[THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR PAST SEASONS OF “THE STRAIN.”] I love “The Strain.” It’s weird, it’s wacky, it’s usually creepy, and the screenwriters seem to want to throw in everything but the kitchen sink in order to please horror fans. It’s also the most ambitious horror show on television — it endeavors to depict nothing short of an entire vampire apocalypse, from its inception back in Season 1 to what appears to be a complete victory by the monsters at the start of its fourth (and apparently final) season. Only the outstanding “Fear the Walking Dead” has attempted something like that. And although “Fear” is the better show, it can’t match “The Strain’s” epic storytelling goals and its level of detail.
The writers’ energetic efforts almost always pay off. Part of “The Strain’s” appeal is that you never know how far they’ll go. And they do push the envelope so creatively that they sometimes hit upon ideas and story points that are grotesque and darkly creative. I’m still enjoying this show even after I predicted back in Season 1 that the plot-driving creatures themselves would grow boring after our repeated exposure to them. (I’m happy to be proven wrong.)
Regrettably, the Season 4 premiere suggests that the writers are now reaching too far, too fast. It continued the show’s pattern of brave creative choices, but it was sloppy. There were enormous changes in story and setting with insufficient exposition. We jump nine months forward from the close of last season, when a nuclear explosion devastates New York, and our heroes are scattered. We’re offered little information about how our protagonists arrived at their respective new junctures, and that is forgivable. (It’s a convention of serialized storytelling like this that things can be explained in subsequent episodes.) But the enormous changes in the overall milieu left me a little confused.
Following the nuclear conquest of New York last season, why would Philadelphia and other cities also be ruled by the vampires? I understand that the nuclear winter is to blame for this, because the bad guys can move about by day. But would a single bomb cause a sufficient nuclear winter to affect the entire Eastern Seaboard? (Yes, I am aware that I am illustrating my ignorance of this subject.)
Or … is it the entire continent that’s affected, or the entire northern hemisphere? Have other cities been bombed or not? Why are the vampires seeking out more nuclear devices? (We are given confusing information about these things through new story elements and dialogue.) Furthermore, why is Vasiliy Fet (the likable Kevin Durand) trying get his hands on a nuke on behalf of the human resistance? Is he planning on nuking an entire city, with both vampires and their human slaves? If he neutralizes “The Master” in the remains of New York City, will it be worth it?
These are important plot and story elements that left me scratching my head. What’s more, the season opener was further marred by some pretty spotty scripting and direction. (The action sequence at the end was poorly done.)
The episode was still fun enough. I’d rate it a 7 out of 10. I’m just surprised that an episode that seems so hastily developed served as the season’s opener.
The poem that M recites during 2012’s “Skyfall” is a section of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” Its full text is below.
“Ulysses,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.
The premiere of Season 7 of “Game of Thrones” was damned good … enough for me to give it a 9 out of 10. (You know you’re enjoying a TV show when you are riveted to the screen.)
The dialogue and character development for this show is always first-rate, and the acting often is. Last night was no exception — the exchange between Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) and Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), for example, was priceless.
The glimpse of The Night King’s wight army, however brief, should please any horror fan. I watch a lot of horror movies, and I’m a tough fan to please. Yet I am still surprised at how this fantasy show continues to succeed in scaring me. It’s impressive. If the leaked script for Season 7 is accurate, then the bad guys in the final episode ought to be damned frightening.
I will reiterate a very minor longstanding quibble that I have had with “Game of Thrones” as someone who has not read the books. This story seems to attach tremendous dramatic emphasis to the movement and arrival of groups of people. I do understand the need for this, and its appeal — the logistics are part of George R.R. Martin’s world-building, and they bring detail and a sense of realism. There are times, however, when I feel like Daenerys’ defining character trait is that she … goes places. (Look! Now her army is here!)
I won’t say much more for fear of spoilers — this is a show where even mentioning a character’s name can suggest a chapter in his or her character arc. (I will say that I loved the opening segment, even if I was understandably puzzled at first.)
Quail Bell Magazine is a Richmond-based multimedia literature and arts journal “that explores the imaginary, the nostalgic, and the otherworldly through the highest quality creative and journalistic content.” It really is a wonderful and unique online periodical, and I encourage you to check it out.
“Graceless Ravens Envy You” first appeared at Dead Snakes in 2015.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 