The Strain Recap ‘By Any Means’: The Good Book

In The Strain recap for episode 2 in season 2, Abraham encounters an old friend, Eph and Nora have a breakthrough and Kelly starts to search for her son….

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

Through the first two episodes of ‘The Strain’ season two, the strongest and most compelling storytelling has involved the flashback scenes either through the eyes of an eight-year old Abraham Setrakian as his grandmother wowed him with tales of giants turning into vampires or as a college professor in Vienna years later who finds out the hard way that those offering a helping hand are often times holding a knife with the other.

This episode took us back to 1965 when Setrakian was teaching at the university in Vienna along with his wife Miriam when they first encounter an American named Eldritch Palmer. Up until now these were just two powerful figures on opposite sides of a growing war, but add another thread of intrigue now that we are aware that they’ve known each other for the better part of 50 years.

Palmer shows up offering to fund Setrakian’s research into the vampires while putting him onto clues about rare artifacts that could give them both some much needed and wanted information. Palmer had already been struck down by Polio so his life was confined to a wheelchair, but his mind was as sharp as ever and when he planted the seed about Jusef Sardu’s white wolf engraved cane suddenly appearing in Austria, Setrakian took the bait to track it down immediately.

Setrakian eventually got the cane back after chasing down a former Nazi doctor named Draverhaven, who used to experiment on prisoners everyday while they were being held captive during World War II. When the war was over, the doctor took up a fake name and established an antiquities shop where he sold rare treasures as well as a hidden backroom with all kinds of Nazi paraphernalia and artifacts. When confronted with his true identity, Draverhaven ran but he left the cane behind and it fell into Setrakian’s hands, where it’s remained for the past 50 years.

As for Draverhaven, he ended up as a pet to his former Nazi colleague Thomas Eichorst, who inducted him into the vampire army after Setrakian got away.

After capturing the cane, Setrakian was then offered an even better deal to work with Palmer full time and in exchange he would fund his research with impunity. Miriam wasn’t ready to give up the work they had done on their own in favor of working with a rich American, who obviously had ulterior motives. Unfortunately, her husband had different ideas because all Abraham wanted to do was hunt the Master and his minions 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Palmer also teases the next mission as a hunt for the Occido Lumen — a book that supposedly contains the deepest, darkest history about the strigoi and how to kill them off once and for all. That alone piques Setrakian’s interest and along with an endless supply of money, he’s on board.

Palmer would affords him the luxury but the brash American wasn’t trying to eradicate the strigoi like his new friend and business partner. Palmer needed Setrakian to hunt the Master so he could join him, not destroy him, and after being blinded by the prospect of becoming a full time vampire hunter the former professor walked right into the trap, hook, line and sinker.

That said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘The Strain’ titled ‘By Any Means’:

Suffer the Children

On last week’s season two premiere of ‘The Strain’ we saw The Master request a busload of children for what we had to assume was nefarious reasons and they were revealed this week as we found out they were turned into creepy little minions that would serve as Kelly’s new hunting party so she could find her son.

Kelly goes back to her old house and digs up some of Zach’s clothes and puts her children on his scent so they can find him and bring him back to her.

In case you hadn’t noticed there is a new Zach this season and I’m sad to say he’s a pretty terrible actor. That said, Zach is also turning into one of the people who don’t think the vampires should just be eradicated without every possible effort to save them. In other words if not for a crew of vampire hunters protecting him, Zach would be vamp-kibble in about 10 seconds flat.

A New Body

Eichorst shares The Master’s plans with his new pal Bolivar about the ascension that the ageless vampire will make to take over a new body after his old one was harmed in the battle with Eph and Setrakian last season.

They’ve constructed a new coffin for The Master to reside in, but Eichorst takes the cue to lay down in the wooden box while cracking a big smile across his face.

Is Eichorst possibly planning an uprising to become the new Master or is something else at work here?

It’s All Biological

Eph and Nora are still working on their attempt to create a biological weapon powerful enough to wipe out the strain of vampires currently invading New York city but something that wouldn’t destroy humanity at the same time.

They are able to convince the couple that they managed to get infected last week to turn into guinea pigs for their research, but as the elderly husband and wife start to exhibit more and more signs of the change from human to vampire, Eph and Nora clearly don’t have the answers to stop the spread of the disease.

