The Strain Recap ‘The Silver Angel’: Angels vs. Vampires

In the latest The Strain recap, Gus searches for answers, Eph and Nora get some good news and Setrakian’s rocky ending with Palmer is revealed….

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

Truth be told, I have not read ‘The Strain’ source novels from Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan.

It was always one of those series I heard about and then saw several news stories about how it was being converted into a TV show and still just didn’t pull the trigger to buy the trilogy to see what all the hype was about. Now that I’m deep into ‘The Strain’ season 2 on FX, I’ve determined that I will wait until after the show is completed to finally go back and read the books.

Unlike ‘Game of Thrones’, which inspired me to go out and read/obsess about George R.R. Martin’s original novels, I’m enjoying the surprise element of ‘The Strain’ although something tells me the latest episode is diving into a part of the books that readers will probably be very excited about.

‘The Silver Angel’ was the title of Sunday night’s episode of ‘The Strain’ and after meeting a former professional wrestling luchador/actor named ‘Angel’, it was fairly clear to me that he must be an important character to the series.

The introduction to Angel came during an extended video sequence where we see a Mexican luchador battle another wrestler in a match dubbed ‘Angel vs. Vampire’. Angel eventually unmasks his opponent (which is a really, really bad thing for luchadors) and discovers that he’s actually a vampire! Angel gives chase and battles a group of vampires before having his leg broken in the fight.

A moment later, current day Angel is startled as his boss calls him back to work. The modern day Angel is no movie star and he’s not wrestling any longer either. He’s now a dishwasher in an Indian restaurant, but considering that’s about all we know about him by the end of the episode, Angel is clearly more important to this series than just a one hour throwaway origin story that doesn’t really tell us much.

It reminds me of those moments when a titular character from ‘The Walking Dead’ comic books comes to live on the actual television show. Something tells me, Angel is going to be a vital addition to our group of vampire hunters.

That said, let’s recap this week’s episode of The Strain titled ‘The Silver Angel’:

The Boils of War

Eph and Nora are ready to release their test subject back out into the wild to see if the experimental drugs they used to ‘poison’ the strigoi will spread from Mr. McGeever to an entire nest of bloodsuckers.

With help from Fet, they try to dump him near the biggest bunch of vampires in the city, but instead he runs for a psychiatric hospital instead. Inside, Eph and Nora find out that this is where Mr. McGeever’s kid resided so that’s why he instinctively ran back there. The good news is there was a nest of vampires stashed away so he found a place to sleep and now Eph and Nora will just have to wait a day to see if their infection spreads.

Once they get back to the lair, Eph is too high on adrenaline to get some sleep during daytime hours so he decides to spend the day with Zach doing father and son things. He takes Captain Pouty to the batting cages, but Zach can’t hit anything and instead reminisces of a time he went there with his mom and dad before you know she was dead and a vampire.

The trip is neither good or bad really, but the result may be disastrous.

Later that night after Eph and Zach are already gone, Kelly and her pack of bloodhound child vamps track down the scent and now Mama Goodweather knows her son is nearby.

The positive news happens that same night when Eph finds his test subject out in the streets just outside the clinic and the boils on the vampire’s face have swollen up to disgusting levels. The disease they infected it with is spreading and this strigoi is dying. A block away, Eph and Nora find another dead strigoi and then before they know it, vampire bodies start falling from a tall building one by one.

Eph and Nora figure out that all of them were infected and rather than risk them coming back and spreading the disease, the Master has ordered all of them to commit suicide. The Master now knows Eph and Nora have a weapon that can destroy his army from the inside out and if this infection ever spreads, it could be the end of the vampires in New York.

Lost in New York

Following an ass kicking courtesy of some ultraviolet lights belonging to Eldritch Palmer that destroyed a pack of vampire hunting vampires, Gus is kind of lost and doesn’t know where to turn next.

He ends up at a restaurant (where Angel works), flirting with one of the waitresses while mindlessly drifting between paying attention and a thousand yard stare, lost in a sea of confusion after his new job ended on the first day.

Gus decides to head back to his old apartment to pick up a few things, but once he’s inside, his mother comes out for some dinner. Gus’ mother was infected last season, but if you remember he couldn’t bring himself to kill her and the same can be said for their latest encounter as well.

He also finds out the hard way that The Master can not only see through his children’s eyes, but he can speak through them as well.

The Master tells Gus that he’s backing the wrong vampires in this war. The Ancients are on their way out and The Master will be the most powerful creature in the world soon enough. He also lashes out at Gus by calling him weak and afraid after his mother was infected and not only did he fail to save her, but he can’t even bring himself to end her suffering with one slice across her head. Gus fires back at The Master, but really the age-old vampire is striking a chord close to his heart because when he leaves the apartment all he can do is lock the door behind him and leave his mother to roam inside alone.

