‘The Strain’ Recap ‘It’s Not for Everyone’: The Team Comes Together

Ephraim gets some startling results when he performs an autopsy on Captain Redfern as he finally starts to realize that Abraham Setrakian was onto something…..

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

It was only a matter of time before the team started to come together on ‘The Strain’ as the vampire infection became too hard to ignore, even for a doctor like Ephraim Goodweather, who wants to believe there is a scientific explanation for everything. Well, as it turns out there’s a biological reason why Captain Redfern turned into a tentacle tossing, blood seeking mad man a week ago, but it takes an emergency autopsy to figure out why it all happened just days after the Regis Air flight from Germany claimed 206 lives with the four remaining survivors all exhibiting some very peculiar symptoms.

Eph, Nora and Jim start cutting into the good Captain to find his insides have been dried up and shriveled and replaced with a series of hard lined veins that run from the mouth down into the stomach with a ‘stinger’ that protracts up from the throat. When Eph decides to give the tentacle a good pull, he finds that it stretches out a good five or six feet from the organism and the evidence shows that whatever Captain Redfern started out as a few days ago isn’t close to what he became just before they were forced to kill him. He also discovers the former airline pilot has also lost his genitals and now has a single area to secrete fluids, which they find releases an ammonia based substance just like what they found on the plane after all the passengers were found dead.

Nora astutely remembers Abraham Setrakian’s warning that they need to chop off the head and burn the bodies to fully kill these things, but Eph is more concerned about cataloging everything he can detach from this man turned monster to find out exactly what caused all this to happen. When Eph finishes his autopsy, Jim finally comes clean about his role in everything that’s gone down these last few days.

He allowed the giant, skull marked box found on the plane to slip through customs and escape the airport security lines in exchange for some money and help clearing his debt while trying to pay for his wife’s battle against cancer. Eph doesn’t want to hear any of this garbage and after laying out Jim with a solid punch, he tells his former assistant that he’s now dead to him. I guess Jim only has one boss now.

Eph and Nora race off to find more of the victims of the plane disaster to see if they’ve been afflicted with the same kind of disease that claimed Captain Redfern. First stop, little Emma’s house after her daddy said she returned home safe and sound a day after being declared dead.

The Black Out

Eldritch Palmer isn’t looking much better these days despite his meeting with the Master and apparently the vampires want a bigger return on their investment before welcoming him into the club of the undead. You’d think with all the little white worms wiggling around right now that he could just infect himself, but maybe Eldritch has been promised some kind of special hierarchy of vampirism if he gets turned by the Master himself?

Anyways, Palmer’s latest plan in a two pronged attack at the information structure in the United States. First, he hires a hacker that will ground the internet, cell phones, and basically any way to communicate back to the days of dial-up so it’s not easy for any news to get out or much less for people to get it. Second, he visits with Secretary of Health and Human Services while providing a cover story about how the government was responsible for claiming those 206 bodies lost at the city morgue and the disaster itself was a biological weapon being tested by the military that kills quickly and leaves no trace. Before Palmer can finish explaining his diabolical plan, he passes out cold and when he’s revived, his doctors explain that his liver is failing but they have a new one ready to go and he has to go into surgery immediately.

It seems the promise of living eternally doesn’t help much if you die right now so Palmer concedes and off to surgery he goes.

The Transformation

Ansel Barbour’s thirst for blood is getting stronger and instead of waiting until he can’t control his hunger, he sends his wife and kids away so he has no chance of hurting them. But of course his wife decides to come back home despite his wishes, and proceeds to go inside where she blesses everything in sight while rolling rosary beads and dropping holy water on the house. It seems Mrs. Ansel is quite the religious one, which makes what happens later such an odd turn of events.

After her blessing is done, she notices the dog is nowhere to be found, but after wandering outside and finding a bloody collar, she happens upon the dead corpse and gasps in horror. She soon discovers a growl inside the family shed, but upon opening the door she finds her husband Ansel chained up and begging her to go away before he has a chance to do to her what he already did to the poor dog.

She slams the door and begins to break down when a neighbor arrives and starts to complain about all the noise he’s been hearing from their house over the last day or so. He’s tired of the damn dog growling and barking and not being disciplined. So in a strange twist, Mrs. Ansel decides to allow the neighbor to handle the ‘dog’ currently living in the shed. When he walks into the dark shed with his leather belt in hand, she locks the door behind him and a few seconds later blood starts streaming out as Ansel gets the snack he’s been waiting for ever since finishing off the dog.

Seems like a bit of a stretch that wifey-holy pans decided to feed her neighbor to Ansel just seconds after being horrified at the sight of him, not to mention he killed and ate the damn dog. But either way that neighbor won’t be back to complain any time soon!

Cars for Sale

This episode we meet back up with Gus — the coffin toting gang banger who occasionally worked for the Stoneheart Group — as he continues to try and keep his family from falling directly into poverty while also mean mugging his little brother for being a drug addict and a thief. After scaring the living hell out of his landlord for talking down to his mother, Gus and his buddy go off to steal some cars and sell them off to a local chop shop who will pay top dollar for good vehicles.

Before they go all ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’, Gus decides to return the stolen clock to Abraham’s pawn shop. He hands over the goods, Abraham doesn’t seem all that receptive and Gus leaves with a final huff while calling the old man an asshole. It’s just a matter of time before that asshole is mentoring you in vampire slaying, I just see it coming.

Anyways, back at car jack central, Gus and his buddy steal the car and eventually sell it off for a cool $800. I’m not a car thief, but it seems to me a brand new Mercedes SUV would be worth a hell of a lot more than $800 at least according to the episode of ‘The Sopranos’ where they sold a bunch of hot vehicles to their contacts in Italy. Regardless, the going price is $800 and Gus cashes out before heading home.

Team Slayer

Ephraim’s visit to find little Emma is interrupted when the young girl decides to attack the good doctor and his favorite gal pal Nora. With her tentacle in full on suck mode, Eph and Nora are doing their best to defend when a silver blade comes out of nowhere and lops off little Emma’s head. When her dearly departed dad comes rushing out from a hidden room, the sword cuts his head off as well.

Yep, Abraham is there to save the day.

He tells Eph to go get some gasoline so they can burn the bodies and it seems as if the first major team up against the vampire infection has happened! The trio quickly becomes a duo, however, as Nora decides this whole killing people thing just isn’t for her. She’s a doctor and doctors are meant to save not kill. You’d think watching a person transform from a human into a nearly unstoppable killing machine with a giant suck head that pops out of their throat, hell bent on destruction would be enough for you to give up the Hippocratic oath just this once, but Nora’s not on board.

Ephraim doesn’t feel the same way and he teams up with Abraham quickly to dispatch of these bodies after they nearly had him and Nora for dinner.

It’s all starting to come together now — Ephraim is aware that the vampire plague is spreading, he believes Abraham knew about this and has the answer on how to stop it. Now it’s just a matter of getting Gus and Vasiliy Fet on board and this team will almost be in full ass kicking mode!

Tune in next week for a new episode of ‘The Strain’ and then revisit us for a recap of all the happenings…