In ‘The Strain’ recap, Quinlan finds out some disturbing news about the Master and Feraldo has a near death experience that gives her a new perspective….
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
It was supposed to be the last thing Quinlan ever did.
For centuries, the half-breed vampire killer has been hunting the creature responsible for his creation and his belief was that when the Master died, he would die along with him.
The strange murder/suicide pact didn’t come to fruition, however, when Quinlan decapitated the Master last week on ‘The Strain’ only to find out that he was still alive and well hours later.
Watching the Master get beheaded convinced Fet that the war was shifting course and the strigoi would soon be driven out of New York. For Eph, the Master’s supposed death was bittersweet because he was supposed to get his son back during the exchange where Quinlan planned to kill him.
Unfortunately, the Master had no intention of turning Zack back other to his father and with the king gone, Eph doesn’t see why Kelly or any of the other strigoi would bother to keep his son a human any longer.
And even if the Master was dead, Eichorst is still lurking in the shadows, ready to unleash his own special brand of evil — something he executed with fiendish precision in the latest episode.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘The Strain’ titled ‘Gone But Not Forgotten’….
Chain Gangs
This week kicks off with Councilwoman Justine Feraldo granting an interview to a local news crew — one of the last remaining in the city — to talk about her efforts to eliminate the strigoi in New York. Unfortunately, Feraldo isn’t prepared for the line of questioning when the reporter notes that many of her advances in taking back the city are starting to lose ground. Add to that a new prison camp system where inmates are being forced to fight for their lives as part of the “clean sweep” crews being sent out into the city to clear buildings from the vampires.
Feraldo is clearly caught off guard with this news and she puts a quick end to the interview before demanding some answers from her friends in the police force.
Sure enough, she discovers that with the prison system in shambles after New York was attacked, the inmates and those who have been arrested most recently are being forced to serve as clean up crews around the city. Among those prisoners are Gus and Angel, who are sent into a tunnel near the police precinct where they are supposed to clear out any strigoi lingering in the shadows.
Gus and Angel are experienced hunters and they have no problem killing any number of the strigoi haunting those tunnels, but the rest of their crew get eliminated in a hurry during the first mission of the day. When Feraldo arrives, she’s shocked to see the prisoners are being sent into dangerous situations with nothing more than sticks and knives to stop the strigoi. She finally encounters Gus, who she asks to tell her about the real conditions and he doesn’t have to say anything but “see for yourself” and she knows exactly the kind of atrocities that are carrying on.
The bad news for Gus, Angel and the rest of the prisoners — Feraldo doesn’t have much of a choice but to let these programs continue because her forces are dwindling and these criminals might be the last line of defense before the strigoi completely overrun New York.
The Crimson Worm
After their failed strategy to get Zack back, Eph removes the bullets from Quinlan’s body and has to inform the centuries old vampire hunter that he’s still very much alive. Eph then has to confess his part of the plan to Fet and Setrakian while admitting that he’s the one who stole the Occido Lumen to trade to the Master for his son.
Fet gives the good doctor a punch in the mouth and Setrakian retracts his invitation so Eph is forced to leave the hotel and return back to the old lair in Brooklyn.
There he runs into Dutch, who has returned to the old digs as well after her “friends” nearly got her killed a couple of weeks back. Dutch and Eph have a lot in common these days. They don’t have anyone left in their lives who need them and they’ve been living off a liquid diet consisting of as much booze as they can drink until passing out.
Meanwhile, Quinlan talks with Setrakian about his mission to kill the Master but neither one of them seem all that convinced that he’s dead. After all, when the Master dies, all of his “children” are supposed to go with him except Quinlan and the thousands of strigoi still occupying the city would say otherwise.
Finally, Quinlan meets with the Ancients who have to break the bad news to him — he may have cut off the head, but the body still lives (in a manner of speaking). When the Master was killed, a crimson worm that contains his very essence managed to escape, which means he’s still very much alive. The Master hasn’t found a new host yet so that’s why the strigoi around the city are behaving like wild animals with no direction because their leader isn’t coordinating them any longer.
Sadly, it’s just a matter of time before the Master finds a new host and regains control over his strigoi army.
Quinlan is enraged that the Ancients didn’t bother to tell him about this “crimson worm” so now he’s got to figure out a way to track down the Master once again — this time in a new body — and hopefully put a stop to him once and for all.
Plan of Attack
With the Master gone (at least for now), Eichorst takes it upon himself to strike back at the humans with a plan of his own. He finds several strigoi who once worked in the offices of Justin Feraldo but instead of sending them into attack her headquarters, he plans a small package of C4 inside their tummies and sends them back to the politician trying to eradicate the vampires from New York.
Once the two strigoi get inside the headquarters, Fet happens to spot one of them just in the nick of time as they trigger the bombs and explode throughout the building. The explosion was bad enough but the strigoi are ripped apart from the bomb and their worms go flying. The wiggly creatures land and infect several members of Feraldo’s staff and it looks like she’s about the be the victim of the attack as well until Fet acts fast and kills the worm trying to squirm its way into her eye.
While the clean up crew starts mopping up white goo, Eph and Dutch arrive as backup to check everybody over to find out who might be infected. Dutch and Fet share a few words after their uncomfortable goodbye several weeks back. Meanwhile, Eph checks over Feraldo and discovers that she has no white worms crawling through her veins.
Eph has to check her one more time a few hours later, but that also comes back clear and Feraldo is overjoyed to find out that she’s safe. Throughout the entire ordeal, Feraldo is pretty much resigned to the fact that she’s infected but when she finds out that there are no worms in her body, she’s rejoiced and reinvigorated.
In fact, Feraldo is so happy that she makes an unannounced visit to the TV station who interviewed her and tried to trap her into some very uncomfortable answers.
Rather than ask the reporter not to run the story or negotiate to give the journalist an even better story to tell instead, Feraldo decides to declare martial law on the building and she seizes all of the equipment including the footage that showed her initial reaction to the fact that prisoners are being forced to fight back against the strigoi. The way Feraldo sees it, she’s trying to save New York and this reporter just got in her way.
Now she’s been moved out of the way and silenced.
Come and Get Him
With Feraldo’s headquarters all cleaned up and the councilwoman safe and sound, Eph and Dutch retire back to the Brooklyn hideout to await the next adventure.
Dutch is hungry and Eph is rather thirsty but there’s no food or drink anywhere in the building. So they decide to go have a night out together. When they get into Eph’s taxicab, they find a strigoi hiding in the back.
Dutch zaps the creature with a taser and Eph shoots it several times but before he can put it away with a kill shot, the eyes glaze over with a familiar glow. A second later, the Master’s voice is heard as he taunts Eph about still having his son and how he’ll never get him back now.
It appears the Master has taken on a new body and a new host and he’s back in control of the strigoi. For all the sacrifices Eph and Quinlan made to kill him, the Master is still very much alive.
‘The Strain’ returns next Sunday night at 10pm ET on FX
