Book Vs Television: The Strain S1:E9 The Disappeared

Unfortunately after the excitement of episode 8 and the week long anticipation for the continuation in Episode 9, “The Disappeared;” we were let down by the show falling back on its slow motion planning. Last night’s episode starts off with Kelly Goodweather’s friend Diane dropping off Zack at a completely darkened house with only a shadowy figure in the window present. As a rather brazen character who also happens to be a mother – this is a terrible idea. But atlas, like most people involved in a apocalyptic situation – she naively goes with it. Zack goes inside and runs into an evolving Matt, who is there to attack him and Kelly because he loves them. Awww, even douchebags who turn into Vamps can love. Ofcourse Eph jumps in through the back door again, as if he still lives there, and saves Zack from having to smash Matt’s face in with a shovel. They hug and Zack is precocious as ever.

Eph and the Gang spend half of the episode looking around Kelly’s house searching for her – while Eph doesn’t immediately seem concerned something has happened just that she isn’t there. When the house is cleared, Eph and Nora stay behind to clean up while the others with Zack in tow head to Abraham’s bat cave of a store for safety. During this time Zack and Abraham begin a budding relationship as well as Fet and Dutch… Dutch wants to be dropped off at her house and left alone, but ofcourse Fet pretends to be a gentleman and walks her to her apartment to check for infected tenants. Inside they exchange a few glances and comments, Fet saves her from her sick neighbor, and she decides to go back to Abrahams with the group. Besides Fet knocking the neighbor in the head with a pick like hammer – it’s not really interesting. It’s actually a little unfortunate since Dutch’s brooding and shadow binge drinking is just annoying and scene wasting rather than intriguing or mysterious. Fet can do better.

We also get a glimpse of Gus and Felix still in the holding cell of the jail. We don’t get much more plot from them other than you know Felix is slowing dying and Gus is the best friend anyone could ask for; Not many dudes would embrace their bro in jail while they are barfing all over themselves.  They get transferred to Rikers and in the transport Felix decides to go full vampire and attack everyone. This causes a wreck with the van and that’s all we know.

Jump back to Eph and Nora burning Matt’s body. Nora is still upset about Jim and crying and waxing poetic about his death while the Vamp body burns in front of her and then there’s a nice quip about how they have nothing to say about Matt even though it’s his effigy;  Pretty callous but humorous. Speaking of callous and idiotic instead of humorous – Eph and Nora somehow decide that deadly epidemic, reanimated corpses full of worms, and killing his ex-wife’s boyfriend really turns them on so they just can’t help but to have sex right there in Eph’s old marital bed. Ofcourse as they are laying their post coitus haze, Diane revisits the house and walks in on them. Eph doesn’t act remorseful or even empathic – he tells Diane he still loves Kelly because she is his wife and the mother of his child. Nora stands there like a deer in headlights, probably more so of Eph’s idiotic comments and her dumb decision to even care at all for him.

The highlights of the episode for me revolve around the flashbacks of Abraham and Eichorst again. We still Eichorst through Abe away after he completes the coffin by sending him to the firing squad. Abraham also confronts the Master in the bunks with a stolen silver knife, and ends up fully regretting it as his hands are mangled. A few bombs get dropped on the concentration camp and Abraham and a few of his companions escape. The next thing we see is Eichorst in the forest opening a shelter door. Inside he drinks himself into a stupor and starts crying because he isn’t a vampire yet. The Master shows up and decides to unveil himself to shut the crying baby up. I was excited to see him unveiled. I realize he was a bit too lit in the face so it came across as a bit goofy, but the special effects echo Nosfertu with Del Toro’s obvious style. I think that’ll it work in its favor later on. The reenactment of the Creation scene between Eichorst and the Master was clever and disgusting as they slit their wrists and exchanged a worm. Pretty gag worthy. 

Rather uneventful of an episode except for the Master’ reveal and that Kelly is quite possibly a vampire who’s out ripping people’s throats out to find her son.

Thanks for the retweets and tune in again next Sunday when I live tweet Episode 10 at 10pm on  @cc_riots. Be sure to use #thestrain and @bghorror in your tweets!