While this is happening in a secret location in Brooklyn, back in Manhattan the politicians are discussing a strategy to prevent this outbreak from spreading any further. The mayor is virtually useless and seems more concerned with the canker sores he’s suddenly developed while Eph’s old boss from the CDC reveals they are actually housing hundreds of the vampires while they research a way to stop the disease. In other words somewhere lurking in New York is a building full of these creatures just waiting to be unleashed on the city.

The only person not enamored with the brilliant minds at work is Council woman Justine Feraldo, who is a little fed up with all the talk and very little action taking place. She’s seen no military roaming the streets as promised and the only National Guard she’s witness around town are protecting City Hall and the richest one-percent in New York.

Feraldo has a different plan in mind — she’s going back to her home in Staten Island and recruiting troops to go house by house, street by street and killing every vampire they can get their hands on until the area is cleared of the infection. I like this lady already!

Back at the lab while Eph is pounding booze and playing H-O-R-S-E with Petri dishes and a trash can, Nora comes up with her own idea about a way to stop the vampire strain without killing humans in the process. She tests out her theory on some of the strigoi samples taken from the infected couple and sure enough the new formula seems to work, but now they need to test them on real vampires to see if this concoction might be the answer to finally stop the black plague of the 21st century from spreading outside of New York and beyond.

Let’s Go Swimming

Vasiliy Fet and Dutch decide on a more hands on approach to kill vampires in the Brooklyn neighborhood and that means going building to building and acting as exterminators until they clean out an entire block. The first stop this week is a fitness center that’s been demolished by the undead bloodsuckers.

Once they get inside, Fet and Dutch use some of Setrakian’s new weaponry to trap and kill the strigoi. It includes a silver bomb that burns the vampires before Fet and Dutch can start lopping their heads off one by one.

Once the vampire killing is done for the day, Dutch decides to test out the Olympic size swimming pool that looks remarkably clean despite all the death and destruction all around. Since there didn’t appear to be any spare bikinis laying around, Dutch goes skinny dipping and invites Fet to join her.

He’s hesitant at first, but not because he’s scared about shrinkage — no he actually can’t swim.

So she tells him to strip down and she’ll teach him and sure enough Fet follows suit and after seeing way too much of Kevin Durand’s ass, the two of them finally get together with a kiss and some naked underwater fun.

Freedom, Yeah Right

As part of his plan to ‘help’ the city, Eldritch Palmer opens up a slew of ‘freedom centers’ that will hand out food and supplies to the people in New York who desperately need help while it appears the rest of the world is cutting them off.

He reads a no non-sense speech courtesy of his new assistant Coco Marchand, which lands Palmer a standing ovation from the crowd who are now looking at him as their city’s savior. The funny thing is the ‘freedom centers’ are also collecting a ton of personal information from the people asking for help, including blood types and other medical data that they say will be used once they also open up care facilities down the road. It sounds more like these will be handed out to the vampires as a tasting menu, but that’s just me.

Following his showering of adoration from the masses, Palmer comes face to face with Abraham Setrakian for the first time in what we have to assume has been decades.

Setrakian shows off the cane that he still uses to this day while Palmer is standing tall and walking, which is something he definitely couldn’t do the last time these two encountered one another. Palmer taunts Setrakian for waging his unwinnable war while also mentioning that he has Miriam’s heart on his desk and plans to add her husband there as well one day (remember Abraham had the heart last season and then lost it when the vampires attacked his pawn shop).

In retaliation, Setrakian mentions the Occido Lumen — the book he was tasked with finding all those years ago and the mere mention of it changes the smug gaze on Palmer’s face. That one look also let’s Setrakian know that not only did he never find the Occido Lumen, but neither did the vampires. In other words, there’s still hope.

Setrakian turns to leave, but Palmer isn’t ready to finish their conversation so he sends some guards after the old professor to stop his exit. Thankfully, Setrakian didn’t come alone and Fet is there to set off an explosive that causes a distraction long enough for them to escape.

The history lessons about Setrakian’s long and winding road to stop the vampires is utterly fascinating and hopefully these continue throughout the season. He’s found another old rival that he once trusted and now calls an enemy.

No wonder he wasn’t quick to invite Eph and his merry band of vampire hunters into his inner circle.

Tune into the next episode of ‘The Strain’ on Sunday night at 10pm ET on FX.