TV REVIEW: The Strain “Last Rites”

By Clinton Bell

Like most cable TV dramas, The Strain runs for 13 episodes each season. Over the past few years, some cable networks—most notably HBO—have experimented with 8 episode and 10 episode orders. Normally, I prefer 13 episode long seasons, but in the case of The Strain, the show may have benefitted from a shorter season.

Now that the season is nearly in the books, I get the impression that The Strain season 1 just never had enough steam or momentum to occupy 13 hours, and the penultimate episode of the season—entitled “Last Rites”—doesn’t have much of a pulse.

For once, the Abraham flashbacks are the most thrilling parts of the episode, and show us Abraham and his wife, Miriam, in 1960s Albania. The highlight comes around the episode’s midpoint, when young Abraham runs into the vampires (and Eichhorst, of course) while snooping around underground. It’s a quiet, yet creepy and effective sequence.

In the present, Eph and company try to figure out their next move. Dutch shows up on the scene with some equipment that she claims will be able to put Eph on every TV screen in America for a short time. They go along with it, thinking that Dutch—of all people—would have the know-how to make this happen. Eph sees it as a good opportunity to get the message out to people, even though he worries that the public won’t take a “fugitive wanted for murder” seriously.

After tinkering with the equipment for a while, they manage to get it working. Eph, using photographs and video as evidence, makes his case to whoever happens to be watching TV at this late hour.

Moments after the broadcast ends, Eichhorst leads an attack on Abraham’s pawnshop, putting everyone in grave danger. Nora’s mom gets bitten (hooray!) and Eph and company take refuge in the basement, dragging her with them.

Nora does what needs to be done and beheads her mother before she turns. The scene is juxtaposed with young Abraham doing the same terrible thing to his beloved Miriam. Abraham says one last goodbye to what remains of Miriam—her heart in a jar—and then he escapes the pawnshop before Eichhorst’s forces can get to him.

The episode ends with The Master making Palmer, who is near death, one of his Chosen Ones. Palmer celebrates in the rain.

“Last Rites” was more likeable than last week’s disappointing episode, but it still wasn’t a wholly competent episode. Yes, there are some enjoyable sequences: I liked the flashback scenes and the way Abraham reminisces after Nora is forced to kill her mother. The rest of the episode feels hollow, and doesn’t provide much in terms of horror or fun. It’s not what I expected given how deep we are into the season.

The death of Nora’s mom, unsurprisingly, has no visceral impact. Mia Maestro plays the scene well, but I’d be surprised if it caused any viewers to shed tears. Also, it’s pretty clear that the show never had any plans for Nora’s mom; she existed to give Nora something else to do, I guess. The show will be better without her.

On the plus side, it’s nice to see Palmer get out of bed for once. Now that he’s no longer sick, maybe he’ll turn into a more threatening antagonist.

On the weird side, those strange vampire-hunting creatures showed up again. These “Hunters”—as I’ll call them for now—first showed up at the end of episode 7, and haven’t been seen or heard from since. We still know nothing about them. There’s a good chance that you forgot about these guys up until they showed up out of nowhere. I almost did. They’ll probably play a big part in next week’s finale, so I guess we’ll learn about who they are soon.

It’s been a very up and down season, but I’m hoping for a fun finale next week. A solid final episode will have me hungry for more when the show comes back next year. A mediocre finale, on the other hand, will leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Additional notes:

– This is the first episode where showrunner Carlton Cuse has a writing credit. He co-wrote next week’s finale with creator Chuck Hogan.

– Sadly, Guillermo del Toro did not direct the final episode. He’s a busy guy, but I hope he finds the time to come back eventually. Instead, frequent Mad Men director Phil Abraham directed the finale.

– I don’t mind that the show likes to give us glimpses into Abraham’s past, but I sometimes feel like Eph is being treated like a supporting character on his own show.

– I’m still not quite sure why Abraham kept his wife’s heart in a jar.