THE STRAIN SEASON 1 EPISODE 4, “IT’S NOT FOR EVERYONE”
First let me just say that it was very difficult to eat while watching this episode, but I managed. Now, let’s enumerate some of the gross parts of this disgusting series!
1. We’ve learned previously that an eyeball worm infestation leads to the growth of a snakelike appendage that shoots out of the face of an infected human being in order to drink sweet sweet blood and infect other human beings with eyeball worms/eventual snakelike appendages. (Whew!) This episode clarifies things further when Eph and Nora perform a quick postmortem on the captain and find that his major human organs have shriveled but there is tons of new tissue where the parasite has built a new circulatory system. Although the visuals here are actually too disgusting for words, I am so glad that we finally have a show that addresses from a biological standpoint how a vampire can walk around, talk, and/or get boners without blood pressure. Not that any of the Strain’s vampires will be getting boners—another part of the parasite’s evolution in the human body is the “streamlining” of the pelvic region wherein one’s genitals cease to exist and all effluvia is expelled through one opening. From my notes: “Dickless has weird folds and no dick. Whole new set of organs developed to propel the giant, gross stinger. That’s enough, this is disgusting.”
2. Speaking of boners, seems like Nora and Eph were heading in that direction. I mean, until Nora objected to cutting people’s heads off and lighting them on fire at the end of the episode, but I’m holding out hope.
3. And speaking of things that make me want to vomit, Gus’s mom is starting to grate with her perfect mom demeanor all the time. She is like the Donna Reed of Spanish Harlem. I cannot for the life of me figure out how both of her children are thugs with such a beaming, sexless, praising, cooing mom.
4. Speaking of perfect people, Ansel’s wife Annie seems to be a lovely, virtuous lady, but then she tosses her asshole neighbor to her bloodthirsty husband the way she probably once tossed a bone to the dear departed family dog. Ansel, far better at resisting impulses than Bolivar, has chained himself in the shed in his back yard so that he won’t kill his wife and children. He is a good person. I hope there’s some sort of Shaun of the Dead outcome to look forward to here.
5. Sean Astin fesses up to his role in the epidemic, and Eph and Nora tell him to fuck off and die (not in those exact words, but I’m guessing that’s what’s coming for Sean Astin’s character anyway.)
6. Gus returns Setrakian’s clock. Please, intersect the storylines more often!
7. Palmer and Eichorst are making with the deflection and the red herrings and the covering up and so on. They’ve enlisted an “edgy” blonde badass hacker babe to shut down NYC’s Internet. Palmer is busy pulling Secretary Maggie Pearson’s marionette strings when he collapses, and gets a liver transplant instead of the eyeball worms he asked for. The whole immortality thing doesn’t appear to be working out.
8. Eph and Nora decide to track down Emma Arnaud and find her minus a lot of hair still listening to the same rendition of “This Old Man.” Setrakian shows up just in time to cut off the heads of Arnaud pere et fille, thereby saving Nora and Eph’s lives. Nora says she’d rather die from the epidemic than kill people and dramatically storms out. Probably they’ll all laugh about this later.
Until next week!
