“The Strain” hissed and clawed its way back into our hearts and veins on Sunday; the season 2 premiere of FX’s vampire series deserves an 8 out of 10.

It was great.  It had everything that made the show unique and fun in Season 1.  We’ve got frightening, truly disgusting vampires that don’t disappoint us by being “sexy” or “charming,” and we’ve got an ambitious script that takes a stab at depicting an expansive story, complete with a historical context and a decent modern apocalyptic conspiracy.  We’ve got fantastic bad guys that chew the scenery, portrayed by top-shelf actors.  And the scares are there!  I actually jumped during one attack, and there’s a new subplot toward the end that might’ve been dreamed up by Satan himself.  (Yeesh.)

Unfortunately, we do also appear to have the same irritating one-note stock characters as good guys.  Their thin dialogue includes little indication that they’re affected by the horrific events around them.  And the acting among our heroes is not great across the board.  These guys might’ve been cooked up by a high school creative writing class.

Also … there’s an occasional plot contrivance here and there, but we’ll forgive those.

Still, fans will not be disappointed!