully, the episode is saved by the Ann-Marie sequence, the autopsy scene, and a few other quality moments. I haven’t yet been able to fully embrace an episode of The Strain, because there are always a handful of scenes that hamper my enjoyment of the episode. Every episode so far has had a few compelling sections, but neither episode has lived up to its full potential. Let’s hope the makers of the show find a way to iron out the problems.

 Additional notes:

• Despite my issues with the show, I have confidence in the creative team, which includes writers from Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad, and Lost, in addition to del Toro and Hogan.
• As always, the makeup and effects work is great, particularly during the very icky autopsy scene.
• “You’re dead to me,” Eph says to Jim after learning about Jim’s involvement in the outbreak. I’m sure Eph doesn’t really mean it, but it is yet another example of Eph not being able to control his emotions.