‘The Strain’ Recap ‘Runaways’: Inaction is the Greatest Evil

Ephraim tries to apply science to the vampire plague one more time as Abraham starts to build his army of slayers to battle the undead masses….

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

Ephraim has finally joined up with Team Abraham to stop the viral plague sweeping through the city after a Regis Air Flight saw 210 people get infected, 206 of them died, and four lived while it’s clear that what started out as a disease investigation is actually something much, much larger and very, very scary.

Abraham is no fool — Nora already ran out on the team because she’s in disbelief that the only way to save these people is to lop their heads off and burn the bodies — so he knows that convincing Dr. Goodweather or any other person that he’s on the level isn’t going to be easy.

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Ephraim is ready to help Abraham on his quest, but to convince the rest of the world he’s going to need proof. Abraham tries to tell him about the origins of this plague from when he first discovered it all the way back in 1944 when his family was shipped off to a German occupied concentration camp in Poland during World War II. There we meet a younger Thomas Eichorst, who was a German soldier overseeing the camp. Abraham discovers the true nature of horror when he sees The Master swoop the barracks each night, feeding on a different prisoner before snapping their necks to make sure they are dead. One of the victims is Abraham’s friend and all he can do is lay there scared out of his mind.

It was this moment that clued Abraham on a key factor in his life ‘inaction is the greatest evil’. By doing nothing he allowed people to die so he’s taking the situation into his own hands now and stopping the spread of this virus before it gets any worse. He also shares information about the Master with Ephraim while confirming that these creatures live and breed off of human blood. For the first time in the series (I think), Ephraim refers to them as vampires as his scientifically trained head tries to wrap its brain around this entire ordeal. Abraham also reveals why 206 people died and four people survived — it was the classic distraction move by the vampires. Instead of talking about 206 dead people, the world is enamored by four survivors. The vamps further their public relations cause by offing the Regis Air president, who ‘blamed’ himself for the incident on the plane.

Once he has a talk with Abraham, Eph is off to get the proof he needs and the new dynamic duo visits the next house on the plane manifest — Ansel Barbour.

At his house they find his wife in the living room after she hanged herself, unable to live with the monster her husband has become and knowing she can’t be without him. Out at the shed, they find Ansel still chained up and Abraham does some beheading while also finishing off the neighbor that just couldn’t shut up about the barking dog. Ephraim has his proof, but will anyone believe him?

Well it seems not.

At the CDC, Eph shows his boss the video and implores him to issue a quarantine for the plague that’s already sweeping New York. He agrees, but first he has to cancel a meeting. Eph’s old buddy Jim swings in and the good doctor realizes his boss isn’t cancelling anything — he’s calling security. Jim reveals that there’s a video of him dragging the pilot out of the hospital, and now he’s being accused of murder. So Eph runs out of the building while ditching his SIM card to make sure no one can track him so he can hold onto the evidence to prove the vampires are real.

The Biggest Predator

Vasiliy is concerned by the number of calls into the pest control offices in New York about rats being found all over the city in places they should not be. The rodents are popping up on subway steps and brazenly just sitting on platforms and other areas where they would normally scurry and run away, back into the deep dark trenches of the sewers.

So Vasiliy decides to do a little digging of his own but once he ventures down into the depths of the tunnel system, he finds something all together unexpected. A group of the ravenous plane survivors and their new victims have set up shop down in the sewers and when they smell Vasiliy it’s like a buffet has just been served. He runs away as the vampires give chase, but he makes it to the open manhole cover where entered and jets up the ladder getting away just in the nick of time. As the sunlight from above shines down into the cavernous tunnel below, the vampires are struck and immediately scurry away just like the rats used to do.

Vasiliy was looking for a bigger predator that forced the rats out of their home and now he’s found it.

Public Display of Power

Nora is still in disbelief about the whole vampire plague and the need to go chopping heads for anybody that gets infected. Since she’s ignoring Eph’s phone calls, she takes this time to go visit her mother in a nursing home after an administrator informs her that her mother has escaped for the umpteenth time and they can’t have it anymore and she’s probably going to have to be removed.

Nora sits with her mother, who clearly has early stage Alzheimer’s, but while trying to convince her that this is now her home, screams are heard in the distance. When Nora runs out to see what the commotion is all about, she sees another member of the undead army attacking a patient and lapping up all the blood he can get his tentacle on. Nora runs away in horror, grabbing her mother and getting to the closest exit possible.

Will this latest brush with death turn Nora into a slayer or will she continue to fight the notion that all these people have to die?

The Others

The last two survivors from the plane still alive (Ansel has no head and Captain Redfern had his bashed off) — rock star Gabe and lawyer Joan — are both continuing their transformation into full on vampirism.

Gabe decides to nosh on a urologist sent by his other doctor to check on the problems he was having with his twig and berries (little does she know they fell off two episodes back) but when she arrives, the goth rocker just attacks her for a snack instead of getting a check up. When his manager witnesses the horror of her client suckling away at the doctor’s neck with his ‘stinger’, she runs away. Oh but she doesn’t call the police or just get the hell out of Dodge — no she calls in a cleaner to go up to Gabe’s bachelor pad and make it like the urologist was never there in the first place.

The only problem is the cleaner is in for just as much trouble when Gabe attacks and kills him as well. Send a few more people up there and see what happens lady manager!
Meanwhile, Joan, the lawyer who has to talk about suing Regis Air at least once per appearance, is still under the weather and no amount of breakfast in bed from her two kids will get her feeling better. Joan wants to go for a run, but when she starts looking at her daughter’s neck like it’s a turkey leg, the housekeeper/nanny realizes mommy ain’t doing so hot and they need to get out. Like now.

So she packs up the kids’ stuff and bolts for the door. Joan almost stops them but it seems her conscience (yes, she has one!) gets the better of her and she lets the kids go off with their nanny.

Abraham’s Army

Part of the deal with fighting the undead is the virus spreads like a plague (you know similar to the latest Nickelback album in every trailer park across the world) and Abraham needs help. When he first discovered Patient Zero aka The Master all those years ago his inaction to tell anyone about what was going on led to the deaths of presumably dozens of his fellow Jews living in those cramped quarters in Poland.

Now with a modified nail gun filled with silver rods (silver hurts them and can kill them) and a little extra knowledge about the undead (their reflections vibrate when cast on a silver mirror), Abraham is building his army to help him take out the vampire masses. He’s got Eph on the team already and now that Vasiliy knows about the kind of predator he’s dealing with it seems like only a matter of time until he joins up. Nora might be scared straight now and even turncoat Jim appears ready to help be a double agent while working to stop the spread of this disease.

Will it be in time or have the vampires already started to get a stranglehold on the city? Tune into The Strain next Sunday night for a pivotal episode where an eclipse lands in New York, which gives vampires free reign to run around so long as the sun is covered up.