Gus eventually makes his way back to the same Indian restaurant as earlier because he has no place else to go. This time the cute waitress’ mother decides she shouldn’t be hanging around with someone like Gus and Angel is ready to toss him out on his head. Just as Angel is about to get physical, Gus realizes he knows this dishwasher.

Out back after he exits while Angel is taking out the trash, Gus finally confronts him and reveals that he knows this restaurant worker is actually the famous Mexican luchador actor ‘The Silver Angel’. Angel denies it and tells Gus to get lost, but he may have just unmasked a famous star from his childhood while also discovering the latest weapon in his war against the strigoi.

A weapon who has quietly been battling vampires for decades it seems.

The Search for the Lumen

Our flashback this week travels to Vienna in the 1960’s where Setrakian and Palmer are still working together to find the Occido Lumen — the ancient book that supposedly contains all the secrets of the strigoi including how to kill them once and for all.

Setrakian has a promising lead to find the book’s whereabouts, but when he and Palmer arrive at the nunnery that apparently received the ancient text a few years ago, they only find the place has been ransacked and there are plenty of dead people to go around. The strigoi got to the nunnery first, but a little boy that stayed hidden during the attack reveals some disturbing news to Setrakian and Palmer.

It seems Mother Superior found the book and burned the Occido Lumen because what was contained within its pages was purely and simply evil. Setrakian doesn’t buy it, but when a loud noise startles the boy and he goes running, the professor gives chase.

In his absence, Palmer meets Thomas Eichorst for the first time ever.

It seems this former Nazi turned vampire has information he’s willing to share with Palmer in exchange for a long term relationship where they can help each other. After Setrakian dispatches of a few strigoi and saves the boy, he returns to find his money man from America is bailing out on this partnership.

Palmer is convinced the lumen has been destroyed and he’s no longer going to sink his money into a fruitless project. Palmer leaves Setrakian high and dry although we now know years later, he was just partnering up with who he believed was a better bet.

Speaking of Palmer — he orchestrates a meeting this week with the top financial heads of all the largest banks in New York to strike a deal to get the stock market going again and give some relief to the people in the city. Of course it was all a set up because as soon as Palmer leaves in his SUV, Bolivar and the rest of the vampires emerge from the shadows where they attack and kill all of the businessmen who were at the meeting.

In one fell swoop, Palmer has managed to assassinate every financial executive in New York, which leaves him at the top of the pile while the city will certainly evaporate into desperation as money starts to dry up and disappear.

A New Hunter

Dutch teams up with Setrakian this week to go search for Reggie Fitzwilliam — the former assistant and No. 2 to Eldritch Palmer, who spared their lives at Stoneheart last season before disappearing back into New York himself.

Setrakian is able to track him down via his brother, but before reaching him later that day, the old professor sees how much things are changing on Staten Island thanks to Councilwoman Justine Feraldo, who has turned the New York borough into a strigoi free zone thanks to a military force on watch 24 hours a day and extremely stringent testing for anyone trying to gain entry.

Once Setrakian and Dutch find Fitzwilliam, they try to convince him to join their cause while providing information about Palmer’s plans. Fitzwilliam declines, but after Setrakian mentions how his father also served at Palmer’s beck and call, maybe it’s time for this family to break free of the tyrannical businessman. Fitzwilliam agrees to think about it, but Setrakian is already convinced they’ve just added a new hunter to the team.

Red Hooked

With Staten Island thriving, Feraldo turns her attention to the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, New York as the next section of town where she will apply her special techniques to eradicate the strigoi threat one building at a time.

Fet actually appreciates the councilwoman’s approach and considering Red Hook is surrounded by three rivers, she’s chosen a strategic place to clean out and protect with minimal effort required.

Unfortunately, Fet has plans to cut off the fourth entry way into Red Hook by blowing up the subway station that connects that part of the city to the rest of New York. He plants his dynamite, but then runs into a group of soldiers who are working for Feraldo to clean out the city. The subway tunnel blows up, but Fet gets captured by the soldiers and where he ends up next is anybody’s guess.

While Fet is being detained, Eph and Nora are ready to unleash phase two of their plan to eliminate the strigoi with a biological weapon just as potent as the worms they use to infect all their victims. Despite the success of the one test run, Nora believes it’s time for more experimentation to verify that this one case wasn’t a fluke.

Eph disagrees and says they should take this to the highest power in the nation right now — a man they know in Washington D.C. named Rob Bradley. Apparently, Rob Bradley has the means to disperse this biological weapon on a much larger scale and Eph is ready to sign up for this attack right now. Nora isn’t so sure that’s the best plan because they’ve only seen the infection work in one group of vampires.

What happens if the strigoi strain can adapt to this new weapon being used against them? What if the infection doesn’t spread as quickly the second time around? These are all answers Nora wants, but Eph isn’t willing to give.

He wants these vampires dead today, not tomorrow and Eph’s desire to move now might be the reason they fail later.

‘The Strain’ returns next Sunday night at 10pm ET on FX